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Matthew helps you make the most out of Circle features to effectively structure and automate your community. The services he offers includes:
- Community set up –– Get help setting up your Circle community
- Integrations –– Get help setting up third party integrations
- Automations –– Get help automating the boring admin side of community management
General project requirements and costs:
Matt's happy to jump on a free, no obligation, 30 minute call to discuss your needs. Project costs vary depending on requirements, but to give a point of reference, a one hour consulting call will be $200, with discounts available if multiple sessions are required.
Contact details:
You can book a free, no obligation, 30 minute call to discuss your needs. Just pick a time that works for you here. If you can't find a time that works with your timezone, send Matt an email at matt@matthewbibby.com and he'll figure something out.
All good things must come to an end… and be replaced with something better. Today we’re beginning the rollout of a more intuitive user interface for creating new posts.
You might have seen it around the Circle community already. It looks like this:
In the next few days, this new modal will replace the full-screen post interface. This will make post creation quicker, simpler, and frictionless
And here's something you’ll love: adding a cover image for your post and picking its space in a matter of seconds. No need to play around with settings and toggles. It’s all right there, below your message.
You might have seen it around the Circle community already. It looks like this:
In the next few days, this new modal will replace the full-screen post interface. This will make post creation quicker, simpler, and frictionless
And here's something you’ll love: adding a cover image for your post and picking its space in a matter of seconds. No need to play around with settings and toggles. It’s all right there, below your message.
Functionally, everything stays the same. Your post settings are just a click away.
Why this change?
Glad you ask! At Circle, all our product decisions are informed by data and feedback.
- Here's a data point we couldn't ignore: 99% of all posts across Circle communities are 1,000 characters or less and fit within two paragraphs. A modal-based posting experience is much better suited for shorter posts than a full-page experience.
- With this new interface, members can more easily share what's on their mind, without having to navigate to a new page and a full-screen interface. It's an easier, less overwhelming, and friction-reduced experience, which we hope will result in increased engagement across the board.
- Finally, a modal-based posting interface is the standard for most asynchronous social products. For example — see Facebook, LinkedIn, and Quora.
This posting paradigm has been proven to be better for member engagement in products that serve billions of users. 🌎
This posting paradigm has been proven to be better for member engagement in products that serve billions of users. 🌎
What does it mean for my community?
Over the next few days, we're going to be gradually rolling out the new posting interface across our communities. From May 3, 2021, the full-page posting interface will no longer exist.
Adding a post is done by clicking the “New Post” button or the “+” at the top of the page (from anywhere in your community), which will bring this modal screen.
Adding a post is done by clicking the “New Post” button or the “+” at the top of the page (from anywhere in your community), which will bring this modal screen.
Can I keep access to the old interface?
Unfortunately, there are times when maintaining two separate versions of the same feature is simply too costly and complicated to support.
In maintaining two versions of the same feature, we increase the potential of introducing unintentional bugs in the future, and the amount of time it takes to add more improvements to the post-experience given it's now double the work for our engineers! This is one of the unfortunate times which involves deprecating the old UI.
But, worry not: by the time this UI is rolled out to the majority of our communities, we're going to do our best to ensure a 100% clean and bug-free experience which is proven across communities to increase engagement and reduce friction.
In maintaining two versions of the same feature, we increase the potential of introducing unintentional bugs in the future, and the amount of time it takes to add more improvements to the post-experience given it's now double the work for our engineers! This is one of the unfortunate times which involves deprecating the old UI.
But, worry not: by the time this UI is rolled out to the majority of our communities, we're going to do our best to ensure a 100% clean and bug-free experience which is proven across communities to increase engagement and reduce friction.
I write long-form content. Can I get a full-screen mode?
Yes! Full-screen mode will be available before we commence the broader roll-out next week.
Happy posting! 📝
Happy posting! 📝
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Circle's iOS app is turning one month old. Despite it being so young, it's already proving incredibly popular amongst all of you. Today we are excited to announce that two of our most popular features from our desktop experience are now available in the app.
Community Home
Circle's Home feature is the front door to your community, giving your members a personalized feed to discover all the latest posts across their spaces. Now your members get exactly the same experience on the go.
Custom HTML
Any custom code you've embedded in your posts will now show in the iOS app. From Google calendar to VideoAsk, the possibilities of what can be embedded are endless!
A special shoutout to
Damir Stuhec
and
Darko Spasovski
for bringing these awesome features to the iOS app! 👏
A special shoutout to
As you probably know, we're working on a host of major product updates this year. While the big updates are exciting, the smaller and more incremental ones matter too! We thought we'd share some of the smaller improvements we've shipped recently.
Ready for a roundup?
1️⃣ If you don't know VideoAsk, you should. It's an awesome way to start face-to-face conversations with your members. You can now embed video messages from VideoAsk just like this one from Circle's text editor. Just type in a link from VideoAsk and hit Enter! Your members can respond using text, video or audio, without leaving your community.
