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Bringing your community together with both online and in-person events is one of the most powerful ways to create meaningful connections, long-lasting relationships and one-of-a-kind experiences. The pandemic put a stop to many in-person events, but now that the dust is settling and people are beginning to return to some sense of normalcy, physical events are becoming commonplace. However, we can’t ignore the recent surge in online events now that COVID inspired a new norm. Previously, the Calendar application acted as more of a personal planner, focusing on daily, weekly, monthly and yearly happenings. That functionality still exists, but we’ll leave it to Google Calendar and the likes to handle your standard appointments. Instead, we’re shifting focus to community-driven events with our appropriately named app, Events, available for all Invision Community clients. Our Events app features a beautiful overview page that showcases community events. Let’s take a closer look: Featured Events calendar.mp4 Community leaders can now promote member-driven events with the “Feature” option. This highlights the event on the main overview page for all to see. It includes the event’s cover photo, date, title and description. Search Events Search for community events that are located near you. Tapping the “use my location” prompt allows your browser to identify your physical location, then shows a list of events that are in close proximity to you. Get granular with your search. Filter by general location, date and/or whether the event is an in-person or online event. Maps When searching, a map is also available for you to see in an instant what community events are happening. Happening Near You This section shows a list of events happening near you. It includes a snap shot of the events happening near your physical location, as well as a map of where the event is taking place. This tailor-made page displays events based on geo-location, so communities with members from all over the world will view and experience the Events page differently. If there aren’t any events happening, a message block is displayed instead that says: Happening Today On the day of, your event will include a badge to show the entire community the special event is happening. Online Events This section displays a list of virtual events within your community. Events are shown in chronological order by date and time. Browse by month We extended the search functionality to automatically show both in-person and online events categorized by the month. This is particularly useful to plan what events you’d like to attend and also see what’s in the pipeline. Event Page Here's an example of what an Event's page looks like. It includes the event details, a map if it's an in-person event and an “Open Event” linked button for the online events. Optionally members can RSVP or confirm they attended when you request that per event. Integrations A particularly useful addition to our new Events application is the inclusion of popular, third-party video streaming platforms. When creating a virtual event in your Events application, you may include a link to your event and the platform will advertise it with the vendor’s logo so your community knows what to expect. When your members are ready to join, choosing the “Open Event” button will set them on their way. Below is a complete list of platforms that Invision Community’s Events app can showcase (see examples in the screen shots above): Zoom YouTube EventBrite On24 Facebook Google Webex Slack Discord Microsoft Teams Here are a few examples of how your community can leverage our Events with in-person events: Team building meeting Unite your team with a collaborative event celebrating the company’s wins and victories. Sometimes in-person meetings spark new ideas in ways that a virtual environment can’t. Donation drive Round up your local community and raise money for those in need with an in-person fundraiser. Training programs Gather a group of community moderators and/or employees together and teach them how to innovate, strategize and lead with a physical training event. Flash sale Make Black Friday, Boxing Day and other major retail sales an event within your community. Encourage your community to show up to a limited-time flash sale where in-person purchases are the only route to obtain an exclusive item. Let's check out some examples for online events: Virtual happy hour Let loose with a few of your community buddies at a virtual happy hour. Schedule something once a week or month and make a few extra friends no matter where they live (a cold brew at 5 a.m. your time when it’s 5 p.m. their time might be a tad awkward, but hey, it’s 5 p.m. somewhere). Holiday party If your company is remote-based, an online holiday party is the perfect solution to spread the good time vibes. Interviews Invite fans of an artist to watch a virtual live stream or music video where they can actively engage and contribute. Fan gatherings Speaking of fans or an artist or brand, unite people who share common interests together with a fan-fueled event. Conduct a Q&A, share inside information and create a space for them to celebrate their collective passions. Our Events application is a welcomed addition designed to bring an enhanced presentation of the events happening in your space both on and offline. Community users can enjoy this interactive overview as an add-on to the traditional view. As a site admin, the overview page can be set as the new default in your AdminCP. We are excited to bring the Events application to all Invision Community plans in an upcoming release. Let us know what you think in the comments.View the full article

Invision Community has an exciting opportunity to have customer service superstars join our team. Invision Power Services, Inc. is behind the leading community software platform, Invision Community. Our tailored solutions serve clients of all sizes, from smaller communities to the world’s biggest brands. We have been on the forefront of independent and white label engagement communities since 2002. The Role General duties could include assisting customers via forum support, customer communication and marketing needs, and bringing ideas and energy to new customer focused initiatives. Part-time and full-time positions are both available. This role will vary based on your experience, skills, and our needs. If you have a passion for helping others and all things customer service, we would love to hear from you. The position is remote, but it will require significant overlap with the EST working day. We offer a friendly relaxed environment with an established team who have a passion for what they do. There is an opportunity to learn from others and progress into more senior roles. Key Responsibilities Provide public facing support and guidance to customers and prospective customers. Work with customer service team to communicate and prioritize customer needs Write and edit documentation Website maintenance and content creation The most important characteristic is a willingness to learn and to take on new challenges. The role is varied and we are happy to find the right combination of duties to fit your skills and experience. Skills & Experience Familiar with social engagement, not necessary Invision Community Experience writing cheerful and helpful support responses Willingness to learn our Invision Community software The depth of experience can vary between applicants. Please apply even if some of these areas are not your strongest points. We can offer training and mentoring for the right candidate and our team is very supportive. Location Remote but must be available for a significant portion of 9-5 EST working day. Salary Part-time and full-time positions are both available and pay would be determined by experience and assigned duties. How To Apply Please complete the application form (This link has been removed) giving us as much information as possible.View the full article

Invision Community has an exciting opportunity to have customer service superstars join our team. Invision Power Services, Inc. is behind the leading community software platform, Invision Community. Our tailored solutions serve clients of all sizes, from smaller communities to the world’s biggest brands. We have been on the forefront of independent and white label engagement communities since 2002. The Role General duties could include assisting customers via forum support, customer communication and marketing needs, and bringing ideas and energy to new customer focused initiatives. Part-time and full-time positions are both available. This role will vary based on your experience, skills, and our needs. If you have a passion for helping others and all things customer service, we would love to hear from you. The position is remote, but it will require significant overlap with the EST working day. We offer a friendly relaxed environment with an established team who have a passion for what they do. There is an opportunity to learn from others and progress into more senior roles. Key Responsibilities Provide public facing support and guidance to customers and prospective customers. Work with customer service team to communicate and prioritize customer needs Write and edit documentation Website maintenance and content creation The most important characteristic is a willingness to learn and to take on new challenges. The role is varied and we are happy to find the right combination of duties to fit your skills and experience. Skills & Experience Familiar with social engagement, not necessary Invision Community Experience writing cheerful and helpful support responses Willingness to learn our Invision Community software The depth of experience can vary between applicants. Please apply even if some of these areas are not your strongest points. We can offer training and mentoring for the right candidate and our team is very supportive. Location Remote but must be available for a significant portion of 9-5 EST working day. Salary Part-time and full-time positions are both available and pay would be determined by experience and assigned duties. How To Apply Please complete the application form giving us as much information as possible.View the full article

