Help your audience feel part of the conversation. A recognizable profile puts a person behind each contribution, a reaction makes it easy to join in, and a mention brings someone directly into an exchange.

These small interactions give members more ways to take part: acknowledge a helpful answer, welcome someone new, or invite a contributor to share their experience. Anyone can now add a user bio and avatar; reactions and @mentions are Community features.

A profile and avatar help members recognize the people contributing. Encourage members to choose a recognizable identity and follow your community guidelines when describing themselves or choosing an image.

What's great is that anyone can now add a user bio and avatar. You do not need the Community product to offer them to your audience.

Your users manage their own Community profiles. Encourage them to choose a recognizable username and avatar, and add a display name and bio that help other members understand who they are.

Their profile editor includes Username, Display name, Bio, and Save profile details. Their username is used for messages and mentions, while the display name is separate.

You can introduce profiles in your welcome message and ask members to share a little about themselves in an introductions Topic.

Your users can upload an avatar and crop it to a square. Supported files are JPEG, PNG, static WebP, or static GIF, up to 5 MiB. Users who already have an avatar can replace or delete it through their profile.

Encourage images that fit your community guidelines and help members recognize one another.

Members can react to content and messages. A reaction provides a quick way to acknowledge a contribution when a longer response is not needed. Reactions are included in Live Chat & Community Spaces.

Reactions let your members acknowledge a useful answer, celebrate a contribution, or show interest without writing a full reply. Your configured reaction set determines the choices available to them.

Members can use quick reactions or open the full set from the smiley-plus control. Counts appear beneath messages. Choose reactions your audience will understand and use, rather than adding choices without a clear purpose.

Your members can reply to a specific message using its curved-arrow reply control. The composer identifies the message being answered, so a busy conversation is easier to follow.

When you host a discussion, reply to the specific question or contribution you are responding to. This models how your members can use the same feature.

The message menu includes Copy text and Copy link. You and your members can use these controls to refer back to a useful contribution.

A copied link does not replace the access settings you have chosen for the discussion.

Choose reactions that fit the way your audience talks about your content. For example, a music community could add a headphones reaction alongside the built-in reactions.

Use the pencil control beside a channel reaction to edit it, or the bin control to delete it.

@mentions let you and your members bring someone into a relevant conversation. For example, you could invite a member to answer a question connected to their experience. Mentions are included in Live Chat & Community Spaces.

Community notifications are part of Member Engagement, which is included in Community Engine. A mention and a notification are separate features: having @mentions does not automatically mean that Community notifications are included.

Your members can follow relevant activity through Community notifications inside the logged-in website or app. Selecting a mention notification opens the relevant message. Unread activity remains marked until the member opens it or marks it as read.

Community notifications are separate from emails announcing new content and from mobile push notifications. Check the capabilities included in your account when planning how you will notify your audience.

When Member Engagement is included in your setup, your audience can open Community notifications from the bell in the website header. An unread badge highlights activity, and the panel includes a Mark all as read control.

Explain where to find this when you welcome members, especially if you plan to use @mentions to invite them into conversations.

Still have questions? Check out these questions below. Or start a chat💬