2️⃣ Do more with Zapier search actions. You can now leverage search actions in Zapier to verify if your members have a specific member tag, belong to a specific space, or to a space group. For example, you could use the search action "user email has member tag" to verify whether a member has a specific tag (eg: Pro member) after they purchase a product on another platform, and add then trigger a custom email based on that tag. Learn more about search actions.
3️⃣ Customize the From sender on email notifications. Enterprise customers now have the option to customize the default sender email from "no-reply@circle.so" to an email on their own custom domain. Here's how.
4️⃣ Hide the "Members" or "Posts" tab in your space. You can now select which tabs you want to appear from your space Settings > Layout > Display view > Visibility tabs.
5️⃣ More power to your members. Your members can now deactivate their own account from the Account area, saving you the time to process these requests manually. Also, in accordance with CAN-SPAM laws, they can one-click unsubscribe from email notifications from the email footer itself.
6️⃣ Improved SEO and link previews for your community home. You can now set custom meta and Open Graph tags for your home from Settings → Home. We highly recommended setting Open Graph tags for improving how your link previews look on Facebook and Twitter (pro-tip: use Twitter's card validator tool to see what it looks like).
7️⃣ More control over public posts on your community home. We've added a “Show posts from all public spaces” toggle in Settings → Home. If toggled on, posts from all public spaces are shown on members' homepage, even if they aren't a member of the public space. This is a great way for your members to discover and join new spaces.
8️⃣ Integrately integration. Want to consider an alternative to Zapier? Integrately just launched a Circle integration on their own, using our public API. Learn more about the integration.
9️⃣ URL shortcut for starting a new DM conversation. Some customers built member directories in Airtable or their own website, and wanted a simple URL they could link to for a "Message" button that triggers a new conversation with that member. This is now possible with following URL structure: [their-circle-profile-url]/message. For example: https://community.circle.so/u/142404b8/message
🔟 Updates to our API. We've added a GET record endpoint allowing you to fetch individual objects by their ID. Plus, our GET Index endpoints are now paginated. For further details, check our API documentation.
Ready for a roundup?
1️⃣ If you don't know VideoAsk, you should. It's an awesome way to start face-to-face conversations with your members. You can now embed video messages from VideoAsk just like this one from Circle's text editor. Just type in a link from VideoAsk and hit Enter! Your members can respond using text, video or audio, without leaving your community.
2️⃣ Do more with Zapier search actions. You can now leverage search actions in Zapier to verify if your members have a specific member tag, belong to a specific space, or to a space group. For example, you could use the search action "user email has member tag" to verify whether a member has a specific tag (eg: Pro member) after they purchase a product on another platform, and add then trigger a custom email based on that tag. Learn more about search actions.
3️⃣ Customize the From sender on email notifications. Enterprise customers now have the option to customize the default sender email from "no-reply@circle.so" to an email on their own custom domain. Here's how.
4️⃣ Hide the "Members" or "Posts" tab in your space. You can now select which tabs you want to appear from your space Settings > Layout > Display view > Visibility tabs.
5️⃣ More power to your members. Your members can now deactivate their own account from the Account area, saving you the time to process these requests manually. Also, in accordance with CAN-SPAM laws, they can one-click unsubscribe from email notifications from the email footer itself.
6️⃣ Improved SEO and link previews for your community home. You can now set custom meta and Open Graph tags for your home from Settings → Home. We highly recommended setting Open Graph tags for improving how your link previews look on Facebook and Twitter (pro-tip: use Twitter's card validator tool to see what it looks like).
7️⃣ More control over public posts on your community home. We've added a “Show posts from all public spaces” toggle in Settings → Home. If toggled on, posts from all public spaces are shown on members' homepage, even if they aren't a member of the public space. This is a great way for your members to discover and join new spaces.
8️⃣ Integrately integration. Want to consider an alternative to Zapier? Integrately just launched a Circle integration on their own, using our public API. Learn more about the integration.
9️⃣ URL shortcut for starting a new DM conversation. Some customers built member directories in Airtable or their own website, and wanted a simple URL they could link to for a "Message" button that triggers a new conversation with that member. This is now possible with following URL structure: [their-circle-profile-url]/message. For example: https://community.circle.so/u/142404b8/message
🔟 Updates to our API. We've added a GET record endpoint allowing you to fetch individual objects by their ID. Plus, our GET Index endpoints are now paginated. For further details, check our API documentation.
Integrations with Circle are now possible through Integrately, allowing you to connect with a variety of apps in a few simple steps! Automating workflows can help save time if you use multiple tools to manage your community. To explore all of the possibilities you can click here.
✅ Step 1: Start by selecting the app you wish to connect with Circle. Select just one, or add more for advanced workflows!
