Raftr Blog

What’s up with the otter? Raftr’s mascot is a sea otter. We chose the otter because sea otters are very social animals that often eat and rest together while floating in connected groups. A group of otters linked together like this is called called a “raft”. Rafts can include hundreds of otters connected with one another by holding paws. We see this as a metaphor for the many communities of people around the world discussing common interests and stories on our platform, which we call rafts for this reason. What do I get if I join a raft? Membership has…

We offer different experiences on Raftr, giving you different options based on interacting with your own university or viewing other active colleges; to make it easy to switch between the two, there is a toggle on your profile by your name. Signing up for an account on Raftr requires a verified .edu email address and your experience will be specific to your school. If you would like to check out other active schools in the app, there is a toggle on your profile enabling you to do so (on iOS only so far). Everyone is able to direct message everyone…

Get Current is our tagline, and it has two meanings. First, Raftr is a place to get current (caught-up) on campus events, memes and communities in your college. Second, current is a measure of your activity on Raftr. We are currently revisiting our current “points” system in the app and will update this blog once it has been reintroduced within the app.

You can change your profile picture or edit your profile description at any time via the Edit Profile button in the header on your profile. You will find other settings, including for notifications, via the gear in the upper right corner of your profile. Through the settings page, you can manage your push notification frequency and events, turn on hints to remind you of all the things you can do on Raftr, find and invite friends to the app, or contact us privately. You will also find find our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service here, as well as a…

Most of the time you will see interesting contributions from people on Raftr. But, every once in awhile, a person will post things you find distasteful or you may find a post you would like to be submitted for our review. As well, while creating your own posts or comments, you might make a keyboard mistake or have second thoughts about your contribution. For these reasons we offer you editing capabilities and flagging, blocking, and reporting tools (designated by three dots on posts). On each chat message, event, post, and comment, you will see three dots in the upper right…

What better way to help others get current and find their people than to share Raftr with them?! We offer a variety of ways to do so, depending on what you want to share. So you have an account on Raftr and want to invite some friends to join you? We have several, seamless options to help! Whether you would like to share a community, content, or a conversation, we provide the means to do so. Sharing Communities - aka: Rafts: To share a raft you have three options (see below for where to find them): Copy link: Tap the…

Rafts have three different privacy setting choices (public, private, and secret), which relate to how accessible your raft is to find and join by new members. For rafts designated as private, this setting also allows you to customize how open your posts and chat content will be for viewing by non-members. For example, you might want to restrict membership, but still allow your posts to be available in the “Popular” Posts feed and “All rafts” Events feed filter for non-members to see an event you want to advertise or to attract potential new members. More details on each privacy setting…

Once you have created a raft, you will have the opportunity to update many of its settings. These choices will allow you to set-up your raft to be tailored for the community of members you wish to attract. It is a good idea to keep these refreshed. Rafts you create have many modifiable components to customize the experience for your raft members (these settings are coming soon to Android and web, but if you’d like help before they’re on those platforms please let us know via ask@raftr.com). The following elements of a raft may be updated through settings menu (which…

You’ve created a new raft. Congratulations! The next step is to build your community by attracting new members to join your raft and inspire conversations. The more active your raft is, the more enticing and engaging it will be to existing members, as well as to potential new members. The best ways to attract people are to keep your rafts active by posting, commenting and chatting regularly, and to respond to others’ posts and messages in a timely manner. Another benefit of having an active raft is that activity increases the chances that rafts will show up in the discovery…

It is easy to create a raft, but the real fun comes from building a community. Rafts can be created by anybody on Raftr. We provide tools to customize, build, and manage your community; this is a big responsibility, but it is very rewarding. It is important to keep your raft vibrant and attract broad membership; we delete rafts that do not achieve this to free up their names for others that wish to take on this responsibility. To create a raft, use the + button on the bottom of the screen, which is used for creating all new content…