[IPS News] 4.5: Invites and Referrals

[NewsBot]

Invision Community has supported member referrals via the Commerce app since Commerce was called Nexus all those years ago.

Community owners have been able to see at a glance who is spreading the word and members have received the kudos associated with a growing referral count in return. 

When planning Invision Community 4.5 we saw that this feature had the potential to be so much more… So what have we done to improve it?

See Who Was Referred

In addition to seeing a count of referrals, it’s now possible for both admins and members to see who they referred. If Commerce is enabled admins can also see how much commission (if any) was earned. 

The new referral settings page shows links, code snippets and who you've referred

Member Promotion

Seeing a rising count of who has been referred gives members a great feeling of community involvement but wouldn’t it be great if you could reward your members in other ways too? 

Referral counts now work as a member filter when using the group promotion feature.

You can now automatically promote members that have referred more than a specific number of members to another user group and give them access to exclusive content. This still works alongside paid subscriptions so be another method for members not willing or able to pay for subscriptions to get access.

Integration With Sharing

If the feature is enabled, any time a link is shared via the built-in share links, referrals will be tracked. This occurs automatically without the member needing to think about it. It’s now easier than ever to see who your superfans are and who is bringing new people to the community.

Blocks

As well as the default share links we have added a new sidebar block that can be added anywhere across your community. This prominent call to action can be added on pages you think are most likely to result in recommendations.

The new "Invite a friend" widget

Given that referral capabilities have been expanded into many more areas outside of Commerce we decided that this should now be available as a core feature. Earning commission on sales as a result of referrals will still, of course, require Commerce to be installed.

We hope that these are welcome improvements and they help you encourage more members to participate in your community.

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