New! Invite members from additional services like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Windows Live

[Eric Suesz]

We're happy to report that one of our Product Roadmap projects is now ready to go: improvements to the invitation system. Some of the goals of this project were to make it look nicer — and it does look nicer! But there were other details that may be less apparent that we think will massively improve the usability of invitations and encourage members to invite more people. So, what's new?

New services!

First and foremost, we added a bunch of new services. The big ones: You and your members now have the ability to invite your Facebook and LinkedIn contacts. These are huge services, and they will surely lead to an increase in the number of invitations and members. They also work great for almost all NCs, whether your network is focused on shout-outs and silliness or serious business networking. Hotmail has gone away, but it has been replaced by Windows Live, the much more widely used umbrella service from Microsoft (used quite a bit internationally, in particular). We've removed AOL from the list of services supported. It was rarely used, and it was the most likely candidate for removal.

More friendly interface

You'll notice that the interface for this is now a lot more friendly. Even better, you'll notice that you can now drag and drop the services and even reorder them into the order you prefer on a straightforward, tabbed interface. Want to find a particular friend? The friends list shows up automatically for each servie that is enabled. Start typing and the live search will look them up. No endless scrolling to find them. Need the invite link? Click on it, and we'll paste it directly onto your clipboard. All in all, it's much easier to use.

Invitation settings

Everything related to invites is now in one spot, including invite sharing permissions and links you can share and recreate for invitation purposes. You'll see these settings as an "Options" drop-down menu when you're on an Invite page. Or, find them on your dashboard under Settings > Invitation.

More control

You now have more control over invitations. For example, don't like Yahoo for invitations? You can drag that one out of the mix. We expect most of you will want to add most or all of the supported services, but if there are some that don't work for you, some of them can be completely removed.

Integrated with Events

The new interface replaces the old one and is already enabled for you with the exception of Facebook and LinkedIn invites. Head to the new Settings > Invitation area of your dashboard and drag these new services to the active area. If you've already set up a Facebook Sharing App, this will work automatically. For a LinkedIn App, you'll be prompted to add a snippet of code. If you've never set up either of these types of apps, you'll be prompted to set them up.

How to turn things on

Head to the new Settings > Invitation area of your dashboard and drag the new services you want to use into the active area. If you've already set up a Facebook Sharing App, this will work automatically. For a LinkedIn App, you'll be prompted to add a snippet of code. If you've never set up either of these types of apps, you'll be prompted to set them up. Need some guidance? Check out our Help Center for more info about how to Invite People to Your Network.

The only caveat to be aware of with these improvements is that there is one limitation imposed by Facebook and one by LinkedIn when it comes to invites. Facebook requires that invitations be sent individually, so you won't be able to select all of your Facebook friends en masse. LinkedIn has a limit of 10 invites per day. Other than that, you should find that these invitation improvements are sure to be another way to grow your membership, so feel free to turn them on and encourage your members to invite more people whenever you're ready.

[dave]

OK, i think it was SP who suggested shortening the invite sentence down and Tested it and the Invite went out and showed up in Notifications ,So looks Good... I'm wondering how we can enforce this so other members don't have the same problem if this is in fact a problem caused by to many words ?   just a question :-)

[laurie posner]

This is great - and I have a question about it - I've created several networks for organizations/program directors who want their networks to remain private/password protected. Does opening the invitation from other networks, mean that content is also open/visible to those platforms, or can it remain private? 

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, laurie. Invitations are separate from privacy, so nothing has changed with the way our system works with these new invitation options. So, if your site is private and by invitation only and you moderate membership (just to take an example), you'll still operate in the same way. Hope I'm not misunderstanding you. 

[Alan Mclaughlin]

Not been on for some time - some great new features and updates way to go guys !

[Eric Suesz]

Thanks!

[André Gonçalves]

Hi!

Many members of my network are complaining about the fact that can only invite one friend at a time in the Facebook invitation option. And the main problem is that is possible to select a group of members (When you click above a friend name you can see at the bottom "1 friend selected", and so on...) and then, when you want to invite all there's no button to do that, only the individual ones.

The ideal situation will be the invite all option, but if it can be done, at least remove the ability of selecting a group of friends. It only leads to situations of confusion and unpleasantness.

Or am I missing the way of inviting a group of friends at a time?

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, Andre. I'm sorry that this is a limitation, but this is a limitation imposed by Facebook. You can only invite one friend at a time. As noted: '

Facebook requires that invitations be sent individually, so you won't be able to select all of your Facebook friends en masse. 

If we could change this limitation, we would. 

[André Gonçalves]

Ok, I accept that as a limitation you can't resolve...

But why do you have the ability to select a group of friends if it's impossible to invite them all at a time? It's confusing being able to select as many friends as wanted and then having to invite individually...

[Eric Suesz]

This is what I see when I go to invite Facebook friends to join my test network: 

This is one at a time. You can't select all here because of this limitation. Are you talking about inviting current friends to a group? That is a different interface than this one that allows you to select all of your Ning friends. These two invitations were designed separately. I don't know that we'll be able to update the groups one to look more like this one, but I'll pass that along as feedback for our product team. Thanks. 

[André Gonçalves]

ok... you see that list of friends, but if you'll click above any of those pictures or names you will see a increasing count at the bottom of the list.

See it here:

 

This isn't a clearly noticeable function but I had some members complaining about it. Even I only notice it after their messages.

There isn't any other change in the display, only the increasing count, as shown in the sreenshot.
But this count is useless and confusing as I said before.

[Shannon]

Cool, But why can we only invite one at a time 

[Rohit Sawhney]

Shannon,

Fb API dictates that you can only send one invite at a time. 

/rohit