. Image Scanner.mp4 Invision Community AI can now automatically detect and hold images not suitable for your community. Our new Image Scanner and Discoverability tool, built into the newly-launched Smart Community section of the ACP for clients on select standard plans, has immense moderation power. This new AI feature scans images uploaded by a member, detects what objects the image contains then decides whether or not it’s appropriate to share the image within the community. If the AI believes the image contains anything adult, suggestive and racy, visually disturbing and/or violent, it will either hold the image for moderation or reject the image altogether. Should the image meet the approval requirements and get posted, the image is labeled with what the image “could contain.” These terms optionally show when hovering over the image and allow the image to appear as a search result. These keywords will also support your search. In this example, I searched for the word “apple,” and results included a photo that @Matt posted of an apple. Score thresholds Each uploaded image is assigned a score - essentially a gatekeeper to what is deemed appropriate (and what isn’t). How does the AI determine this score? For each of the categories, a score is returned indicating how confident the service is that the image matches the corresponding category. Depending on the threshold percentage, you can choose to either hold the post for approval, or reject the image. If the content being posted cannot be held for approval (for example inside a personal conversation) the image will be rejected at either threshold. When choosing your percentages, the higher the percentage, the more confident you want the AI to be when it scans images and identifies what the image contains and before holding or rejecting the image. For example, if an image is scanned for adult content and the threshold is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, the platform will hold the image for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 85% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject the image. If you want to hold more images, resulting in more moderator oversight, you would keep your percentages low. For example, if an image is scanned for visually disturbing content and is 40% or greater in confidence that it contains visually disturbing content, the image will be held for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject it. The same applies to the suggestive and racy / violence and gore categories: Here are a few more real life examples: Example 1: A sneaky troll decides to disrupt a corporate brand community by posting NSFW images. The image detection can automatically enforce predetermined rules set by the administrator and stop the photo from seeing the light of day in the community. Example 2: A travel company has a community for people to share vacation experiences and information with others. Someone innocently posts a photo wearing a bikini during their trip to the beach, however posting scantily clad images in this community goes against the terms of the community. It is therefore automatically either held for moderation, or is automatically hidden from view. The Image Scanner and Discoverability feature is available now on select standard plans. ACP -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Image Scanner Please note the video above uses a Beta version of the Image Scanner; the screen shots in this post reflect the most up-to-date interface. However, the logic remains the same. 😀 Interested in moving to a plan with the Image Scanner feature? Please feel free to reach out to us. Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think about the feature in the replies.View the full article

Image Scanner.mp4 Invision Community AI can now automatically detect and hold images not suitable for your community. Our new Image Scanner and Discoverability tool, built into the newly-launched Smart Community section of the ACP for clients on select standard plans, has immense moderation power. This new AI feature scans images uploaded by a member, detects what objects the image contains then decides whether or not it’s appropriate to share the image within the community. If the AI believes the image contains anything adult, suggestive and racy, visually disturbing and/or violent, it will either hold the image for moderation or reject the image altogether. Should the image meet the approval requirements and get posted, the image is labeled with what the image “could contain.” These terms optionally show when hovering over the image and allow the image to appear as a search result. These keywords will also support your search. In this example, I searched for the word “apple,” and results included a photo that @Matt posted of an apple. Score thresholds Each uploaded image is assigned a score - essentially a gatekeeper to what is deemed appropriate (and what isn’t). How does the AI determine this score? For each of the categories, a score is returned indicating how confident the service is that the image matches the corresponding category. Depending on the threshold percentage, you can choose to either hold the post for approval, or reject the image. If the content being posted cannot be held for approval (for example inside a personal conversation) the image will be rejected at either threshold. When choosing your percentages, the higher the percentage, the more confident you want the AI to be when it scans images and identifies what the image contains and before holding or rejecting the image. For example, if an image is scanned for adult content and the threshold is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, the platform will hold the image for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 85% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject the image. If you want to hold more images, resulting in more moderator oversight, you would keep your percentages low. For example, if an image is scanned for visually disturbing content and is 40% or greater in confidence that it contains visually disturbing content, the image will be held for moderator approval. For the same image, if it is 75% or greater in confidence that it contains adult content, it will reject it. The same applies to the suggestive and racy / violence and gore categories: Here are a few more real life examples: Example 1: A sneaky troll decides to disrupt a corporate brand community by posting NSFW images. The image detection can automatically enforce predetermined rules set by the administrator and stop the photo from seeing the light of day in the community. Example 2: A travel company has a community for people to share vacation experiences and information with others. Someone innocently posts a photo wearing a bikini during their trip to the beach, however posting scantily clad images in this community goes against the terms of the community. It is therefore automatically either held for moderation, or is automatically hidden from view. The Image Scanner and Discoverability feature is available now on select standard plans. ACP -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Image Scanner Please note the video above uses a Beta version of the Image Scanner; the screen shots in this post reflect the most up-to-date interface. However, the logic remains the same. 😀 Interested in moving to a plan with the Image Scanner feature? Please feel free to reach out to us. Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think about the feature in the replies.View the full article

