Every company wants good user engagement and product adoption to drive their revenue. However, the level of adoption depends on multiple factors, including how timely and frequently you can update or nudge users to take some desired action on your application.
One powerful way to achieve these goals is by integrating an activity feed into your application. Activity feeds serve as dynamic, real-time streams of relevant notifications, offering insights into what’s happening across a platform.
They not only enhance user experience but also improve communication and productivity. Let’s explore the benefits of adding an activity feed to your B2B product and how it can streamline your user experience.
What is an Activity Feed?
Activity feed is commonly used by social media platforms or collaboration products to display real-time or periodic stream of updates related to all user actions within an application or project. It acts as a centralized space where users can quickly access critical information about user actions, content changes, new interactions, or system-generated events, making it easier to track projects and collaborate with team members.
Activity Feed vs. Notification Feed
While activity feeds and notification feeds look similar, they serve distinct purposes:
- Activity Feed:
- Displays a broad stream of updates, encompassing all relevant actions and changes within the application.
- Provides a centralized view of what’s happening, whether or not the user is tagged to it.t.
- Designed to give users a comprehensive overview for org or account level activities to track progress or stay updated on latest changes and trends.monitoring changes.
- End goal is to increase user stickiness and retention by feeding them engaging updates.
- Notification Feed:
- Focuses only on updates that the user has been explicitly notified about.
- Often user-configurable, allowing individuals to select the type of alerts they want to receive.
- Ensures users don’t miss critical updates by surfacing only prioritized content.
- End goal is to notify users about in-product actions or send them higher longevity content that they can refer to at a later date.
Benefits of Integrating an Activity Feed
1. Boost User Engagement
Activity feeds encourage users to interact with the platform regularly by surfacing relevant updates and actions in real-time or periodically. The visibility of these updates ensures that users are constantly aware of what's happening, prompting them to respond to comments, review changes, or address pending tasks.
2. Prolonged Session Duration and Improved Retention
Activity feeds naturally increase session duration by providing a dynamic stream of information. Users are more likely to stay engaged when updates are readily available, creating a habit of revisiting the platform. This continuous interaction contributes to higher user retention and builds long-term value for the product.
3. Centralized Trail of Company-Level Activities
In B2B environments, collaboration across teams and departments is essential. Activity feeds serve as a centralized repository for tracking key actions and updates across the organization, such as project milestones, team member contributions, or client interactions. This transparency enhances accountability and ensures everyone stays informed about company level activties and updates.
4. Ideal for Broadcasting Group Messages
Activity feeds are an excellent medium for disseminating group-wide announcements or updates, such as policy changes, new feature rollouts, or important company milestones. By integrating these messages directly into the feed, users can access them alongside their regular updates, ensuring visibility without disrupting their workflow.
5. Enhancing Communication and Transparency
Activity feeds improve communication by providing real-time visibility into team activities, project updates, and key events. Centralizing information ensures that all stakeholders stay informed about the latest developments.
This transparency helps teams collaborate more efficiently and reduces the need for constant follow-up emails or meetings, saving time and effort.
6. Getting real-time insights of customer behaviour
An activity feed benefits the users and provides the product team with valuable insights into user behavior. You can gather actionable data on what content or features are most engaging by tracking user interactions with the feed, such as clicks, comments, and reactions.
Types of Activity Feeds
Before jumping into the implementation, let’s look at the types of activity feeds and which one best suits your product’s and user’s needs. You’ll be using one or combination of these feeds in your product depending on the usecase.
An effective activity feed implementation can vary depending on the product's and users' needs. Here are three key types of activity feeds, each serving a distinct purpose:
1. Flat Feeds
Flat feeds present updates as they arrive, chronological order, with each event listed as 1 notification . These feeds are generally shown in reverse chronological order so that users can see the latest update on top.
Characteristics:
- Events appear as they occur, with no grouping or filtering.
- Best suited for use cases where instant update and maintaining the exact order of actions is crucial, such as activity logs or feeds.
