Every member of your community has a profile, and it does two jobs. It is a page people can open, and it is the compact version that appears next to everything they write.
Both are yours to shape, in the profiles section of your community settings.
What a profile holds
The basics come from their account: name and avatar. On top of that sits what the community adds.
- Their posts and comments.
- Their saved posts, visible only to them.
- Followers and who they follow.
- Their level and badges, if you use those.
- Whatever your profile fields ask for.
Profile fields
Profile fields are the questions your community asks its members. What they do, where they are, what they are working on, why they joined.
Every profile field sits on a member field. You give the profile field a name, then pick the member field it reads from in the Member field list. That list holds the member fields you already have, and Create new field at the end of it makes a new one without leaving the dialog.
The field then appears on every profile, and members fill it in themselves. Turn on Mandatory field and filling it in becomes part of arriving rather than something to do later.
The type comes from the member field it sits on.
Ask for what makes members findable to each other, not what is useful to you. "What are you working on right now" starts conversations. "Company size" fills a database.
Three or four fields is a profile people complete. Ten is a form people abandon, and half-empty profiles make a community look emptier than it is.
The record and its public side
Profile fields and member fields are the same record seen from two sides, and confusing them is common. A member field is the record you keep. A community profile field is that record shown publicly, under a name and icon you choose.
- A member field on its own stays in your audience settings. You fill it in, and it can be hidden from the member entirely.
- Added as a community profile field, the same field becomes public in the community and the member fills it in.
A shipping address stays a member field. A short bio is worth showing as a profile field.
Member-Profile in posts
Next to every post and comment sits a compact version of the profile. You decide what it carries.
- Whether the level appears, and whether it shows progress.
- Whether badges appear next to the name.
The preview in the settings shows exactly how it will look, with a level and badge of your choosing, so you can judge it before members see it.
Two designs
There are separate designs for how a member profile appears and how an admin profile appears. The Admin profile design box sits right under the member one. It lets your team be recognisable in a thread without anybody having to sign their posts.
Keep the difference small. A clear marker is useful; a visually louder profile for staff makes a community feel like a support desk.
Following
Members can follow each other, and their followers and following lists are part of the profile. Following is what makes a community feel like people rather than a forum: a member who follows five others has a reason to come back that has nothing to do with your posts.
What members control themselves
Members edit their own profile: avatar, the profile fields, and their community preferences. You set the frame, they fill it.
If a profile has to be corrected on somebody's behalf, that happens from their member profile in your audience.