You’ve got questions, and you’ve got answers. One of the glorious benefits to running a thriving community is its ability to be self-sustainable. We’ve added new Solved features available on both standard and self-hosted plans. While you’re working on growing the community’s presence (and the bottom line), your members are busy connecting and engaging with one another. In addition to you and your team answering questions, peer-to-peer networking is an efficient way to increase support and quickly attend to your members’/clients’/customers’ needs. Invision Community’s previously existing Solutions feature allows a topic starter, as well as community moderators, to mark a reply inside a topic as the solution to the question. We’ve added a green block for the member who started the topic that encourages them to mark a response as the solution. This is only visible to them and not other members participating inside the topic. Here is what the new Solutions button looks like: Not only did it receive a style update, but more importantly the topic starter can now receive periodic emails reminding them to revisit their topic and either re-engage until a solution is found, or mark a previously-posted answer as the solution. Community leaders have the ability to turn this feature off, or set the number of days before an email is sent (the default is set to 14 days). Here is an example email: We also added a Solved report in the Statistics section of your Admin Control Panel. The report consists of daily snapshots taken within the community. The platform then records the percent of topics solved, as well as the average time it took to find a solution. This helps you understand pain points in your community, as well as what kinds of questions get answered and how long it took for a solution to come to light. Benefits of your community using Solutions: Cuts support costs: Customers help one another so your team can focus elsewhere. Builds a library: Community answers are easily searchable & shareable for future customers. Gives props: Reward customers for answering questions with Achievements. Empowers members: Customers help themselves by asking questions and finding answers. The new Solutions features are available in an upcoming update to version 4.7 of our platform. The Solutions option is located in: Admin Control Panel -> Community -> Forums -> Forums -> Select desired Forum -> Edit -> Display Settings -> "Enable Solved?" Toggle + "Allow the topic starter to mark solved?" Toggle Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments!View the full article

Invision Community’s new Live Community features offer an immersive, real-time experience for members. Clients on select standard plans now have access to live components that drastically change how their users engage within the forum section of their community. These live features are included in the new Smart Community section in the Admin Control Panel. When enabled, Live Community allows a community to track and display hot spots where members are most enthralled. Admin Control Panel -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Live Community Our Live Community components include: Who’s viewing an area live Who’s typing a response live Who’s Viewing Our new Who's Viewing feature shows a list of members who are viewing any area within the forums application. Sound familiar? We previously created a "Recently Browsing" block that shows what members are viewing a topic, however that block was a snapshot over a small block of time. The new Who's Viewing feature shows a list of members who are viewing a topic (and when they leave) in the present moment. Who’s Typing We also implemented a live Who’s Typing feature. If you're quick, you’ll see a member typing a reply in real-time when formulating your own reply at the form located near the bottom of a content item. These live community features can enhance your community by inspiring members to stay engaged within the community for longer, as well as feel connected to the other registered members. Whether you’re patiently waiting for a comment to come through because the reply form indicates a member/multiple members are typing, or gauging who’s viewing what in real-time, Invision Community’s new live features will elevate your community’s experience in the here and now. No time like the present; that's why it's a gift! The Live Community features are available in our new version, 4.7.1.View the full article

Community managers and moderators have a simple but powerful new tool at their disposal: scheduling a topic's future publishing date. Previously, if a community manager wanted to draft a topic for a future release, they would have to craft the content elsewhere. It wasn’t the best experience. After listening to client feedback, we implemented a path for those with moderator privileges to create topics now, but have them go live in the future. Set this new permissions setting in the Admin Control Panel -> Moderators -> Content -> Can set a future publishing date? Notice the Publish date and time fields at the bottom: Here are a few examples of when this would be useful: Welcoming new members A community manager can compose a topic welcoming members from that week, but set it to go live the next week. It’s a powerful, engaging and visible way to acknowledge new sign-ups. Pair this with our new Alerts System. Anniversaries Big day coming up? Create content around it now, but set the topic's publish date on the actual day. Content calendar If you are in charge of creating community content, budget a chunk of time towards creating engaging topics. Set their future publish dates apart so there’s space for members to engage accordingly. It also allows your team to visually see the content and weigh in with changes (or hoorays!) before members see it. Related: Announcements Scheduling an announcement inside a topic, in tandem with our Announcements workflow functionality located in the Moderator Control Panel, allows community moderators to create space for feedback from loyalists. Promo campaign As a community manager, time is a commodity. Setting up a promotional campaign for a future product release sets you up for success. When planning intricate marketing projects, organization and editing are paramount. Setting a future release date creates space to ensure the messaging is clear and effective. This feature, available for all Invision Community clients, is available in 4.7.1 Beta 1 (out now). View our release notes. Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments (preferably now 😉).View the full article

See how long, on average, members ascend from one Rank to the next. Screen Recording 2022-07-20 at 14.58.14.mov We are excited to have added this new chart to our existing statistics that shows Rank Progression. This addition, available for all plans, is included in an upcoming release of our latest version 4.7. You can find it in your Admin Control Panel -> Stats -> Users -> Rank Progression. Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence. Members with higher ranks earned those through their engagement and participation in the community. Actions like commenting, reacting and should your community be utilizing the Achievement system, through those Rules that award points. The more points, the higher the rank. Learn all about our Achievement System and Points in this previously shared Blog. Why is our new Rank Time Progression chart important? Understanding how long it takes members to move from rank to rank helps you strategize a user journey. You want meaningful contributors to feel rewarded for their engagement and participation in your community and receive an increase in their Rank. This chart provides a better understanding of how long it takes members to change Ranks. You will now be asking yourself insightful questions like: Am I happy with that timeline? Are my members happy too? Are any ranks being achieved too quickly or not quick enough? Are the ranks that I want to be “exclusive” and reserved for my star members, appropriately adjusted and take long enough to achieve? Ranks, Rules and all things Achievements can be adjusted and changed. Ask yourself these questions and make changes to better support and reward engagement from those valuable members. Related: Help Guide on how to set up Ranks in your community Let’s take a look at this chart again. Here, the Rank Progression average shows a curve, meaning the time, on average, it takes a member to jump from rank to rank increases. If a member reaches Grand Master faster than you intended, you’re now armed with information to adjust the Ranks. Ultimately, the shape of the line on the chart depends on your goals. Flat line = no time between ranks Rising straight line = similar amount of time between ranks Rising curved line = increasing amount of time between ranks This new addition tracks Ranks for all registered members from day one. Want input setting new Rank Progression goals? Please post in our community forum or leave us a comment. While you’re at it, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think; we're looking forward to hearing from you!View the full article