- Ideal for applications demanding transparency and immediacy.
Examples:
- Social media Platforms like linkedin, twitter showing latest updates from followings or industry leaders
- A project management tool logging task updates or assignments sequentially.
Advantages:
- Easy to implement and understand.
- Provides complete visibility into every action without alteration or filtering.
Drawbacks:
- Can become overwhelming for users if there is a high volume of updates. A good practice here is to use threading (like Jira) to club updates related to same task or user together to give real-time updates without compromising on user experience.
2. Aggregated Feeds
Aggregated feeds group similar or related updates into a single summarized event, reducing clutter and improving readability.
Characteristics:
- Combines repetitive or related actions into concise summaries.
- Helps users focus on the overall context rather than individual events.
- Often uses algorithms or rules to identify and group related events.
Examples:
- A notification that says, “John and 3 others commented on your post,” instead of showing four separate updates.
- Summaries like “12 new tasks added to the project today.”
Advantages:
- Reduces cognitive overload by avoiding an overwhelming number of updates.
- Improves efficiency by presenting users with concise and actionable information.
Drawbacks:
- Updates are not sent in real-time since they are batched and sent at a periodic interval. You can instead use self updating notifications where the first notification is sent immediately like “John commented on your post” and then updates when other users comment to “John+3 others commented on your post.
3. Notification Feeds
Notification feeds are personalized user feeds used to show alerts targeted to the user, generally used to send updates related or relevant to the user.
Characteristics:
- Alerts users about actions that directly involve them, such as comments on their posts, mentions, or approvals needed.
- Often configurable, allowing users to select the types of notifications they want to see.
Examples:
- “Your document was approved by the manager.”
- “You were mentioned in a comment on the marketing plan.”
Advantages:
- Ensures users never miss critical updates tailored to their needs.
- Prioritizes critical actions, increasing user productivity and satisfaction.
Drawbacks:
- Risk of notification fatigue if not properly managed or personalized.
How Activity Feeds Work
Activity feeds capture, process, and display real-time data based on user interactions. This involves backend event handling, front-end rendering, and interactivity elements to enhance the experience. Here's a detailed breakdown of how they work:
Key Components of an Effective Activity Feed
1. Relevance
Personalized content ensures users see updates most pertinent to them, reducing information overload.
Technical Aspects of Relevance:
- User Segmentation: Assigning updates to specific user groups based on roles, preferences, or behaviors.
- Content Personalization: Algorithms analyze user activity patterns to prioritize updates most relevant to them.
- Example: A project management tool might prioritize updates on tasks assigned to the user.
- Dynamic Filtering: Backend systems employ filtering mechanisms to deliver user-specific updates while ignoring irrelevant ones.
Implementation Techniques:
- Machine Learning Models: Predict which updates are most relevant to a user based on their past interactions.
- Metadata Tagging: Tagging events with categories, allowing users to filter based on interests or roles.
- Custom Settings: Enable users to adjust feed preferences for greater control over what they see.
2. Timeliness
Deliver updates in real-time or near-real-time to maintain user trust and engagement.
Technical Aspects of Timeliness:
- Real-Time Event Handling: Backend systems use event-driven architecture to process updates instantly.
- Example: Queueing engines like Kafka or AWS Kinesis ensure low-latency event streaming.
- Push Mechanisms:
- WebSockets: Provides a persistent connection between the client and server for instant updates.
- Server-Sent Events (SSE): A lightweight alternative for streaming updates in real-time.
- Polling: Periodic requests to the server for new updates when real-time streams are unavailable.
Implementation Challenges:
- Scalability: Handling millions of simultaneous users without delay.
- Concurrency Management: Ensuring updates are delivered without duplication or loss.
User Experience Enhancements:
- Show a loading spinner for updates in progress or implement a "new updates available" indicator to notify users of fresh content.
3. Interactivity
Include interactive elements in the notification like action buttons, hyperlinks, inline actions (reply, comment, share) to encourage user participation. Also, give options to change notification state (read, unread, archive) on a notification feed.