✅ Step 2: Select your automation and click "Go". In the example below we are looking to invite a member in Circle whenever a new entry is made from a form.
✅ Step 3: Add conditions and other steps within your workflow if needed. If you don't need additional filters, select "No".
✅ Step 4: Connect both of your apps to Integrately. When connecting Circle, you'll be asked for your API token. If you haven't created one, you can do this by navigating to Settings → API.
✅ Step 5: Map the required fields for each app. For this example, you'll be required to select your community name and the appropriate member email address field from Typeform.
🏁 Step 6: Click "Test & Go Live" at the bottom! Once your integration is live, you can test the automation to ensure everything is working as expected.
You can now give your members the option to receive community notifications directly from their browser! This is a great way to ensure they're always in the loop about important community activity.
ℹ️ Supported browsers:
- Google Chrome
- Mozilla Firefox
✅ Yes! How do I enable this for my community?
It's easy! Navigate to Settings → General and turn on the Enable browser notifications toggle.
Your members will now be given the option to enable browser notifications via the following banner.
If they click "No thanks", they won't be presented with this option again.
Your members will now be given the option to enable browser notifications via the following banner.
If they click "No thanks", they won't be presented with this option again.
🎛 Managing notification preferences
At any point, your members can manage their notification preferences from Account → Notifications. From there, they can specify which types of notifications they'd like to receive across email, in-app and iOS/browser.
Hey everybody! 👋 Here's some news
Sid Yadav
,
Rudy Santino
and I (Andy) wanted to share with you today...
We've raised an additional $4M to help accelerate our vision here at Circle. Techcrunch covered our raise. And you can see the announcement when you scroll down below.
We did this fundraise differently.
We had a lot of opportunities to raise traditional venture capital from top tier firms.
Instead, we chose to raise money from well known angel investors, operators, community builders, and...our very own customers / creators. 🎉 🙌 ❤️
It's special to be able to add some of our customers and community members to the cap table this time around. We exist because of you.
Those investors/advisors are:
Anne-Laure Le Cunff
,
Tiago Forte
, Ankur Nagpal,
Nat Eliason
, Brendon Burchard,
Ben Tossell
,
Greta Eagan
, Elizabeth Yin,
swyx
,
Tonner
,
David Perell
,
Matthew Gartland (he/him)
and certainly others who I tried to tag but couldn't find 😂
This is a win for the whole community. Now we'll have more resources so that we can:
🏔 Execute on our product roadmap (which we're truly excited about)
👩🏻💻 Build the best community and education for folks building communities
🏅 Invest significantly in support and customer success
We've raised an additional $4M to help accelerate our vision here at Circle. Techcrunch covered our raise. And you can see the announcement when you scroll down below.
We did this fundraise differently.
We had a lot of opportunities to raise traditional venture capital from top tier firms.
Instead, we chose to raise money from well known angel investors, operators, community builders, and...our very own customers / creators. 🎉 🙌 ❤️
It's special to be able to add some of our customers and community members to the cap table this time around. We exist because of you.
Those investors/advisors are:
This is a win for the whole community. Now we'll have more resources so that we can:
🏔 Execute on our product roadmap (which we're truly excited about)
👩🏻💻 Build the best community and education for folks building communities
🏅 Invest significantly in support and customer success
On Monday February 22 at 12:01am ET, we're planning to rename "topics" to "posts" across the Circle platform. As a result, access to your communities will be limited for a maximum of 2 hours (though hopefully much less!). Everything will go back to normal right after the brief maintenance period by 2am ET at latest.
We're performing this work at our lowest traffic hours during the week, so we can ensure a smooth transition with minimum disruption. You can follow Circle Status to be the first one to know when the maintenance is complete.
We're performing this work at our lowest traffic hours during the week, so we can ensure a smooth transition with minimum disruption. You can follow Circle Status to be the first one to know when the maintenance is complete.
Why this change?
Over the past few months, we've heard from numerous customers about their confusion with the word "topic" — specifically, about how a "topic" differs from a "space". When we initially settled on the word "topic", Circle was a brand new platform. We didn't have paying customers, or even the concept of spaces!
But over time, it's become glaringly apparent to us that this confusion is worth resolving, and the best way to resolve it is by renaming it.
Additionally, "post" is more consistent with its usage on other social products: think of Facebook posts, Reddit posts, LinkedIn posts, and so on.
But over time, it's become glaringly apparent to us that this confusion is worth resolving, and the best way to resolve it is by renaming it.
Additionally, "post" is more consistent with its usage on other social products: think of Facebook posts, Reddit posts, LinkedIn posts, and so on.
Do I need to do anything on my end?
If you are using the word "topic" in any of your community content, we strongly recommend changing it by Monday February 22. For example, some communities refer to "topics" in their welcome instructions, community guidelines, and other places.
