Intro

A "mix" is the heart of the tchop.io platform – it’s far more than just a collection of content. It’s a structured, curated, and dynamic feed optimized for mobile use, combining editorial and user-generated content in one powerful format. It's important to understand this core principle, also as mixes are the base of your communities structure and navigation.

It's the key to create a targeted, up to date and highly relevant content and news offering for your users.

What is a mix?

A mix is a content feed within a channel on the tchop.io platform. It consists of a series of cards, each representing different types of content – such as articles, videos, images, social media posts, links, or discussion threads. These cards are organized in a specific order to tell a compelling story or to convey information effectively.

It's important to understand, that each piece of content (which is organised in "cards" in tchop) must be part of one mix! Always!

Mixes can be tailored around specific themes, such as “Product Updates,” “Team News,” or “Industry Trends.” So it also makes sense to think of mixes as news or content sections.

Mixes are always part of a dedicated channel. You can of course create a diverse and complex logic of content sharing between channels, but essentially each mix is original rooted in one channel. If you want to learn more about the options to sync mixes between channels, please check this post.

How does a mix work?

Each mix is made up of cards, and each card can be customized with different formats and media. You can mix short updates with long-form articles, embed rich media, and even spark community interaction with discussion threads and comments.

This modular approach makes mixes extremely flexible and easy to update or adapt. You can decide where a mix should be displayed. It can be

• part of the news feed

• displayed in some kind of special navigation in a list of mixes (perfect to give users an overview)

• a so called "pinned" mix that users can access in the tab bar of the app with one click

• a horizontal module in the news feed that users can swipe through

You have full control about all these settings and you can "mix" and dynamically change them anytime. Each mix has a mix title and optionally a description and a title image. There also many settings applied to mixes that you can manage and update easily.

Best practices for using mixes

Mixes can be used for thematic news feeds, where new live content is coming in, but also for static content collections, that rarely change and that you can sort and structure the way you like. Some use cases that we often see:

• Theme-based mixes: Build mixes around clear themes or use cases to increase relevance.

• Keep it fresh: Update Mixes regularly to maintain interest and value.

• Encourage participation: Use discussion cards to invite feedback and conversation (eg in a mix called "forum")

• Special events: Create mixes for special events and occasions for limited time

So often mixes host either content covering a certain topic or a certain format (like podcasts or videos). They help you to structure everyhing, wether it is your own or curated content. You can literally "mix" everything up and set up a channel-based structure that suits your users needs best.

Full control

Of course our admin dashboard gives you full control to

• create, publish or delete mixes anytime

• edit and manage mix title, description and image

• assign mixes to parts of your app (overviews, feeds, navigation)

• to adjust settings of each mix to optimise workflows and user features

There is whole bunch of settings applied to each mix, that helps you to set up rules for the way content in this mix is displayed and handled. But also with regards to features like commenting, emoji reactions or the option to share content of this mix.

Rich mix settings

In the edit mode of each mix, that you can find in your admin dashboard, there many interesting settings, that help you to make the most out of the structure. The settings are structured within the following tabs:

• Display: where and how this mix is displayed within your app

• Content: control features applied to content inside this mix, like comments, likes, sharing, updates, but also language or if the user who has posted the content is displayed

• Tags: Assign default visible or hidden tags to a card created inside the mix

• Media: manage and apply copyrights

• Rights: define who can post content in this mix on base of user roles

• Other: Synchronize the position of cards between the source and read only mix, display timestamp on cards inside the mix based on posted or updated time, avoid creating duplicate content in the mix, and define the card limit in the mix.

• Push: automatically send push notifications for all new content cards of this mix

• Sync: to set up a synced mix between channel

So it's totally up to you what you make with and out of each mix. By applying rules for mixes, you save a lot of time and can create a highly automated content curation and aggregation flow, that mixes both owned but also curated content. That mixes manually created content with feeds coming in via integrations.

Summary

Mixes are the foundational format that empowers your content strategy on tchop.io. They enable you to curate, personalize, and distribute content in a way that’s meaningful to your audience. Mixes allow you to

• Structured communication: Group related content in a clear, thematic way.

• Flexibility: Mix and match content types for maximum impact.

• Channel targeting: Customize mixes for different segments of your audience.

• Interactive elements: Include social features comments and discussions to boost engagement.

• Automation: Easy to create, manage, and update on the fly.

If you want to learn more about why mixes give your app content superpowers, get in touch with us anytime.