Adding WhatsApp Sharing to Email Templates

Please note: This article refers to an outdated method of adding WhatsApp sharing to email templates. For newer ControlShift users, WhatsApp will be added to your email templates automatically after it's been added as an available sharing channel.

Organizations interested in allowing supporters to easily share petitions and events on WhatsApp can add WhatsApp as a sharing option from their organization's Settings > Social Media page. Once enabled, the WhatsApp share option will be automatically included in the post-action share prompts and the sharing sections of event and petition pages.

To enable WhatsApp sharing in your organizations emails (including the thank you for signing/RSVPing email, thank you for creating email, and blast email templates for creators), you'll first need to check if your organization is using our most up-to-date templates.

Template Version

To check your organization's template version, a good place to start is the thank you for creating a petition and thank you for signing emails. These emails are usually among the first to be customized or translated, and are therefore normally a good test for your organization's version. To see these templates go to the admin homepage > Settings > Content > Emails. If you see the {% social_share_buttons %} variable, good news! Your organization is using updated templates and the WhatsApp button will be added automatically.

If, instead of {% social_share_buttons %}, you see HTML buttons with variables like {% facebook_share_url %}, it means that your organization is using older templates. You can replace your existing HTML for the share buttons with{% social_share_buttons %} or proceed by adding new HTML to your template to include a WhatsApp button.

For the latter option, you can customize the HTML used for your new WhatsApp share button. If you're not sure where to get started, here's an example code snippet.

<a href="{% whatsapp_share_url %}" style="text-decoration:none"><span style="background-color:#25d366;border:solid 1px #660000;text-decoration:none;color:#ffffff;padding:10px 18px;font-weight:bold">SHARE ON WHATSAPP</span></a>

When the signer or attendee clicks the Share on WhatsApp button, we'll open Whatsapp and use your organization's WhatsApp Share Text for the default message. (The WhatsApp default message is set by going to Settings  > Content > Social > WhatsApp Share Text.)