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Once you've had your Niche Idea for your Niche Social Network site, that comes to finally start your own social network, you should fully aware that the hardest part is not how to make the network available, but how to make people stay and use your network. Definitely, creating a social network is not something you can do in a day, and so oversee functional strategy of your network is a must to prevent failure and get your network out to the world. In this blog, we will discuss how to build up a solid functional strategy for your Social Network.   Develop Functional Strategy Based On Core Values Of Your Social Network First thing first, you have to decide what your unique value proposition is for your users. How are you going to entice someone to leave the social networking they already use on a daily basis and decide to instead spend time on your network? The answer is that not all social networks boil down to the same recipe for success. Different users will have different demands and requirements on a network. As long as the features and functionalities of your network satisfy, or at least are appropriate to users' preferences, they will stay and enjoy your network. Research indicates that every successful network has only about 20% of functional features identical to existed networks, the impact which makes people keep on coming to a network is from 80% of its unique functional features. Therefore, you should focus on developing specific features which directly identify your site purpose. For instance, LinkedIn takes 'connection' into account as the primary functional trait of the network instead of 'friend' just like on Facebook. This is because LinkedIn is different from other networks as it's specifically designed for business and professionals, making it one of the more important platforms to use for those in B2B. Build Functional Tools To Directly Serve Users' Intentions The next thing to consider is to understand users' behaviors on your network. In other words, the way users utilize the provided tools will determine the direction you should develop your network. Providing users with what they are looking for gives you chances to connect with fans, customers, and prospective customers on a more personal, human level. These unique functional tools don't need to be complex. It just needs to be straightforward, useful and most importantly, it should work well. For instance, Instagram is dedicated mainly to photos while Facebook is inclined towards recent updates. Facebook encourages users to share daily elements, whereas Twitter is more about sharing serious issues such as news and updates. While Instagram uses photo collections as the way to connect people, Twitter triumphs the relations using hashtags. Bottomline Going through this brainstorm you can definitely have your idea about your Social Network – the strong start to build, maintain and monetize your own community. Don’t worry about how strong or weak of your idea or how to make it happen, you can contact us at hello@phpfox.com – number one Social Network Platform! Our experts and partners are happy to assist you from the day one toward your successful community

How to start building your Customer Community is the critical question for marketers in digital transformation age. This is the opinion of David Taber, the expert in Customer Relationship, posted on CIO: Lead generation means user education. Channel management means a partner portal. Case management means a knowledge base, customer discussion groups, and a support forum. Customer loyalty means a customer portal.  It’s all about building a community site. Depending on where you start, you’ll hear about dozens of product offerings and see some extraordinary demos. The best of the demos will live up to Sybase founder Bob Epstein’s famous quote about benchmarks: “they are what the vendor can guarantee you will never achieve.” Before you get dazzled by bright shiny objects, you really have to go off and do some thinking: that’s right, dull homework. Because any of the community-building products could be the right one for you, but all of them will result in a failure if you haven’t answered most of these questions in advance: What's the fundamental value of building/maintaining the community? Getting more prospects or partners sooner? Improving the quality of your decisions? Making your company look better / more visible? Accelerating your prospects evolution? Increasing customer or channel loyalty? Helping you catch up to Competitors’ sites? Making management feel better? How many people will be in the community? Will this be a "public community," where users can spontaneously register themselves?  Or is this by invitation (and pre-setup) only? Will there be sub-groups? How many active threads do you expect at any one time? Will users be allowed to start their own threads? What are the users’ job titles (both the company and the role)? What is their level of knowledge about your company and its products? How will you manage excluding users from certain countries? How will you get to full GPDR compliance? What are the usage patterns? Will users come in via single sign-on (SSO) or direct login? Will they come in from a mobile device? How often do you expect them to log in? How long will they stay on the site? Are there any things about their user session that we’ll need to know/report on / get alerted about? What do they come to the community for? What are they trying to achieve any time they log in? With whom are they trying to communicate? What information do they seek or share? What information are they allowed to download? What things can they report on (if any)? What do they need to be able to hide from others? About themselves and About the information they post How much information will there be in a given year? Number of topics Number of posts and attachments from you and users Number of leads, deals Number of ideas/suggestions, cases/resolutions What of this information is transactional in nature (i.e., not just a content posting)? What of this information needs to be integrated with other systems (e.g., CRM)? Will the "information architecture" (read: navigation) need to change on a regular basis? What's the "memory horizon" of the community? What will be your content archiving strategy? Do some things get hidden from users after a few months? Can this be automatic? Do we actually want a human always involved in the "sunsetting" of information? Do you want to have the community moderated? If so, can it be done "by exception" or does every moderation action have to be done manually? What are the legal terms of use you are expecting? What analytics do you need? Real-time alerts regarding usage patterns, DOS attacks? Social media monitoring? Daily reports, executive dashboards? What's your internal constituency? Worker bees by a department? PR, marketing, sales, support, operations, and legal executives? Board? What's your willingness to spend on? User licenses? Development? Ongoing moderation? This is just internal hours, but you want to have some sort of threshold like "no more than 50 hours/week". Who’s going to own the project and budget? For project management and deployment For community membership growth For moderation and legal policing For ongoing maintenance and technical expansion I know, this is quite the laundry list!  But if you don’t bring up these issues early, you won’t really know what your requirements are, so your product evaluation criteria will be foggy at best.  Save yourself some time and money by starting at the beginning. Bottomline Get those questions answered and ready to kick-start your Customer Community now with the advantages of phpFox 4Biz experts, just email biz@phpfox.com or demo: biz.phpfox.com