Additionally, if any of your customized CSS or JavaScript code snippets use the word "topic", don't worry! We're mindful of breaking CSS customizations, and will work to ensure that the majority of customizations are automatically updated. The same goes for API requests and Zapier flows.
If for any reason we anticipate breaking changes, we'll reach out to you with further instructions.
Additionally, if any of your customized CSS or JavaScript code snippets use the word "topic", don't worry! We're mindful of breaking CSS customizations, and will work to ensure that the majority of customizations are automatically updated. The same goes for API requests and Zapier flows.
If for any reason we anticipate breaking changes, we'll reach out to you with further instructions.
Questions?
Spaces are a great way to organize your content and discussions in Circle. But keeping up with activity across multiple spaces can quickly become overwhelming for your members.
That's where the Community Home comes in. It's a game-changing feature our team has been refining for the past few weeks, and we're very excited to launch it for everyone today.
That's where the Community Home comes in. It's a game-changing feature our team has been refining for the past few weeks, and we're very excited to launch it for everyone today.
🏠 A new home for your members
But, what is the Community Home? I hear you ask.
It's a personalized activity feed that helps your members stay on top of what's happening across the spaces they are a part of. No more bouncing around. Every member can now discover and engage with the posts that most matter to them –– all in one place.
In addition to the personalized feed, the Community Home features a list of trending topics on the right hand side. These are the topics that are getting the most engagement in your community. This way, your members never miss anything important.
It's a personalized activity feed that helps your members stay on top of what's happening across the spaces they are a part of. No more bouncing around. Every member can now discover and engage with the posts that most matter to them –– all in one place.
In addition to the personalized feed, the Community Home features a list of trending topics on the right hand side. These are the topics that are getting the most engagement in your community. This way, your members never miss anything important.
And for some added personalization, you can now greet your members with a custom welcome banner at the top of your home. The perfect spot for community-wide announcements too!
🤩 A few examples
Curious to see what it looks like in practice? Check out the new Circle Community home! Here are some other examples, courtesy of SPI Pro and Freelancing School:
Pretty neat, huh?
✅ How to turn it on for your community
It's very easy. Just head to Settings → Home. Once enabled, your members will see a new Home tab in the sidebar. Voilà!
For a little more customization, you can:
For a little more customization, you can:
- Control how recent a topic must be to appear in the Trending topics list.
- Set how topics will be sorted on the home feed by default. You can choose from Latest, Oldest, Most Popular, New Activity, or Alphabetical.
- Prevent activity from specific spaces to appear in your Community Home. To do this, head to the space settings → hide from featured areas.
Need a hand customizing your home? Check out this knowledge base article.
✨ Ready to give your members a new home?
Show us what yours looks like below. We'd love to get inspired with your welcome banners too! Finally, a massive thank you to all our Beta testers who contributed helpful feedback to make Community Home better for everyone.
To enable the community home, you can navigate to Settings → Home and turn on the "Enable Home" toggle, review the settings below it, and click "Save changes."
Once enabled, you and your members will see a new Home tab in your left sidebar. Here's what it looks like:
Overview
1. Manage your Home settings
You can manage settings by visiting the "Home" tab in your settings area.
2. Control the Trending Topics list
In your right sidebar, you'll see Trending Topics. These are popular topics ranked by engagement score, created within a set amount of days (see below.)
You can control how recent these trending topics are by setting a trending topics threshold. Topics older than the threshold will be removed from this list.
3. Hide specific spaces and topics from your home
To hide all topics in a space:
Navigate to a space, click the gear icon, and then click "Edit Space". Toggle on "Hide from featured areas" to ensure these topics don't appear on your home page.
To hide a specific topic:
Navigate to a topic, click the "..." dropdown, and then click "Edit Topic". Toggle on "Hide from featured areas" to ensure this topic doesn't show up on your home page.
Navigate to a space, click the gear icon, and then click "Edit Space". Toggle on "Hide from featured areas" to ensure these topics don't appear on your home page.
To hide a specific topic:
Navigate to a topic, click the "..." dropdown, and then click "Edit Topic". Toggle on "Hide from featured areas" to ensure this topic doesn't show up on your home page.
4. Set the default topic sort
You can set a default sort order for the topic on the homepage for your members. Currently, members can only temporarily customize the sort order. If they refresh the page, the sort order will default back to the order you set.
5. Set the default landing page for members
You can set a default landing page for logged-in members and logged-out members. When you turn on the Home feature, we'll automatically default to Home for you — but this can be adjusted if you'd like.
6. Greet your members with a welcome banner
You will have the option to greet your members with a custom welcome banner set by you. These welcome banners can be different for logged-in members and logged-out members. If you don't want the welcome banner to disappear, make sure to toggle "Allow members to close the welcome banner".
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