All new things are often unfamiliar at first, but don’t worry: tchop makes it easy. You will quickly find the best approach and content structure that suits your requirements and target group. In the following, we would like to summarize the most important information for editing, publishing and administration. It should give you an idea of what is possible. And how easy it is.
With few simple features you can turn tchop into a content curation powerhouse for your own mobile audience – without the need of additional editorial resources and without spending a lot of time!
If something seems unclear or if you have any questions, please don’t worry – you can contact us at any time. We are always happy to help!
Add content via URL
tchop is not a classic content management system, but much more a highly efficient content curation platform! Digital content can be easily imported and thus linked in the app – in any form and structure and with the correct comment and context.
The principle is very simple: every content on the Internet has a URL – regardless of whether it’s an article or link, a social media post or an image. Simply copy the corresponding URL into the input field at the top of the respective mix. tchop then automatically imports the content and links it accordingly in the app.
tchop automatically recognizes what type of content it is and creates the right card with the correct format. Before you save and publish the content, you can of course edit everything or simply add a personal comment or headline.
The good thing: user will always stay inside your app also when they consume any kind of third party content.
There are also other settings for cards which you can play with, but we will come to that later.
Sort cards and mixes
Cards in the dashboard are not only easy to create, but just as easy to sort into different sections. tchop calls those categories “mixes”. Sorting simply works by drag & drop from one mix to another.
With drag & drop you can also change the order of the sections in no time and adapt them to your current needs. Everything is fully dynamic and visible for users in your app instantly after the next reload.
You can also read about the structure of channels, mixes and cards here.
Integrate content feeds
However, content cannot only be imported manually in the form of individual cards. News feeds from any source can be integrated – automatically and very easily. The magic feature is called “integration”! Slack users will know what we mean…😁
The corresponding tab on the left side of the dashboard gives you an overview. There you will find the selection of the various standard integrations – from RSS feed import to website scraping, from Twitter to Facebook, from Instagram to Youtube or even a Slack integraion. You can connect integrations easily as an administrator. But we are also happy to help our customers integrate the various feeds and sources – just talk to us.
A pro tip: for each integration, you can choose from multiple settings. You can for instance set whether the content should be published automatically or not. This is especially helpful if you first want to check, comment on or edit certain content. Basically you can use your dashboard as an unlimited aggregation platform and publish only few selected pieces. There are no limits!
If you want to learn a little more about the integration of feeds of all kinds, a look at this page is recommended.
Send push notifications
Push messages are one of the most important smartphone inventions. They are one of the best ways to quickly communicate important information and content. They are also an important “user loyalty tool” because these messages reach your audience outside the app on the lock screen as well as in the so-called notification center.
At tchop, push notifications can be easily sent via the dashboard. You can schedule the messages or send them directly. You can also link any content in or outside the app via a URL. This way your users land directly on an important article, a survey, a podcast or a video.
If you want to know more about push notifications, there is a detailed blog post here.
Reach the dashboard within the app
The editorial dashboard for creating, managing and publishing content is easy to understand and intuitive to use. The best thing: It´s fully responsive and can also be used well on mobile – on any smartphone or tablet PC. There even is a shortcut in the app: administrators and editors can access the dashboard in the app by clicking on your logo in the top left.
This way, content in the app can not only be read, but also changed, deleted, published and much more on the go. You can even send push notifications to your users from here. A full mobile content editing suite!
Share content on the go
tchop makes it very easy to share content in your own app and even from other apps. You don’t have to learn anything new. Sharing works as easily as you are used to from the well-known social network or chat apps.
In other iOS apps, you usually start the process simply using the share button. In the menu you will find your own app alongside the other mentioned apps that you use every day to share content. You can simply select channel and mix, edit or comment on texts.
IMPORTANT: if you don’t see your app in the selection on your iPhone or iPad at first, you have to scroll to the right and click on “More”. Then you will see a list of apps and you can activate your app here and move it forward. Then content can be shared faster and more conveniently.
Of course, you (or any user you assign the necesscary rights) can also add content in the app using the button at the bottom of the news feed. You can take photos or videos, upload them from the media library or share links copied on the clipboard (very useful!).
In this blog post we explain in detail how the addition of content works from other apps. And here we explain further how you can empower all or certain users to also share content same ways.
Select the perfect teaser template
Successful mobile news apps today live from an appealing, up to date news feed. Therefore the news feed needs to provide not just exciting content, but it also needs to be visually appealing and diversified. If everything looks the same, it quickly gets boring for the user. tchop therefore enables article cards and links to be presented with three different teaser styles. Important things can be distinguished from less important ones, your own content can be presented big and curated third party content rather small.
The teaser style can be easily set in each card’s edit mode in the “Teaser Image Style” field. There you can choose between four different options.
In the upper area of each mix, the teaser style can also be automated for all new cards that have been automatically added, for example, through integration. In this way, you can specify that, for example, all articles from a particular source should always have a small or large teaser.
If you want to know more about the possibilities, how and where you can manage teasers, then please follow this link.
Control your news feed
The news feed is the central point where users supposed to find latest, most relevant content. As a default setting the news feed contains a chronological order of all cards nt from all published mixes. However, there are various ways to adapt the composition of the news feed to your individual needs.
In the edit mode of each mix, you have the option of choose from further settings. For isntance you can exclude the content of a mix from the main feed. The mix then remains available in the overview, but the content does not appear in the news feed. n fact that gives you the opportunity to separate mixes and news feed completely.
You can also allow certain users to post content in dedicated mixes (see more on that below). Or you can make one mix more easily available via a separate tab area in the app.
There are lot of options to customise your product proposition. Don´t hesitate to contact us if you have questions.
Benefit from user generated content
The best native apps empower users and tchop provides the perfect base for that. You can not only chat with users or let them comment or like specific content, you can also enable them to post content. And of course you can decide where that content is published, edited or which users are entitled to do that.
Therefore there is a special user role, which you can assign to users. It´s called “Editor Limited”. You can assign this role to single users or all users and of course you can change that anytime.
In the advanced settings of each mix, you can determine whether users with this role are allowed to deliver and post content.
Of course users can use the same well known options in the app to post content in the app or out of other apps via your own branded “sharing extension”.
Feature users who posted content
As the saying goes: Honor to whom honor is due! If users (or members of an editorial team) contribute content, it is of course only fair to display that accordingly. tchop allows you to define exactly how and where user generated content should be presented.
You can set this for each individual card or globally for the respective mix. With that opeion tchop allows you to combine “editorial media” with “social media” in an exciting new way. You can create dedicated news feeds that work like a social feed where all or certain users can post to. Or you can aggregate content from users and filter or edit it in the next step. The possibilities are (almost) endless. You can build a network of curators or experts that post content from a certain niche to enrich your proposition. Or you can
There is so much you can do with it! But most importantly you always have full control over the amount of social integration.