Theme

Follow Button

Overview

The Follow Button lets readers follow a topic, team or author, such as "+ Follow Arsenal". After a click it shows "✓ Following Arsenal". Readers who follow can click again to unfollow; on larger screens the button shows "Unfollow Arsenal" when they point at it.

What a reader follows is saved to their profile, so you can build segments of followers and send them content they care about.

Before you start

Each topic needs its own Yes/No profile field, such as "Follows Arsenal". Create it in Data Management > User Data > Data Schema, or with the Create a field link in the experience. See Profile Fields.

Set up

Go to Audience Operation > Experience and click New Experience.
Pick Follow Button, then click Next Step.
Enter a Name, choose the Project and turn on Enable.
Set the settings:

Setting	What it does
Saved to field	The Yes/No profile field you choose for this topic. Required.
What is followed	The name shown on the button, e.g. "Arsenal" for "+ Follow Arsenal". If you leave it empty, the button says "+ Follow".
Button colour	The colour of the button.

Click Save Changes. The preview shows the button before and after a reader follows.

Create one Follow Button experience per topic.

Put it on your pages

Place the button where it should appear, for example on the topic, team or author page. Copy the snippet from the experience, which fills in its ID, or replace EXPERIENCE_ID yourself:

<div data-exp="unis-follow-button" data-exp-id="EXPERIENCE_ID"></div>

You can leave out data-exp-id. The button then uses the Follow Button experience delivered to the page. When you have more than one topic, keep the ID so each button follows the right one.

To show a different name on one page, whatever the experience setting, add data-label:

<div
  data-exp="unis-follow-button"
  data-exp-id="EXPERIENCE_ID"
  data-label="the Gunners"
></div>

Readers who are not signed in

When a reader who is not signed in clicks the button, the sign-up window opens. Once they have signed up or logged in, the topic is followed for them.

Use followers in segments

Following sets the field you chose to Yes, and unfollowing sets it to No. Use the field in Segments, for example the field equals Yes, to target followers with experiences, emails and journeys.

See the Follow Button experience and Set up experiences on your website.