Follow up with the introduction to Customer Community powered by phpFox, we fully aware that there is an uprising needs and demands to establish a successful Customer Community. In this blog, we will go over some steps and look at some aspects which surprisingly assist you to build up a powerful Customer Community with phpFox. Go Beyond The Common Traits of Your Products/Services   Knowing what you are lacking of while maintaining a connection to your customers decides how your Customer Community will be built up and expanding. Keep in mind that your community shouldn't be limited to certain common standards. In other words, the community doesn't have to only focuses on areas which your products/service are offering, but you can identify and nurture an inspiring brand purpose beyond your products and services.   For instance, companies like Patagonia, Harley-Davidson, and Nike stand out as customers on their community share their passion not only for clothing, motorcycles, and shoes, but also for the outdoors, adventure, and fitness. Figure out what your customers are interested, keep up with their paces, feed them up with contents, it's more likely your community will be a success. Go with Customer-Oriented Direction   The keys to a successful customer community are to put users in control, go light on marketing content, and remember above all that the community exists to serve customers—not the brand. As explained in Harvard Business Review:   “Managers often forget that consumers are actually people, with many different needs, interests, and responsibilities. A community-based brand builds loyalty not by driving sales transactions but by helping people meet their needs…For members, brand communities are a means to an end, not an end in themselves…Putting the brand second is tough for a marketer to do, but it’s essential if a strong community is the goal.” Allow prospects and customers to see your corporate values   Increasingly, prospects will turn into customers, and customers will become loyal, because they’re attracted to what your company stands for, which is evident in the values you demonstrate, including online. In a world where everything you sell is a commodity, value – product, price, service – is the threshold of a customer community, but values are the foundation. Value is easy to find these days. But when community members are attracted to your values, they keep coming back and bring their friends. Bottomline Start building your Customer Community now with phpFox 4Biz solution, you get a free consultancy and optimal package offering while setup, a professional maintenance service and a long-term cooperation from our experts of technical, marketings and social. Just check out biz.phpfox.com or email biz@phpfox.com

