Invitation to Join the Forum

[Ludachris]

I can't help but think there really needs to be a very simple, yet elegant way to allow members to invite their friends into the forum to join. I know there is a Referrals addon, but that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm thinking a link in the Visitor Panel or somewhere prominent, maybe titled "Invite Friends", which when clicked takes the user to a tab in their own profile, which only they'd be able to see, that has a link and maybe some prefilled text they can copy and paste. The text could have their username and a link to their profile, encouraging the friend to join the forum and Follow that user.

The user could then easily post that copied text in an email, in a text message on mobile, on FB, etc.

Maybe there are some better implementations. I'd just like to see something that is simple and useful. Something that the average member would have no problem using when I encourage our community to start inviting people in.

What would be really cool is if the member could invite specific friends on FB to follow their forum profile (after joining the forum of course) but I know FB disabled the ability to use that API call.

 

[Old Nick]

If I want to share the address of a forum with friends I know how to do it, I don't need this or that system to do it... Now if something like you describe was available on a forum that I frequent often would that encourage me to invite friends? That's the question.

 

[Davyc]

@Ludachris There are some invite systems in the resources - they 'may' provide a solution for you. Some have been around since early days, not all are up-to-date, but some still exist. Go to resources and search 'invite' to see if any fit the bill. This is one:

[Xen-Soluce] Invite System

Sep 21, 2019

Generate invitation codes to join your forum and more

• XenSoluce
• xen-soluce xenforo 2.0 xenforo add-ons
• Add-ons [2.x]

 

[frm]

This is already kind of a thing. You can strip the code to this and place it in a more attractive way to entice users to share.



Then they can send any of the pages (or just the one you want) through mediums they use with the most frequently used ones appearing first.



As you can see, I have Messenger. If I click it after the share button, it'll load my most recent chats and I can send the link to them in one click.

Perhaps get a designer to make a CTA button that matches your forum so that it's used more often.

You could have the share link sent to go to the user's profile, and maybe a new tab in it, "Invitation". Make the title of that page "User invites you to Board" and a sentence like "User X has invited you to 「join Board」 to discuss X, Y, Z...".

Kind of simple to do this with template edits, but you could probably get an add on to do it for under $40.

 

[Ludachris]

@Ludachris There are some invite systems in the resources - they 'may' provide a solution for you. Some have been around since early days, not all are up-to-date, but some still exist. Go to resources and search 'invite' to see if any fit the bill. This is one:

[Xen-Soluce] Invite System

Sep 21, 2019

Generate invitation codes to join your forum and more

• XenSoluce
• xen-soluce xenforo 2.0 xenforo add-ons
• Add-ons [2.x]

I'm aware of what's available.

 

[Davyc]

I'm aware of what's available.

Just trying to help

 

[Ludachris]

I guess the point I was making didn't come across... I'm aware of the content sharing tools and the invite system addons that are available, none of these things address what I'm pointing out. When people use a forum, they have usernames. If they want to invite a bunch of friends they know who hang out elsewhere online, they usually share the root domain, maybe they mention their username when they share it, usually they don't. Maybe they share a post using the content sharing tools. When that happens, in order for the friends to connect with them on the forum after they've registered, the invitees have to go find the username on the members list or make an inquiry about the username. There's a disconnect. It's just another example of how forums tend to be clunky to the modern user, compared to social apps that push people to connect and follow each other.

All I'm proposing is a more direct, simple way to allow our members to invite friends to the forum in a way that isn't currently easy to do, encouraging them to follow each other. The solution should also probably make it so the invitation shows the first and last name of the user doing the inviting to reduce confusion and make it more personal. Anyone who's done a decent amount of work in marketing will likely understand what I'm describing and why. Take a look at how ridiculously simple FB makes it to invite people to a group via email, for example. The invitation is direct and clear and obvious who it's from (someone they know). The Invite button is very visible within the group. When the invitee gets to the group they can quickly identify people in their friends list.

I'm not looking for an immediate solution to do this now, I'm simply suggesting it be something that be considered as default functionality, because it really should be. I can try and hack something together or pay for an addon to be built. This is a suggestion for core XF.

 

[eva2000]

When the invitee gets to the group they can quickly identify people in their friends list.

Probably could extend the invite system to a fully featured affiliate/referral system so can serve 2 purposes

 

[Ludachris]

Probably could extend the invite system to a fully featured affiliate/referral system so can serve 2 purposes

Baby steps, George. Baby steps.

I think rewarding people for referrals is good, but I think part of the natural reward for the user is getting their close friends to come in and interact with their content is pretty rewarding in of itself. The key piece missing is a way for the user to quickly invite their friends into their "network" (following each other) so that their Newsfeed gets filled with more content from people they know.

 

[frm]

The solution should also probably make it so the invitation shows the first and last name of the user doing the inviting to reduce confusion and make it more personal.

In addition to my suggestion above, this would require you to have custom user fields stored for a first/last name so that you could easily share the email or message as something like, "Joe Williams invites you to explore The Board with them. Join or explore here: Board URL".

 

[Ludachris]

In addition to my suggestion above, this would require you to have custom user fields stored for a first/last name so that you could easily share the email or message as something like, "Joe Williams invites you to explore The Board with them. Join or explore here: Board URL".

That, or it could be a form field on the invitation form that they fill in manually before they generate the invite - which could then populate (or update) a custom user field in their account. Ideally, when the user joins, the invitation would automatically add the referrer to their followed list. The referrer would then be alerted and could follow them back. It would go a long way to building that network of friends/followers on the forum.

 

[eva2000]

Baby steps, George. Baby steps.

I think rewarding people for referrals is good, but I think part of the natural reward for the user is getting their close friends to come in and interact with their content is pretty rewarding in of itself. The key piece missing is a way for the user to quickly invite their friends into their "network" (following each other) so that their Newsfeed gets filled with more content from people they know.

Even without financial reward, it would allow you to gamify invites and attach it to a reward system that could link into paid user upgrade subscriptions etc.

 

[frm]

That, or it could be a form field on the invitation form that they fill in manually before they generate the invite - which could then populate (or update) a custom user field in their account. Ideally, when the user joins, the invitation would automatically add the referrer to their followed list. The referrer would then be alerted and could follow them back. It would go a long way to building that network of friends/followers on the forum.

I created a resource that utilizes an HTML widget to do exactly this (send a friendly message as a Name with username if Name is set, an @ username, or "someone" if they're a guest/not logged in).

It requires a custom profile field for the user's real name to be used. You might already have that, so you would use those variables instead.

It's just a matter of whether someone will use the widget to share.



I have to say that it's more inviting to click than the default used for mobile, and populates a more friendly message (that you can customize).



Pretty simple to understand. Can answer questions there if any:

A Personalized Share this page Widget

Aug 31, 2024

Send a customized message with a share to invite someone to your forum.

• frm
• XenForo tips & guides [2.x]