See how long, on average, members ascend from one Rank to the next. Screen Recording 2022-07-20 at 14.58.14.mp4 We are excited to have added this new chart to our existing statistics that shows Rank Progression. This addition, available for all plans, is included in an upcoming release of our latest version 4.7. You can find it in your Admin Control Panel -> Stats -> Users -> Rank Progression. Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence. Members with higher ranks earned those through their engagement and participation in the community. Actions like commenting, reacting and should your community be utilizing the Achievement system, through those Rules that award points. The more points, the higher the rank. Learn all about our Achievement System and Points in this previously shared Blog. Why is our new Rank Time Progression chart important? Understanding how long it takes members to move from rank to rank helps you strategize a user journey. You want meaningful contributors to feel rewarded for their engagement and participation in your community and receive an increase in their Rank. This chart provides a better understanding of how long it takes members to change Ranks. You will now be asking yourself insightful questions like: Am I happy with that timeline? Are my members happy too? Are any ranks being achieved too quickly or not quick enough? Are the ranks that I want to be “exclusive” and reserved for my star members, appropriately adjusted and take long enough to achieve? Ranks, Rules and all things Achievements can be adjusted and changed. Ask yourself these questions and make changes to better support and reward engagement from those valuable members. Related: Help Guide on how to set up Ranks in your community Let’s take a look at this chart again. Here, the Rank Progression average shows a curve, meaning the time, on average, it takes a member to jump from rank to rank increases. If a member reaches Grand Master faster than you intended, you’re now armed with information to adjust the Ranks. Ultimately, the shape of the line on the chart depends on your goals. Flat line = no time between ranks Rising straight line = similar amount of time between ranks Rising curved line = increasing amount of time between ranks This new addition tracks Ranks for all registered members from day one. Want input setting new Rank Progression goals? Please post in our community forum or leave us a comment. While you’re at it, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think; we're looking forward to hearing from you!View the full article

See what members are currently most engaged with in real time in your community by using our new Trending Content feature included in our latest release, 4.7.0. Our new Trending Content feature, available on our Business & Corporate/Enterprise plans, automatically rounds up a list of engaging topics that are most active in the present moment within your community and proudly displays them for other members to see and contribute to. Trending Content is one of the best ways to stay on top of popular and current topics, as well as engage with other members in the here and now. It’s also a powerful method to inform search engines that your community is an authority in its niche because your members are constantly fueling the community fire. How does the real time Trending Content feature work? Our platform applies a value to different forms of engagement. This informs the Trending Content feature as to what it should display without delay. This criteria is weighted and includes: Replies: most valuable ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Topics that receive replies are the clearest sign a piece of content is trending. Reactions: valuable ⭐️⭐ Your members are engaging with other members’ topics and replies. That’s great in helping to decide what is trending, but ultimately we want members to comment. Views: somewhat valuable ⭐️ Visibility is important and plays a role in deciding whether a content item shows in the Trending Content section. The Trending Content may be visible in a block, or on your community's leaderboard. Trending Content block: Trending Content section on the leaderboard page: The Trending Content feature may be turned on or off by visiting your Admin Control Panel (ACP) -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Trending Content. Examples of useful Trending Content blocks in different types of communities: Enterprise communities If you’re in the corporate realm, displaying a list of trending content gives your influential clients and members an opportunity to see what’s shaping the ecosystem of your big-named brand. It also provides the company with an opportunity to monitor trends, then focus on more content like it to create another set of trending topics. Educational communities Display a list of trending content amongst your students. If there’s a particular question that captures the attention of your e-learning audience, chances are it’s engaging and thought-provoking. By including a Trending Content block in prominent areas of your community, students (and teachers) have an opportunity to weigh in and reach a solution together. Gaming communities Include a Trending Content block inside your gaming community to drum up interest in new releases, share insider information and rumors about your favorite games and consoles and gauge what your fellow gamer peers are engaged with. Support communities Should a critical support issue arise, your team will see what content items your clients are contributing to, assess, then solve. News communities Don’t be the last to know. When breaking news strikes, members tend to flood to the content item and share their two cents. Including a Trending Content block in a news community is the most efficient route to quickly keep your members in the loop regarding live news. Our new Trending Content feature is available in version 4.7.0. Thoughts? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think. Should this blog post receive great engagement, you'll see it in our Trending Content feature located in our community forum. See you there!View the full article

In a digital world with no shortage of places to connect, a beautiful theme will help you stand out from the crowd. We previously touched on the importance of branded communities, and now we’re unveiling new functionality that will help make your theme more functional: easy access to header and footer tabs within our new simple theme editor. Invision Community already has a powerful and advanced theme editor allowing total control over every aspect of your community’s UI, however this power comes at the cost of ease of use. We often get asked if there’s an easier way to add a site wrapper, or header and footer with some tweaks to the CSS without learning the complexities of the theme editor. Now, we do! Invision Community 4.7.0 comes with a simple theme editing mode. Utilizing a clean interface, this editing mode allows you to quickly and easily add header and footer HTML, along with any CSS. When editing a theme, after clicking the big green button that says "Use Simple Theme Editing," you're taken to a simplified theme editor page where you can add in code for your header and footer, as well as custom CSS. Previously, this option was not available. Before, community leaders had to sift through a theme’s template structure to modify anything within the header and footer code by manually editing Core > Global > GlobalTemplate and work out where to put the HTML. Now, there are header, footer and CSS tabs for easy access. The same Header and Footer tabs are also viewable when editing a theme. TL;DR? We streamlined an important theme editing process. Our mission is to further simplify the more complex parts of the Admin Control Panel without losing the extensibility and customization Invision Community is famous for. The simple theme editor is a single step in that direction. The new, easy-to-use header / footer / CSS theme options are available to use in our new release, 4.7.0.View the full article

Take control of your community messenger inbox. Topics, replies and reviews are an incredible way to engage with members in a community, but sometimes a conversation needs to be had in private. Invision Community's built-in messenger is a powerful system that allows members to privately message another member, or a group of members, directly within your community. However, allowing your members unrestricted access to reach out could clog up your community inbox (and mind!). There are times when you may want a little space from receiving new messages. For example, when you are… Going on vacation Working on a project that requires your complete attention Needing a moment to catch up Currently, your only option is to disable the entire messaging system. That is effective, but it means you cannot engage with existing messages, send replies or message other members. We’ve developed a solution! Invision Community 4.7.0 allows for more refined control over your messenger by allowing you to disable the inbox. The benefit of this is that you can continue existing conversations and start conversations with others while preventing anyone from messaging you (except staff members) either directly or via the Alerts System. The "Disable my messenger" link has been replaced with "Disable my inbox". The warning pop-up makes it clear what this action will do. Of course, administrators can still completely disable the messenger for themselves and other members of the community, which prevents them from accessing the messenger entirely. The new disable your inbox feature, included in Invision Community 4.7.0, will be available to all in the near future. Thoughts on the disabling the inbox feature? Let us know what you think in the comments! Related:View the full article