Technical Aspects of Interactivity:
- Click action handling: maintaining button states (loading, disabled, enabled) when it is clicked.
- Custom Click handling for inline actions: Allowing relevant function to be executed when an inline action button is clicked.
- Cross-browser sync for notification state change: Give mark as read, unread, archive, delete on a feed to change the state of the feed and updating the same real-time across all user devices and browsers.
Backend Considerations:
- Event Logging: Each interaction (e.g., a like) is logged as a separate event for analytics and auditing.
- State Management: Tools like Redux or MobX help manage the state of interactive elements in the frontend.
Analytics:
User Interactions are really important to track how your notifications are performing. Maintaining the state when user reads or clicks on a notification and storing it in your db
Tracking user interactions like clicks, likes, and comments provides valuable insights into feature usage and feed effectiveness.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Adding an Activity Feed
When integrating an activity feed into your B2B product, there are a few pitfalls to avoid:
1. Too many alerts
Overloading users with irrelevant updates dilutes the value of the activity feed and overwhelms users, leading to notification fatigue. To maintain an optimal signal-to-noise ratio, focus on surfacing only the most relevant and actionable updates. Implement:
- Filters and prioritization algorithms to display updates based on user roles, preferences, or activity history.
- Customizable user settings that allow individuals to choose the type and frequency of updates they want to see.
2. Ensuring a Clear and Intuitive Design
A poorly designed activity feed can confuse and frustrate users, reducing its utility. To enhance usability, prioritize:
- Visual hierarchy: Highlight critical updates using design elements like font weight, color, or icons, while deemphasizing less important information.
- Responsive layouts: Ensure the feed is easy to navigate across devices, whether users access it on desktops, tablets, or mobile phones.
- Categorization: Use tags, filters, or collapsible sections to organize updates logically, helping users quickly find relevant information.
3. Building for Scalability
As your platform grows, the activity feed must handle increasing data volumes without sacrificing performance or usability. To ensure scalability:
- Efficient data architecture: Use technologies like indexing, batching, and pagination to manage large data streams.
- Real-time updates: Leverage WebSockets or event-driven architecture for real-time delivery while maintaining efficient resource use.
- Load balancing and caching: Reduce server strain and latency by employing caching mechanisms for frequently accessed data and distributing loads across multiple servers.
- Content density management: Avoid overloading the feed by aggregating similar events or introducing smart grouping, such as combining repetitive updates into a single summary.
B2B SaaS Activity Feed Examples for Inspiration
To help visualize how an activity feed can be implemented, here are a few examples from leading B2B SaaS products:
- HubSpot: HubSpot’s activity feed provides users with detailed updates on email campaigns and interactions, enabling them to track engagement and follow up with leads. It’s a great example of how an activity feed can improve sales and marketing workflows.
- Atlassian Confluence: The activity feed in Confluence helps teams collaborate by showing recent document updates, comments, and reactions. It enhances transparency and makes it easy to keep track of team contributions.
- Figma: Figma’s activity feed shows users’ interactions in real-time, enabling teams to effectively engage with the design or wireframes directly on tha platform. This kind of feed enables team collaboration effectively.
Essential Features of an Effective Activity Feed
To create an impactful activity feed, certain features are crucial for usability and engagement.
1. Unread Message Indicators
Clearly highlight unread updates to draw users’ attention to new information.
Key Benefits:
- Improved User Attention: Ensures users quickly identify new or pending updates.
- Task Prioritization: Helps users focus on critical actions requiring immediate attention.
Technical Implementation:
- Read/Unread States: Use backend flags to track whether an update has been viewed.
- Visual Cues: Add icons, bold text, or badges to distinguish unread updates.
- Push Notifications: Pair unread indicators with notifications for critical updates.
2. Filtering
Allow users to sort updates by type, importance, or other criteria for a personalized experience.
Key Benefits:
- Reduced Clutter: Lets users hide irrelevant updates, improving clarity.
