Feed suggestions
Your feed can suggest things to your members as it scrolls: people to follow, groups to join, jobs, forums, products, posts to read and events to go to. Each one is a row of cards with a button, placed between the posts.
This works on News Feed (Ultimate Member) and on Activity (BuddyPress and BuddyBoss).
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”Each kind of suggestion reads from its own plugin. Turn on only the kinds your site has.
| Suggestion | Plugin | Buttons |
|---|---|---|
| People | Ultimate Member - Followers or Friends, or BuddyPress / BuddyBoss | Follow, Add friend, View profile |
| Groups | Ultimate Member - Groups, or BuddyPress / BuddyBoss Groups | Join, View |
| Jobs | JobBoardWP | View, Save |
| Forums | ForumWP or bbPress | Subscribe, View |
| Products | WooCommerce | Add to cart, View |
| Posts | WordPress | Read, Save |
| Events | The Events Calendar | RSVP, View |
Save needs Ultimate Member - User Bookmarks. RSVP needs Event Tickets. Subscribe needs ForumWP Pro’s subscriptions module, or bbPress subscriptions. Where a button cannot work on a card — a product with variations to choose, an event with RSVP closed — the card shows View instead.
The suggestions come from the Feed Suggestions endpoint group, which needs Memberside 2.62.0 or later. Saving your layout switches it on for you, along with the groups the buttons call. See Connection and keys.
Turn them on
Section titled “Turn them on”- Open the settings of your News Feed or Activity tab.
- On Features, switch on Show suggestions in the feed.
- Set First after post and Then every … posts.
- Switch on each kind you want, and open it to set its heading, weight and button.
- Save.
How often each kind appears
Section titled “How often each kind appears”One carousel appears after the post you set in First after post, then one more every Then every … posts. Each carousel shows one kind of suggestion.
The kinds take turns in proportion to their Weight. With People at 4 and Groups at 2, two of every three carousels suggest people and one suggests groups. The panel shows each kind’s share as a percentage.
A kind’s second carousel shows the next cards, not the same ones again. A kind your site has nothing for takes no space at all.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show suggestions in the feed | Turns every carousel on or off | Off |
| First after post | The post the first carousel follows | 3 |
| Then every … posts | Posts between carousels | 8 |
| Heading | The title above the cards | “People you may know”, “Groups to join”… |
| Weight | 1 to 10, how often this kind gets a carousel | People 5, Groups 3, Posts 3, Events 3, others 2 |
| Button | What the button on each card does | Follow, Join, View, Subscribe, Add to cart, Read, RSVP |
| Cards per carousel | 3 to 20 | 10 |
| From | People and groups: Ultimate Member or BuddyPress. Forums: ForumWP or bbPress | Same as the feed |
| Fade out cards once acted on | A card fades away after its button is tapped; see below | On |
| Post types, categories and tags | Posts only: which content to suggest | Posts |
| Order | Posts only: newest, most discussed, or shuffled daily | Newest |
| Which events | Events only: upcoming, happening now, or both | Upcoming |
| Look ahead (days) | Events only: how far ahead upcoming reaches | 30 |
A suggestion is never something the member already has. Each kind leaves out:
| Suggestion | Left out |
|---|---|
| People | Anyone the member follows, is friends with, or has a pending request with |
| Groups | Groups the member joined or asked to join |
| Jobs | Jobs the member saved |
| Forums | Forums the member subscribes to |
| Products | Products the member bought |
| Posts | The member’s own posts, posts they commented on, and posts they saved |
| Events | Events the member RSVP’d to or created |
People are ranked by what they have in common. With Add friend, people with the most mutual friends come first. With Follow, people followed by the most of the members you follow come first. The newest members fill the rest.
How the cards look
Section titled “How the cards look”Open Appearance on the same tab and find Suggestions. Every field starts empty and follows your app’s Typography & Layout settings until you set it.
| Setting | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Cards: corner radius, width | Every card’s shape. The width here applies to every kind |
| Cards: background, border | Card colours, with a dark-mode colour for each |
| Carousel heading | Size, weight and colour of the heading |
| Button | Corner radius, fill and text colour |
| Per kind: avatar or image size | People and groups draw a centred avatar; products, posts and events a full-width image |
| Per kind: card width | Overrides the width for one kind. Job cards default to 220 and event cards to 240; the rest to 150 or 170 |
| Per kind: title, details | Size, weight and colour of the name and the line under it |
| “Happening now” label | Fill and text colour of the label on live events |
Every colour has a dark-mode twin. Leave the dark one empty and dark mode uses the light one.
What your members see
Section titled “What your members see”A row of cards between posts, which they swipe sideways. Tapping a card — its picture, its name or its View button — opens it on your app’s own screen: a member’s profile, a group, a job, a forum’s topics, a product, an article or an event. It does this even when you have not placed that screen as a tab, so a feed can suggest products in an app with no Shop tab. The in-app browser opens only for a card whose item can no longer be found.
Names take one line and end in an ellipsis when they are too long. Job and event cards are wider than the rest, so a company and a place, or a date and a time, fit without breaking.
Tapping the button acts straight away. Follow becomes Following, Join becomes Joined (or Requested for a private group), RSVP becomes Going. With Fade out cards once acted on switched on, the card shows that for a moment and then fades away, and the row closes up. When the member’s taps take the last card, the carousel shows your app’s logo and You’re all caught up before it closes. With the setting off, the card stays, and tapping again undoes a follow, a friend request, a subscription, a save or an RSVP.
Each carousel loads once. Scrolling past it and back does not ask your site again; pulling the feed down to refresh does. A carousel that is slow or fails to load takes no space, and it never stops the feed’s own posts from showing.
Suggestions are for signed-in members. A visitor who has not signed in sees the feed without them.
Suggestion carousels in the news feed
record → src/assets/media/feed-suggestions.mp4
When it doesn’t work
Section titled “When it doesn’t work”| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| No carousels appear | Show suggestions in the feed is off, or no kind is switched on | Turn both on |
| No carousels appear, settings are on | The Feed Suggestions endpoint group is off, or Memberside is older than 2.62.0 | Update Memberside and save your layout again |
| One kind never appears | Its plugin is not active, or the member already has everything it would suggest | Activate the plugin. The second case is expected |
| The button says View instead of Save, Subscribe, Add to cart or RSVP | The add-on behind that button is missing, or the item cannot take it | See Before you start |
| A carousel appears later than expected | Fewer posts have loaded than First after post | Expected. It appears once the member scrolls that far |
| Suggested posts show the wrong kind of content | Post types or the category filter | Change them under Features |