Invision Community’s forthcoming release includes an exciting new feature available for all. Announcing the Alert System! 🚨™ The Alert System is a new tool for community managers to communicate with their members. There are times when a community manager needs to bring information to the attention of either a single user, or a group of users; when existing systems such as PMs or warning points are not suitable. So, we developed a happy medium to empower you. The new alert system offers multiple ways to engage with single users or multiple member groups with a message that must be acknowledged and dismissed before further engagement with the community. Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for individual members: Moderator actions A moderator moves a topic and wants to inform the topic starter that the topic has been moved and why. Get ahead of warnings A member left a comment that doesn’t justify a warning point, nor should it warrant a private message. You want to kindly remind them of the community guidelines. Community leaders may wish to send information to an entire member group. This may to warn them of new limits, or to notify support changes, etc. Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for groups: Updates to community guidelines After reviewing and updating your community guidelines or terms of service, you can send an alert to all affected member groups outlining the changes, so they are aware. As the message needs to be dismissed before any further interaction with the community, you can be sure it has been read before any more posts are made. This example shows an alert with send anonymously switched on. Welcome message To strengthen your onboarding flow, you may like to send all new members a welcome message to introduce yourself and your team, along with some helpful information to help get them settled in. This example shows an alert with the option to reply, with send anonymously turned off. Heads up Remind a group of a permanent account-related change, like their subscription will be decreasing/increasing. New forums added After consultation with your community, you want to add some new discussion areas for your VIP Members. You can now send an alert targeted to members in that group to let them know where the new forums are and what their purpose is. Let's chat You notice that a great community member is having a bad day. Instead of reaching for punitive tools, you can send them an alert that they have to reply to before being allowed to continue engaging in the community. These are just a few examples; of course, the alerts functionality has a lot of flexibility built in. Alerts are managed from the Moderator's Control Panel. Let us take a look at the different areas that can be configured. Dates Each alert has a start date, and this date can be in the future. This is especially useful if you have an event coming up you want to showcase. You can optionally set an expiration date to only serve the alert for members that visit between the start and end date. You can also leave it running indefinitely for uses such as the welcome message. Send to This section allows you to choose to send to a single user or to a single or multiple groups. If you are sending to groups, you can further fine-tune the deliverability by choosing to send to everyone currently registered and to new members when they register, or you can target just new members (to be precise, this will target members who register after the alert date), this option is ideal for the welcome message alert. Send as yourself or anonymously You can choose to send the alert anonymously or from yourself. There are times when you want a personal touch and times when you need more of a system style alert, perhaps when notifying of guideline updates. Or, if the message is general, or you want to protect members of your team, send the alert anonymously. Replies If you choose to send the alert personally, then you can allow the member to reply, force the member to respond to dismiss the alert or remove the ability to reply. For a welcome message, you'd likely want to allow replies which then will create a new personal message between you and the member. We have built the system to be very flexible to cover a wide range of uses where you want to directly engage with a member or group of members and be confident that they have seen the alert before any further engagement in the community. Alerts can be used to strengthen onboarding, notify sections of your community about exciting new features and changes or even create an open dialogue after a punitive measure such as having a posting time-out. This feature is coming to Invision Community 4.7, across all platforms. Thoughts on our new Alert System?! Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think.View the full article

As the Invision Community platform continues to evolve, so do the precarious ploys of pesky bots. Oftentimes spammers, whether they are bots or actual humans, spam your community with links in an effort to boost their website’s SEO. There are already a number of ways in the Invision Community platform to fight against spam, including… Our native Spam Defense built into the platform that scores a newly-registered member Placing new registrations into a moderator queue Adding word filters that, when triggered, put the member in a moderation queue We also integrate with various CAPTCHAs. You might be unfamiliar with the term, but you’ve definitely participated with one. It’s a digital gatekeeper in the form of an interactive puzzle that asks you to find patterns or similar images in order to evade malicious bots from taking action, whether that’s submitting a spam email, comment or registering an account. Our existing CAPTCHA defenses include: Invisible reCAPTCHA where the system intelligently detects if the user is human in the background reCAPTCHA V2 where the user simply clicks an "I'm not a robot" checkbox keyCAPTCHA where the user must complete a jigsaw puzzle In our latest update, version 4.7, we’ve included yet another defense to block spam from seeing the light of day: hCaptcha hCaptcha is one of the world's most widely used independent Captcha services. We’re incorporating it in a few places where spammers can prepare their attacks. Registering: Prevent spammers from joining your community. If enabled, the hCaptcha will stop spammers in their tracks before even creating an account in your community. Guest posts: Community leaders have the option to allow guests to reply to topics. This could potentially open up the floodgates for spammers, but the hCaptcha effectively mitigates this by asking the entity (hopefully an actual person) to problem solve. If the sequence is not successfully completed, the guest post won't be published. hCaptcha is available in the new 4.7 Beta 1 release. Give it a shot and let us know what you think in the comments… just be sure to successfully select all the traffic lights if you’re a guest! 😉View the full article

To celebrate Invision Community turning 20-years-old (an eternity in Internet years), I interviewed the company's founding fathers. Ahh the good ol' days. Remember simpler times? This new video interview touches on Invision Community's past, present and future thanks to the invaluable insight from @Charles, @Matt and @Lindy. In our chat together, these gentlemen... Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and reflect on the company's origins Explain the power of community amidst the social media boom Offer advice for new community leaders on how to grow Share some of the biggest changes to the platform Recant fond memories from the earlier days Reveal a teaser of what's next for Invision Community Noteworthy quotes: Charles: Lindy: Matt: Thoughts on the interview? We'd love to hear from you in the comments! 🎂View the full article

Improving SEO with your community is a hot topic with community managers. Many minor tweaks can move the needle in the right direction, but the most significant changes come with increasing crawl efficiency. I recently wrote about changes we made to Invision Community to improve crawl efficiency. By removing thin content pages and being laser-focused on what you want to be crawled, you present a more efficient site ready for crawling. Crawl depth is another metric that impacts crawl efficiency. The more 'clicks' Google and other search engines have to make to get to your content; the less efficient your site is for crawling. With a community, this can present problems because using forums and child forums segments content and places it an extra click or two away from the home page. Segmenting is ideal when your community has defined content boundaries, but it can mean Google has to work harder to find your content. We introduced a "fluid view" in a past release, which streams all of your community's topics into a single filterable view. This streamed view works well when you have a small number of forums, but it is less valuable when you have a more significant number. Wouldn't it be perfect if you could have a fluid view per forum or category so you can stream the forum's topics with any child forum's topics in a single view? With our latest release, you can do just that! In this example, I have a forum called "Ideation", and there are two child forums. The new feature enabled on a per-forum basis in the AdminCP allows the topics from all three forums to be streamed in a single view. As with the global fluid view mode, your members can toggle the filters to refine which forums you want the stream to include. Showing the topics from multiple forums in a single unified stream is not only helpful for search engines as it reduces the crawl depth, but it also reduces helps your members find valuable content faster. This feature is available with Invision Community April 2022 (4.6.12). I'd love to hear your thoughts below!View the full article