- Enhanced User Control: Users can prioritize what they see based on their preferences.
Technical Implementation:
- Dynamic Filters: Provide dropdowns or tags for users to filter updates (e.g., “mentions,” “tasks,” or “comments”).
- Saved Preferences: Store user-specific filter settings for a consistent experience.
- Role-Based Filtering: Display updates based on the user’s role or permissions.
Activity Feed Best Practices
Adhering to best practices ensures the feed remains effective, scalable, and user-friendly.
1. Prioritize User-Relevant Updates
Through intelligent filtering, surface the most critical updates for each user.
Tips for Implementation:
- Contextual Relevance: Use behavioral data to determine which updates are most important.
- Notification Management: Allow users to customize notification preferences to avoid information overload.
2. Ensure Intuitive and Mobile-Friendly Design
Design the feed to be easy to use across all devices.
Design Principles:
- Responsive Layouts: Use scalable UI frameworks to ensure the feed adapts to different screen sizes.
- Visual Hierarchy: Highlight important updates with font weight, colors, or icons.
- Touch-Friendly Elements: Ensure buttons and links are large enough for easy tapping on mobile devices.
3. Regularly Optimize for Performance and Scalability
As the platform and user base grow, ensure the feed continues to perform efficiently.
Optimization Techniques:
- Efficient Data Fetching: Use pagination or infinite scrolling to load updates incrementally.
- Caching: Implement caching strategies for frequently accessed data to reduce server load.
- Scalable Architecture: Use distributed databases and load balancers to handle increasing traffic.
Building an Activity Feed with SuprSend
When it comes to implementing an activity feed in your product, SuprSend eliminates the need to build it from scratch. With its powerful and flexible notification systems, you can easily plug in an activity feed that’s ready to use, reducing development time and effort. Here’s how you can get started:
Sign Up and Set Up: Create a SuprSend account and configure your project settings.
Design Workflow: Identify the key user actions or events you want to capture in the feed (e.g., project updates, user interactions). You can use SuprSend’s SDKs to set it up quickly.
Drag and Drop Component: Instead of building from the ground up, SuprSend’s pre-built app inbox component allows you to simply embed the feed into your platform. The drag-and-drop functionality ensures a seamless integration process, providing users with a dynamic and visually appealing stream of updates.
Embed the Feed: Use SuprSend’s app inbox component code to embed the activity feed into your platform, providing users with a seamless stream of updates.
Built-in notification preferences: Preferences enable users to opt out of specific notification categories, select preferred communication channels, and control notification frequency. This reduces the risk of users disabling all notifications while enhancing their experience with granular control.
How It Works:
Every user has a preference set in SuprSend, ensuring they only receive notifications in categories and channels they haven't opted out of. Defaults apply when preferences aren't explicitly set, providing a fallback mechanism.
Preference sets operate at three levels:
- Channel Preferences: Opt-in or opt-out of entire channels.
- Categories: Group notifications into user-friendly categories.
- Opt-out Channels: Fine-tune preferences for specific categories.
Example: A user opts out of emails and invoice-related notifications but chooses to receive payment reminders, except via Slack.
Trigger Notification:
Voila, you are ready with your activity feed in less than 1 hour.
Other benefits of using SuprSend’s activity feed
- Advanced workflow logic: like batching, timezone awareness, multi-lingual, self-updating notifications, and threading (grouping based on user or a topic), can be achieved with ease.
- Built for scale and with push systems: Your activity feed is always real-time without you having to worry about storing or fetching the data.
For more details, you can refer to SuprSend’s documentation for building an efficient activity feed.
Conclusion
Adding an activity feed to your B2B product can significantly enhance communication, engagement, and user experience.
Centralizing updates and streamlining workflows keeps users informed and productive, while providing valuable insights into how they interact with your platform.
Whether you're looking to boost collaboration, reduce task-switching, or simply offer a better user experience, an activity feed is a powerful tool that can drive the success of your B2B SaaS product.
You can start building one with SuprSend today.
