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Facebook-esk Features

  • @julia_b

    Participant

    10 years, 2 months ago

    I’ve been working on moving my community from a Facebook group to my new buddypress community site over the last couple of months, considering I’m not a professional developer, I feel like it has all gone pretty well, but I’m hoping you guys can give me some ideas on how to make the most of my community’s new home.

    Most of the members have made the transition from the old Facebook group without too many problems – although, I won’t lie, there have been grumblings from a fair few while they’ve been getting used to the new site!

    The main thing a lot of them miss is ease of access/use on mobile phones. The biggest factor seems to be that they could access the Facebook group via the app rather than needing to use a browser and the instant notifications of mentions to their phones helped keep them feeling involved. I’m not a developer, so there’s only so much I can do, but is it possible to have buddypress site (with busy bbpress forums) running as a mobile app at the same time?

    Or is there some other solution I can offer? I’ve explained about email notifications, but members don’t feel like that’s the same.

    The other issue is that members are saying it’s difficult to follow threads because on Facebook the original post will appear at the top with replies below and it gets bumped up the page each time anyone replies. I know Buddypress activity posts work a bit like that, but most of the activity appearing on my homepage activity feed is from the forums. Any suggestions?

    I think Buddypress is amazing, by the way, and I want to say thanks to all developers who created it and everyone here who shares their expertise to help people like me make the most of it. Love what you do guys! 🙂

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

  • @danbp

    Participant

    10 years, 2 months ago

    Hi julia,

    it seems that you’re in a deep reflexion about your site, here 2-3 things.

    Wait a little before doing more to get your site a clone of FB. It’s not possible, and comparison will always exist if you try to do that. You’re not FB. As simple as that i guess. 😉

    People need a little time to accept new rules. You decided to create a site for them. They have to respect that when they decide to follow you in this new adventure.

    members don’t feel like that’s the same. With reason, as it is not the same.

    The question will more be, why do they come to your site ? Because it looks like FB or because you have some good content ?

    Have you tried this plugin ?

    @julia_b

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    Thanks @danbp, some wise words there!

    You’re right, I do need to sort of let things settle for a while and maybe think along the lines of how to make my site the best it can be rather than trying to replicate Facebook.

    In a way though, I was just using Facebook as example of something with great community functions, there are certainly several ways which my site could be improved especially in making the activity easier for members to follow and more of a Facebook-style feed would help with that. The site is a lot less easy to use on phones and some people have said they use it less than the FB group because they find it fiddly. So I don’t just mean that it has be Facebook really, just that I’d like to make it easy to use as I can.

    I had a look at the Nextgen Facebook plugin, looks good but it seems like it’s more for sharing site content to social media which is not really what I need as most of what is on my site is either confidential member activity or member-only content.

    I’ll keep looking around for more ways to make it more user-friendly and I will try to think out of the Facebook-box, you are right about that! 🙂

    @mercime

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    @julia_b there is a paid solution https://store.flox.io/downloads/buddios/

    @julia_b

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    Thanks @mercime, looks promising, but I wish there was more info on the site. I’m interested to know how this would integrate with the existing site and what would be different. It would also be useful to see some examples of sites which use it.

    Do you have a connection to flox.io?

    @mercime

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    @julia_b Nope, I have no connection to flox.io. I only know that the plugin author is the project lead of BuddyPress so I have no hesitation recommending it 🙂 There’s a link to contact the author at the footer of that site if you have any question. Good luck.

    @julia_b

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    Thanks @mercime, I’ll drop them a line, great to know the author is lead of BP, very promising! 🙂

    @julia_b

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    I emailed them last Wednesday and haven’t had a reply. So that’s not very encouraging!

    @petar-cetinich

    Participant

    10 years, 1 month ago

    This could maybe help them feel more comfortable http://www.buddyboss.com/plugins/

    However it isn’t a Direct mobile solution but it does bridge the gap to a Facebook-esk feel.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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