Improving SEO with your community is a hot topic with community managers. Many minor tweaks can move the needle in the right direction, but the most significant changes come with increasing crawl efficiency. I recently wrote about changes we made to Invision Community to improve crawl efficiency. By removing thin content pages and being laser-focused on what you want to be crawled, you present a more efficient site ready for crawling. Crawl depth is another metric that impacts crawl efficiency. The more 'clicks' Google and other search engines have to make to get to your content; the less efficient your site is for crawling. With a community, this can present problems because using forums and child forums segments content and places it an extra click or two away from the home page. Segmenting is ideal when your community has defined content boundaries, but it can mean Google has to work harder to find your content. We introduced a "fluid view" in a past release, which streams all of your community's topics into a single filterable view. This streamed view works well when you have a small number of forums, but it is less valuable when you have a more significant number. Wouldn't it be perfect if you could have a fluid view per forum or category so you can stream the forum's topics with any child forum's topics in a single view? With our latest release, you can do just that! In this example, I have a forum called "Ideation", and there are two child forums. The new feature enabled on a per-forum basis in the AdminCP allows the topics from all three forums to be streamed in a single view. As with the global fluid view mode, your members can toggle the filters to refine which forums you want the stream to include. Showing the topics from multiple forums in a single unified stream is not only helpful for search engines as it reduces the crawl depth, but it also reduces helps your members find valuable content faster. Update (July 14, 2022): You asked and we listened! Thanks to valuable client feedback, we made an update to our fluid view feature included in our latest release, 4.6. To better the user experience, we improved the fluid-mode per forum filters to remove a page reload! We also reversed the filter checkbox status to make it clear which filters are being viewed. The Fluid View updates are available now. We'd love to hear your thoughts below!View the full article

Improving SEO with your community is a hot topic with community managers. Many minor tweaks can move the needle in the right direction, but the most significant changes come with increasing crawl efficiency. I recently wrote about changes we made to Invision Community to improve crawl efficiency. By removing thin content pages and being laser-focused on what you want to be crawled, you present a more efficient site ready for crawling. Crawl depth is another metric that impacts crawl efficiency. The more 'clicks' Google and other search engines have to make to get to your content; the less efficient your site is for crawling. With a community, this can present problems because using forums and child forums segments content and places it an extra click or two away from the home page. Segmenting is ideal when your community has defined content boundaries, but it can mean Google has to work harder to find your content. We introduced a "fluid view" in a past release, which streams all of your community's topics into a single filterable view. This streamed view works well when you have a small number of forums, but it is less valuable when you have a more significant number. Wouldn't it be perfect if you could have a fluid view per forum or category so you can stream the forum's topics with any child forum's topics in a single view? With our latest release, you can do just that! In this example, I have a forum called "Ideation", and there are two child forums. The new feature enabled on a per-forum basis in the AdminCP allows the topics from all three forums to be streamed in a single view. As with the global fluid view mode, your members can toggle the filters to refine which forums you want the stream to include. Showing the topics from multiple forums in a single unified stream is not only helpful for search engines as it reduces the crawl depth, but it also reduces helps your members find valuable content faster. This feature is available now. I'd love to hear your thoughts below!View the full article

Since the dawn of the Internet, forums have remained a dominant force on the worldwide web. Invision Community not only survived the social media boom, we thrived. Our community forum platform is an industry leader and continues to serve thousands of businesses year-round. If community forums are tried and true, then why is the average Internet user bombarded with pleas to follow a brand’s Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts versus a forum? It's often the case that when decision makers consider building a community, they look to social media tools first and overlook the power an owned community platform has. It's rare to find an instance where exclusively maintaining a social media presence builds a rich and diverse community that shares information and actively help each other. Every smart company should invest in fostering a community through the means of a forum. Without geeking out too hard (I’m about to geek out real hard), allow me to explain why forums harness immense power. Meaningful user generated content I added meaningful because the fabric of social media is also user generated content, however, much of the time it's followers competing for attention or having no interest or knowledge of your brand and its products. One issue with social media is random trolls and people misunderstanding a brand's products or services. That causes a lot of noise or adds little value. This is because community forums focus on the content, whereas social media centers around the individual user. Social media comment sections have become increasingly divisive with tempers easily flared. It can be hard to have a worthwhile conversation. You’re either tossing a comment into the social media campfire, arguing with someone you’ll never meet or double tapping a “like” to show public support. None of which adds value or elevates a brand’s identity. On the other hand, a community forum offers various pathways for meaningful engagement. A library of content Topics build on top of one another and eventually creates a searchable library of content for new users to discover. Easily discoverable Search engines don’t typically respond to your query with social media posts. On the other hand, forum posts are quickly indexed. Invision Community’s latest update 4.6.11 includes IndexNow, which quickly informs search engines about new content changes. This draws in new users with little effort. Belonging Successful forums are inherently niche. Generally, members who participate share overarching commonalities with one another, and where they don’t they have a platform to express otherwise. Social media is too gargantuan to recreate these special connections. Moderation Social media can be powerful, but often spirals into toxicity because these platforms rely on automatic moderation tools. Our community forum has built-in tools for automatic moderation as well as tools for moderators (actual people caring for your community!) to ensure stability. Invision Community's forums in Fluid mode Fosters community Community forums facilitate community building. They are the apparatus for Internet users around the world to instantly connect with one another. Think of community forums like a neighborhood. A construction company (that's you) builds the community, but the community needs residents (your members) to transform the houses into homes. Once the infrastructure is set up, forums can use time to its advantage. Unlike social media, forum content can remain relevant and circulate throughout a community for long periods of time. That’s because ongoing conversations aren’t dependent on complex algorithms that display content based on past engagement. For example, your Instagram explore page shows you similar content based on other content you’ve engaged with in the past. That keeps you stuck in a loop and prevents you from interacting with new content. The algorithm sees you liked X, it shows you more of X, you see X, you engage with more of X and the cycle repeats itself, never allowing yourself to explore A, B, C or literally anything else. Forums display content based on what the community as a whole is interested in (not just the individual). With the Invision Community’s forums application, the member also has the option to decide how they want to consume content (maybe engaging with X is all that member wants, but they have the ability to discover more content outside of what machine learning dictates). Own your community forum Imagine spending years building a following on social media only for it to vanish overnight. Even worse, there’s no point of contact to reach out to to gain an understanding of what happened. That can’t happen when owning your own community forum. Not only do you maintain control, but you… Call the shots You are the decision maker. On social media, there’s no ability to enable, test, try or optimize new ideas / features. Have access to rich reporting Social media offers some insights, but it’s limited. Invision Community’s reporting inside the ACP includes various engagement reporting metrics to help you better understand what’s working (and what isn’t). Can monetize There are roundabout ways to get monetized on social media, however with our community forums application, you have far more flexibility to integrate digital campaigns such as banner ads, affiliate links and paid promotional content. Invision Community's Activity Streams Free market research Save money on market research by tapping into your audience's needs free of charge. Your power users want to tell you about their experience in your community, something big brands without a community pay big money for. If you’ve made it to the bottom of this post, you probably think I have something against social media. To the contrary! Social media is a powerful tool, but most use it as the be-all end-all when it can better serve businesses to encourage new audiences to visit your community (versus attempting to create community directly on a platform you don’t own, control or have any real say in). Owning your own community forum is so immensely powerful, and, despite message boards and forums existing since the early ‘80s, it still feels like a secret. Invision Community’s forums application is the best in the industry. If you have your own community forum, show it off in the comments! Don’t have one yet? Please reach out to us and we’ll get you started.View the full article

