Campus can be an busy / over-whelming place. With so much going on, Students can (a) become over-committed with Clubs and extra-curriculars or (b) completely unplugged from campus life altogether.

Towner provides a interest-based approach to a community that (1) focuses students on what interests them, and (2) provides students a platform to network and self-organize with other Members.

Towner is meant to be a same-day or last-minute social platform, not a traditional events platform where content is shared weeks in advance. This aligns with how many students live out their college experience, hour-by-hour.

And then there’s onboarding… With Towner’s Domain Authentication, Admin’s can set allow Members to automatically add themselves to the community after first verifying their school email address.

With Towner, Admins can focus on what’s most important, letting students know about the resources available to them, then using Member insights to help their students flourish, one connection at a time.

In a perfect world, Members would always be attending events and meeting just the person who shares their interests and lives in their part of town. Unfortunately, Members don’t always make Events and meet each person.

Towner provides a free platform for Members to network throughout the group by interest and proximity. Who’s in my area? Who’s interested in ________? On Towner, these questions are answered in seconds.

And then there’s notifications… On Towner, users are only notified when (1) posts match their Intos or (2) the post was an Event / Announcement from an Admin). So, gone are the days where hundreds of people are sharing 1 text feed, instead they can share a Community Feed of Into-based posts.

And finally, onboarding. For those organizers who are starting small, Towner’s default functionality requires Members to answer an screening question when they Ask to Join any Community. This question is set by the Admin.

Additionally, for an Admin wanting to add their users in bulk, functionality is coming where a email addresses can be used to pre-seed a Community, and auto-invite users to the Community when an email is matched.

There has always been so much potential for community within an apartment complex. So many people, so many amenities, so many shared interests… But then the question is how are people actually going to connect.

On Towner, Members can self-organize around interests (pre-approved by Admins). This self-organization means that the Chats and Plans are authentic expressions of the community, not just an Admin-driven, heavily-promoted thing.

And when relationships deepens and community grows, Members begin to thrive. Instead of being silent, invisible Members, they because organizers, hosts, welcomers, because that’s what people do when they have autonomy.

Yet with any vision, then reality sets in. A reality of Onboarding. How do you actually verify each Member of the Community…? By (1) adding/removing Members at time of arrival/leaving, and (2) allowing users to Ask to Join with their Apartment Number. You’d then be able to quickly confirm if they’re an existent tenant.

Looking for more onboarding ideas? (a) Host an event, then start adding people to the community. (b) Announce the trial of a new online community platform for Members to connect. Soon new Bulk Invite functionality will help you seed your Towner communities by uploading a list of emails.

There is so much potential for community at an apartment complex. Let’s make that a reality.