Community Referrals

Do you want to run your own community referral contest? They can be a great way to grow your group and reward those who bring in the most new members to the chat. Often these require a dedicated bot but with Modr8 we support this with our own Community Referral Module.

If you don't know what a community referral contest is, the idea is pretty simple! Existing users in your chat are provided with a link that they can pass to other users direct or list on websites. The new user will click this link and be referred/invited to your chat. Once the user has passed relevant checks and joins your chat then the referral is counted. Many communities run competitions to see who can generate the most referrals within a time period and may even offer a reward. The diagram below shows a general overview of the flow that referrals go through with Modr8.

Overall flow of referral module with Modr8

To provide a realistic example, here is an actual referral flow using screenshots. Below, a user requests to view their referral stats and unique link by messaging the community bot and typing the command /myrefs

User messages your bot and requests to view their referrals using /myrefs

The unique link is then passed on to another user and upon clicking they are shown an invite to join the chat:

User referred to the chat after clicking a unique referral link

Once the user accepts the invite they may be required to complete a human verification check if this is turned on in the welcome message settings.

Top referral ranks are updated with the confirmed users who have followed the flow.

Viewing the top referring users utilising the command /toprefs

How to enable the community referral module

Turning on the community referral module is super easy. Complete the following steps to unlock the /toprefs and /myrefs commands.

1. Select "Settings" on your chat profile

2. Select "Edit" on the "Community Referrals" card

3. Turn on"Enable Referrals" toggle

4. Turn on "Hide User Link In Ranks" if you wish for /toprefs ranks to not have clickable usernames shown

5. Turn on "Disable /my|toprefs commands in public" if you do not want users to be able to execute /myrefs and /toprefs in your chat.

6. Decide if you want to issue a private welcome message by enabling "Send Message On Join?"

We can send a welcome message to the user when they join your chat. This could be useful if you do not want to use a standard welcome message, or maybe you want to show a coupon/discount code to your users as they join.

How do my community users get a referral link?

In order for your current users to generate a referral link they will:

• Message your bot in private

• Type /myrefs

We have found it's quite useful to send these instructions as a scheduled message in your chat so people are reminded on how to get their link.

We do not show the users unique link if using /myrefs in your chat. If the command is available we will show the number of referrals made only. Users must use /myrefs in direct message to the bot to see their link to ensure they are not spammed in public.

How to track, manage & export referrals

We offer multiple ways to track referrals, some of which are available to your chat users and some which are admin only. You will find there are times you wish to audit referrals that have been made to ensure competitions remain fair and no one attempts to game the system.

For general chat users the following options are available:

• In public chat /myrefs - Will show the users current number of referrals

• In public chat /toprefs - Will show the leaderboard of total referrals made

• In private chat with bot /myrefs - Will show the users current number of referrals plus their invite link

• In private chat with bot /toprefs - Will list chats running referrals module to select and then will show the leaderboard of total referrals made for the chat selected

For admins with team access to the Modr8 platform:

• Downloadable referral data set as a spreadsheet from the referral module settings page "Download Referral Data"

• The user management page for your chat will list the number of referrals against each user if the module is enabled. You can sort and order this list as well as export it from the page

• Selecting to "View Profile" when clicking "Manage" beside a user on the user management page will bring up a dedicated section related to referrals. Here you can review each referral they have made as well as choose to delete any you do not wish to be counted.

• Analytics page contains two charts. One shows open referrals which are people who have clicked a referral link but did not join the chat. Closed referrals are the number who completed the full flow. This serves as a good pipeline of how many referrals you can expect to see through your chat.

How to reset the referrals system

You may want to reset the referral rankings every so often. Modr8 allows you to delete the current data and start over. We often find community managers do this to run multiple campaigns through the year and give new users the chance to gain top ranks.

1. Select "Settings" on your chat profile

2. Select "Edit" on the "Community Referrals" card

3. Click the red button labelled"Reset"

❓FAQ & Troubleshooting

My users are reporting they can not see their referral link

There can be a few reasons this happens, we suggest you check the following

• Referral module is enabled and has not been turned off by another admin

• A user MUST be in your chat in order to be provided with a referral link to invite others

• Users must message your bot in private/direct message with /myrefs to get a link. It will not be displayed in public.

My users are reporting that their referral count is not updating

In order to stop bad actors gaming the system (often the case in other referral bots) we require new users to complete the following to be counted towards a successful referral:

• Clicked and joined via the referral link

• Passed the human verification if this has been enabled in the welcome message settings

• New user has remained in the chat and did not leave

• Owner of the link is in the chat and has not left

• You may have removed the bots ability to invite new users to the chat. Check your admin permissions for the bot.

The link being used to join my chat has expired how can I fix this?

Sometimes admins will remove all Telegram invite links OR you may change your chat username and lose the official public link. To generate a new link to fix the issue you can simply disable, save and then enabled and save the referral module again. This wil force a new unique link to be generated by the bot.