There’s a fine line between freedom of speech and censorship. Invision Community always aims to empower community leaders with options to encourage an open dialogue within a community, while including barriers for members who choose to ignore the guidelines. Invision Community’s latest release, 4.6.11, includes a simple but powerful new feature to help you shape your community’s tone. It’s called Block Submission. Block submission stops a member’s message from being posted if it includes any word(s) added to your Word Filters list with the “Block Submission” option enabled. Word Filters, a previously existing feature, allows community owners to prohibit profanity in the community. If a member types a word included on the banned words list, the platform will automatically either... Replace the word with something else you set Hold the post for moderation Or, with our new Block Submission feature, notify the member they must amend their post. Located: ACP -> System -> Settings -> Posting -> Word Filters -> Add Word Filter Here is an example: I added the word “hate” to the Word Filters list in the Admin Control Panel and selected the Block Submission option. Now, when a member tries to post the word hate, a message pops up indicating it wasn’t published and why. The member must modify their comment in order for the post to go live. In this scenario, that would look like taking out the word hate. Feel free to change the default warning message (the text located in the orange message bar above) to something better suited for your community - it's located in the Languages settings in your ACP. Why did we create Block Submission? This feature not only helps automatically moderate content, but more importantly, it sets a precedent to members regarding what is (and isn’t) accepted. Gently notifying members that their comment doesn’t align with your community’s guidelines helps maintain the existing culture you’ve worked hard on cultivating, as well as your initiative to keep the language and sentiment positive. Interested in trying our block submission feature out? Please upgrade to 4.6.11! If you don’t have an Invision Community license yet, please reach out to me and I’ll help get you started. Thoughts on our latest feature? Sound off in the comments (just make sure it passes our new vibe check 😉).View the full article

So you’re a small/medium sized business who purchased one of our plans and launched a new community. The topics, replies and views will start to rack up any time now, right? Riiight?! Perhaps you’re a major brand wanting to give your customers a place to connect, ask questions and get more information, but aren't sure how to inspire them to join. Maybe you haven’t even pulled the trigger and launched a new community just yet because you fear your hard work won’t be seen so what’s the point? You feel confident nailing down the color scheme, header, navigation and forum categories, but the dreaded “0 replies” is casting a gloomy shadow over your bright and shiny new community. A lack of initial momentum is one of the scariest hurdles a new community builder faces. Here are a few tips to kick off your community in style and start receiving engagement right away. Be visible. As your community’s leader, it’s important to be accessible to your members. Make yourself available to them so they know you’re willing to lend a hand. This helps forge meaningful connections with your community and fosters trust. Being visible looks like creating topics, responding to members’ posts, answering private messages, enabling a contact form and including a profile photo. Use your voice. You can’t expect your members to speak up if there isn’t a community leader or brand ambassador doing so first. Lead by example and use your voice in your own community. This is also a great opportunity to shape the tone of your community, whether that’s informative, casual, snarky or funny. The tone of your community: Sets a precedent for how members respond. Broadcasts your brand’s values. Defines how a member can connect. Inspires guests to silently react. Expressing your community’s tone adds character, helping you differentiate from competitors. Create content that invokes an emotional response. This is one of the best kept secrets! Creating content that inspires a feeling from your members is a surefire way to keep them continually participating and returning. It's one thing to make content, it's another to create valuable content. Value enhances a member’s life, quantified by whether it produces a positive effect. Publish content that invokes an emotional response and watch how quickly your engagement rate climbs. Provide a great user experience. Generally speaking, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but when it comes to community building, a slick user interface helps facilitate a great user experience. In case you missed our blog post about the importance of your brand’s look and feel, creating an immersive visual experience for your community matters. A few quick design tips: Ensure your navigation is easy to use Employ a beautiful color scheme that reflects your community’s tone Add spacing in between components Include a logo Promote your community You likely have some type of presence on social media. Use that as a tool to drive traffic to your community (versus what most people do: use social media as the be-all and end-all for promotion). If you have a following on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, you’ll want to entice and mobilize your existing base to join your community. Do this by being visible, using your voice, creating content that invokes an emotional response and offering a great user experience (see what I did there?). How do you engage your community? Drop us a line in the comments. We’d love to engage with you!View the full article

