Whether you’re running a private, semi-private, or even public group, mastering the invite process is important to getting your membership easy access to your new group. First, let’s review the mechanics of sending invites and how they’re initiated, then we can look at how they impact the different groups.
The key to invites is they should be easy-to-locate, easy-to-use, and they need to work seamlessly. This is your member’s first exposure to GroupSpot so it should be a positive experience. In terms of location, we’ve tucked Invite into a few key, high traffic locations. The first is on your group’s landing page. If you click on the ••• menu on the top left of the screen, a drawer pops up with a big blue ‘Invite Members’ button. The invite process will launch once selected. A second, high traffic location for invites is nestled in your group menu. When you select the menu icon from your group landing screen (top right icon), your group menu flies out and you will see ‘+ Invite’ in the lower half of the choices on the menu. Once selected, it will launch the same invite process as above. In both scenarios, you will arrive at a new screen which asks how you would like to invite your members: share invite, copy invite, and view QR code. Let’s explore each of these options.
‘SHARE INVITE’ is selected by default because this is the most common and widest reaching way to initiate the invite process. Once the blue button is selected, a drawer pops up with various ways to send an invite: email, text, or through direct message. Many options to choose from. Once you select the delivery method, you’ll see that GroupSpot has auto-generated text clearly identifying who is inviting who to which group which gives context to the individual on the receiving end. This comes with an invite link and invite code as well.
The next option, ‘COPY INVITE’, is simply copying the invite link so that you can share it easily but without the auto-generated text above. This is for people you know and they might be expecting the invite, and you just want to quickly copy-and-paste an invite link into a text. One important caveat is that the person invited needs to have you in their contacts for the invite to register. Some phones like the iPhone have a spam protection feature that will not register the invite link if you’re not in the person’s contacts. When this happens, instead of seeing the group’s avatar image which is the normal use case, a dead link appears that is unclickable. Once the person adds you to their contacts, they will be able to see the invite link. If you’re unsure whether you’re in the person’s contacts, I would suggest the first option where you send both the invite link and invite code together.
The third and final option is ‘VIEW QR CODE’. Once selected, a drawer will appear with the QR Code invite to the group. This is really helpful when you’re standing next to someone and they can just pull out their phone, scan your QR Code, and thus launch the invite process. Additionally, this code works great when you print it out on a flier or handout for the big kickoff meeting. Watch hundreds of people scan the code during the meeting and join the group with zero friction. Ever since restaurants moved to QR Codes, everyone knows how to use these valuable triggers.
Once the invite is sent, the joining experience of the recipient varies based on the privacy settings of that group. For super private, members-only groups, invites can only be generated and sent by the admins of the group. For the more common, semi-private, admin-approved member groups, invites can be generated and sent by anyone in the group but are subject to admin approval. And finally, in true public groups, invites can also be generated and sent by anyone in the group and do not need any approval.
Don’t let all your hard work creating a dynamic group for your membership go for naught by not nailing the invite process. Take advantage of the many ways GroupSpot lets you attack invites and choose the one best suited to your needs. For groups where you are actively growing your membership, you may even want to educate your members how they can extend invites. You can’t build a community until you invite them in. Strength in numbers.