So, what is Customer Community? Do we really need that? It is just like the question of "Why do I need an email when I already have a phone number?" Nowadays, Social media strategy is a critical part of any marketing strategy. Yet marketers still facing the boring of: website content, low interactive in social, quiet support forum, wrong immediate answer with live chat or stuck support phone line...There come the online Customer Community. Customer Community infographic [caption id="attachment_6358" align="aligncenter" width="832"] Customer Community powered by phpFox infographic[/caption] As you can see, Customer Community allows you to follow your customers home! When customers bought your product/service, they get lazy to get back to your website or social channels. It is regardless of your interesting information, it is just because they are busy with something else. They only need to go back when they need support! So are you ready to impress and harness their experience that builds your customer loyalty? Customer Community gathers your clients to meet up with others, discussing in group and social networking style, they can also express and share their experience with your brand. On this all-in-one, your staff can easily get in to support, your marketers and sales can target the right audiences and expose the power of viral. Then, what does a Customer Community need? Customer Care Center In our latest solution, based on phpFox platform, we provide the Customer Community that comes first with Customer Care center. With Customer Community powered by phpFox, your customers' voices are loudly taking care of easily by your staff. More than that, it is the crowdsource support, they always get fulfilled their inquiries by other members. Or your influencers can do a persuasive one-on-one consultancy. This also helps you reduces customer support via phone effort and or other traditional methods. Your customers are now get cared by a vibrant and social support Social Sales In phpFox Customer Community, your sales and marketing staff have the ability to segment your customers. Enough data to direct sales nicely by social approach. Which means, every sales marketing program they are offering will be well targeted, feedback and follow up closely and conveniently on your own system. This is truly your differentiation from your competitors, making sales pitch becomes social networking. Brand Social Advocacy It is always hard and costly to get your customers to advocate your brand. With Customer Community by phpFox, your customers now have the quick, fun and easy way to share their love of your brand. That connects with other popular social channels and rival their voices. Moreover, your customers have the incentive to stay interactive through our intensive Gamification program which is really cost effective in your marketing ROI. Bottomline Building your Customer Community is not a nice to have anymore because of its wondeful benefits. Thank to the advance social tech platform phpFox, it is now easy to build, admin and maintain. Build your Customer Community now by visiting: biz.phpfox.com or email biz@phpfox.com            

September is coming and again welcoming us with a long weekend, parades and festivals on Labor Day. It is the public holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September in the US. In this day, we honor a creation of the labor movement and the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. Celebrate Labor Day With 15% Off on phpFox Tapping into the buzz of labor spirit, it's a great opportunity to save big on this holiday week with the great offer from phpFox. You will save 15% Off on phpFox purchase or upgrade by using the code LABORDAY2018 during our promotion from August 27th to September 3rd (PST). Let's say a sweet farewell to the summer and get ready to back to work by celebrating Labor Day with us.   We hope you will have a successful Fall season ahead!   For any inquiry, feel free to let us know by writing to hello@phpfox.com

We delightedly announce that the version 4.6.1 build 6 is officially released now. We have more issues fixed and improvements added in this maintenance version. phpFox 4.6.1 Build 6 Let's take a quick look at them now: Issues Fixed The verification message comes in a wrong language In AdminCP - Manage Settings section of a certain app, buttons on the bottom panel are overlapped. Can add spaces in username when signing up Can add banned words when posting or editing feed status While posting feed item with photo, Share button can't be enabled if switching from Photo tab to another tab Show wrong action button on members at Browse Users page Improvements Remove unnecessary cache header X_PF_CACHE_FAILED Update phrase of "Profile Update" feed item in case a user does not have gender In Bootstrap template, do not allow to toggle menu on a mobile device Please check this doc for more details Installation Info Download Upgrade Instructions Installation Instructions Notice If you are using version 4.5.x, it is important that you need to check this doc before upgrading your phpFox site. Change Log See the complete changed file list here. For 3rd-party experts, you should also check this article in order to make your products compatible with this new phpFox version. Next releases? On top of our mobile app, we are also working very hard on new version 4.6.2 and 4.7.0. Many interesting and significant enhancements will be added. We will get back to you with more details about these versions very soon. Therefore, please keep watching our blogs and subscribe to our newsletter to receive our newest updates.

Summer is almost over, and August welcomes us as the month to round up our summer and go back to work after a long holiday. Last month, you might be busy with outdoor activities, but our developers were still working diligently to deliver new and incredible products to you. Let's find out and enjoy these new apps and Themes in July 2018! 1. Original Photo Link by Scheinwelt-Media This simple app will add a link to the original uploaded photo to the photos action menu. Learn More → 2. Video Thumbnail by Scheinwelt-Media Video Thumbnail app changes the video player in the feed to a thumbnail with a link to the videos page. You can use this app to show ads on the individual video pages. Learn More → 3. Video Viewer Popup by YounetCo Video Viewer Popup brings your phpFox site great experience on watching videos with a unique popup of the video upon clicking on it. This app is extremely useful when a user wants to do multitasking on site, or just want to see multiple videos at a time without the need of reloading the video detail pages all over again. Learn More → 4. Home Blocks by FoxExpert Home Blocks app provides 8 new blocks for members home page or for any other page. It's very useful when sorting filters for different blocks. Users can set up numbers of entries for each block and default sorting tab. Also, the app offers several interesting features included geo searching for the contents near you. Learn More → 5. Guest's Feed by Foxer Guest's Login app is a great way to replace your default landing page with activity feed. The app creates a page that looks the same as home page with posting limitation for your existing users and shows it for guests. In this way, guests will be able to preview the latest activity of your network. Learn More → 6. JMJTime Coming Soon Template by suresh choudhary JMJTime Coming Soon is a responsive, modern and clean template which indicates your phpFox site status as Under construction/Coming soon. This minimal template is being packed with a countdown timer, contact form, social icons, services and About page where you can write about yourself and your services. Learn More → 7. PhotoWorld Template by YounetCo Photo World template lets users showcase their talents and creativities to the world through a beautiful photo gallery. Built with photographs and designers in mind, the template opts to simple, yet completed and sophisticated design with elegant and eye-catching effects, colors & layout. It's just simply what you need to keep your visitors engaged and eager for more when it comes to photos. Learn More →  That's it for July! If you want to learn more about functions and features of these new products, you can contact directly to our third-party vendors for inquiries. Also, in case you want to customize these apps to your own needs, you can ask our Experts to assist you on your tasks.   Have fun getting back to work and let's rock your social network with these new and astounding products!    