Twenty years ago today, Invision Community was founded and within months the first version of Invision Community was released. Little did we know, this would be the start of a remarkable journey spanning several decades. Our first version appeared shortly after we founded the company. It might be hard to imagine a time before social media and YouTube, but when we started out, the web looked very different. The first version of Invision Community was called Invision Board, reflecting the popular term for forums back in the early 2000s. It was full featured and you may recognise some elements that persist today. Like today, it even had a separate control panel where you could create new areas of discussion and customise the theme. Twenty years is a long time and we've continued to adapt with the ever-changing needs of community managers. We've seen the rise of social media impact how people consume content and found ways to compliment Twitter and Facebook by offering a place for long-form permanent discussion. Several elements remain from those early days but the concepts behind the theme have change significantly. New workflows, UI elements and views have helped the platform stay fresh and we've certainly innovated a few features that have since become industry standard over that time. I can't express how proud I am of what we've built together. From those humble beginnings working until 2am to growing a creative and talented team around our passion for community. I'm still as excited today as I was back in 2002. This year will see us build and release new tools to help guide and inform community managers. Our community platform continues to go from strength to strength. Of course, the platform is only one part of Invision Community. Over the last twenty years I've been grateful to get to know many of you and watch your lives unfold. This is as pure as community can get and I'm privileged to be part of it. We have a few other surprises to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. We can't wait to share them! I'd love to hear your memories of Invision Community! When did you first use our products and what was your community for? Please let me know in the comments below.View the full article

The Invision Community platform is capable of integrating with other powerful services, creating a unified system of connections with the click of a button. One of the greatest benefits of integrating with Invision Community is instant expanded functionality. This is often done through an API (application programming interface), which allows our platform to seamlessly communicate with third-party developed software like Google, Zapier and SendGrid. We also use webhooks to integrate. Webhooks allow other services and applications to stay in sync with your community data or to perform an action after a specific event occurs in your community. Read more about them here. I had a chat with one of our developers, @Daniel F, who walks us through webhooks, explains why they’re useful and shows us an example (see the video above). In the example he uses, we would... Here are a few integrations we want to put on your radar: Zapier What is it? Zapier is a service that allows you to connect over 3,000 web apps. The Invision and Zapier integration can communicate with some of the Internet’s most wide-reaching platforms, including Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, Slack, Trello, Facebook Ads, ActiveCampaign, Zendesk, Asana, Salesforce, Hubspot, Discord, Stripe and more. Read our Zapier blog for more details (it’s worth your undivided attention!). An example: When a moderator posts a topic in a news forum, share it on Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms. MapBox What is it? MapBox shares dynamic, performant, and customizable maps that can connect and visibly show where your members are around the world. An example: Create events that link to specific locations and specify where they’re taking place. Google Tag Manager What is it? Google Tag Manager is a tag management system that allows you to add and update your own tags (snippets of code like a tracking pixel) onto your website for conversion tracking, site analytics, remarketing, and more. Tags that can be incorporated include link clicks for events, scroll tracking, contact form abandonment, commerce shopping cart abandonment and more. Expect to see more functionality with Google Tag Manager in our platform later this year such as quantifying total amount of reactions in a post. An example: Tracking when a member clicks the ‘start new topic’ button. Google Analytics What is it? Google Analytics is a web analytics platform that shares statistics and basic analytical tools for SEO and marketing initiatives. Understanding your website’s data, including who is visiting, how often, for how long, device usage and more can better help you optimize your community. An example: Tracking unique visitors over the course of a year, then comparing that data to the previous year. Whether there’s an upward or downward trend, analyzing the data can help you create a plan of how to proceed, as well as understand what is (and isn’t) working. SendGrid What is it? Sendgrid is a cloud-based email delivery system. It’s a vehicle for your community to send emails to your members. An example: Sending a monthly newsletter using the Bulk Mail function in the admin control panel. Integrations are an efficient way to take your Invision Community platform to the next level. There’s even more in your ACP that we didn’t discuss in this blog. If you have an integration in place that you’d like to share with us, or have an idea, drop us a line in the comments and let us know. Related:View the full article

Branded communities mobilize your impassioned fans and customers. If you’re even a little familiar with community building, you’ve probably seen marketing jargon about why owning your own community (and not exclusively relying on social media) is absolutely imperative for growth. Relying on social media is a gamble. At any given time the social media giants can take away your platform and following you had spent years building. Meaningful ongoing conversations aren’t really a thing. No customization; your social account won’t have different functionality than everyone else (there’s a few exceptions with Instagram, but it’s based on follower count). With a community, you can grant your members far more flexibility and power. Companies that thrive know of social media’s limitations. They opt to also include a community component to their brand because it’s a serious advantage. They use social media as a tool to drive traffic to their community and get to know their clients/customers on a deeper level. Owning your own branded community... Strengthens brand identity. Duh, but not really. I’d say most companies fail to establish a real look and feel. This is done by evoking an emotion in the customer through an intentional balance of visuals (colors, logos, fonts) alongside experiences the company, along with the community, creates together. Builds trust with the consumer. Getting digital face time with your customers, sharing content and offering value on a consistent basis are the building blocks of trust between company and consumer. Gain this, and become an authority in your industry. Provides a deeper understanding of customers' needs. Save money on market research. Tap into your audience's needs free of charge. Encourages an open dialogue. Customers want to feel heard! Create an environment that's a two-way street so their thoughts and feelings don't fall into the Internet abyss. Creates visibility. At the heart of any business are the customers. Show them your true colors. Your brand’s look & feel matters Now that we’ve nailed down the ‘why,’ let’s touch on the nuts and bolts, err… colors and fonts. Don’t underestimate the power of a cohesive and imaginative visual associated with your brand. When you think of McDonald’s, does your brain fire off a pair of golden arches and a ketchup red color combo? When thinking about Coca Cola, maybe a cursive font bubbles up. Apple is internationally admired for their visuals and product presentation. These aren’t accidents. Companies spend millions of dollars on marketing to perfect the brand’s look and feel. Your community should aim to feel as immersive as possible through its branding. Your community, powered by Invision Community, was designed with that in mind. In the admin control panel, community leaders can design their own theme, including colors, fonts, headers, footers and logo. Take a look at how some of our clients transformed their communities into something extra special: Squarespace Fiverr Corsair Those communities enlist our enterprise services. However, if you don’t have the marketing budget just yet to create a totally custom look and feel, we have a new option at your disposal starting today. We just launched a theme service available for all Invision Community clients on our standard plans. We’ll create you a theme based on certain criteria and keep it updated throughout future platform updates. If that’s something of interest, please visit this new page on our website and reach out to us to get started. Design your new theme today. Owning a branded community doesn’t need to be complicated. If your idea is solid, and your intentions are to unite and connect like-minded people, then you’re golden. Are you interested in a branded community? Do you have a community that could use some extra attention? Are you ready to launch a new community but don’t know where to start? Drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond to you.View the full article