How to make your profile visible to your community, find others, and message them.
Community Directory
The Community Directory is where our users come together online to meet, share stories, find resources they need, and even do business together.
We've built a robust search and filters to find users who've made their profiles public. Just navigate to the Community Directory page from the left navigation in the platform and begin searching.
Direct Message
You can DM any other user who has the blue "Message" button visible next to their profile. You can also email users outside of the platform environment if they choose to display their email address publicly in their profile.
Making Your Profile Visible
Before you can communicate with other community members, and before they can see and communicate with you, your profile must be visible.
For privacy, your profile is hidden from the Community Directory by default. You must opt-in to be visible, and also opt-in to allow others to DM you.
When you first sign up for an account and login, you'll see the red circle with slash through it next to account settings. This indicates your DM is off.
To enable Community Directory visibility and turn DM on:
- Go to your account settings dropdown and select Manage Profile.
- Towards the bottom of the page select "Show my profile in the Community Directory" so that you see a check mark.
- Next to that, select "Allow other members to message me" until that also shows a check mark.
You can de-select the messaging option alone or both options together at any time to increase your privacy. Just note that you must enable visibility in the Community Directory in order for Messaging to work.
Messaging Other Users or Members of Your Community
You can directly message anyone you have visibility to and who has opted into allowing DM. Once you begin chats, they can be found under the message icon at the top of the platform. Simply click the chat to continue where you left off.
Whether in DM or to an email address obtained from the platform, please follow proper business protocol, do not create contact lists for non-personal use, do not SPAM other users, and generally follow the terms you agreed to in the Terms of Use and Subscription Agreement.