phpFox 4.6.1 build 5 We are pleased to announce the phpFox 4.6.1 build 5 is released now. In this maintenance version, we continuously fixed many issues as well as added some minor improvements to make your phpFox site more stable. Let's take a quick look on some highlighted info of this version now: Issues Fixed Video - Technical issue when adding wrong video link Global Search - Keywords are removed when clicking on the Search icon Login As Page - Unable to delete feed item right after shared Feed items of relationship show duplicated username Blogs - Search - RTL layout isn't applied when switching to RTL language Improvements Separate Subscription as a standalone app. Sign up - Enable "Username" field by default Remove old Ads module   You can find more details about improvements and issues fixed in this article. As we removed Ads module since version 4.6.1 build 5, you can install/upgrade the Better Ads app on phpFox Store. Moreover, come along with phpFox 4.6.1 build 5, the Subscription app is now available as the stand-alone app on phpFox Store. Therefore, after upgrading to phpFox 4.6.1 build 5, please don't forget to install the new Subscription app right then. With fresh phpFox installation, Subscription app can be installed normally. Installation Info Download Upgrade Instructions Installation Instructions Change Log See the complete changed file list here. Wanna purchase phpFox licenses? You are really lucky that we are having Hot Summer Sale promotion until July 31st, 2018. Please check this blog for more info. And, hurry up! The promotion will end very soon. If you found any bugs with this release, please report in our GitHub tracker. You can also submit a ticket in your client area to receive support from our team.

The heatwave struck us pretty hard along with the bright hot sun to signal another summer season has come upon us. Be sure not to fizzle when the summer starts to sizzle as every summer has its own stories. And just like us, we also has our own stories when talking about summer must-haves with phpFox. Let's splashing fun in the sun and celebrate the season of love with our HOT SUMMER SALE promotion which takes place from 23rd to 31st July 2018. Is it cool? What are you still waiting for? Get 15% Off now with promo code: SUMMER2018  The tans will fade but the memories will last forever. So hurry up and beat the heat to grab this sweaty deal until it lasts. We hope you have an awesome summertime. For any inquiry, feel free to let us know by writing to hello@phpfox.com

As we announced early this year, phpFox Store is one of our major updates in 2018. And now the wait is over. We are delighted to inform that the new phpFox Store is already available for you to experience. phpFox Store is the official phpFox marketplace developed by the phpFox team for third-party experts and our valued clients. In this new release, we bring a brand new look on the Store includes new layouts, designs, features... These changes primarily aim to improve user experiences upon finding apps, purchasing apps, installing apps and managing purchases.   Aside from the significant improvements in user interfaces, the new Store also is a big leap in term of functionalities as several upgrades and extensions on features have been implemented or re-designed workflows. Surely, the new Store is capable of fulfilling any user's needs and demands. One epoch-making improvement for privacy and management is that accounts on the new Store (including Experts) are now synced with accounts in Client Area. This transition ensures that you can manage your account and your purchases more securely and conveniently. Since new phpFox Store has many new features and new layouts, it will take time for experts to update their products and profiles. So please try and enjoy this new release of phpFox Store. Also, let us know your opinions on this new release of the Store. In case you need any extra help from the team on Store inquiries, you can always reach us.