Tips for Creators

While many organizations have strategies to drive potential petition creators and event hosts to their platform, it's equally important for organizations to have a plan to support creators throughout the life of their campaign or event. 

ControlShift has various features built into the platform to help organizations successfully support these leaders.

Customized Help for Creator Tools

Each of the petition and event creator tools: email supporters, offline signature and attendee collection, petition delivery, etc. have text on the page to help petition creators and event hosts use their tools successfully. While ControlShift provides default text in English, organizations can customize the text with the specific tips and tricks that they want to provide for their creators. This text can be customized from Settings > Content > Petition Manage and Settings > Content > Events.

We recommend reviewing the ControlShift's default text and potentially refining it for your organization's context. In particular, the blast email templates provided to leaders (and customizable from Settings > Content > Blast Emails) can be tailored to the types of campaigns and events you envision your supporters leading.  Additionally, the help text for a campaign's delivery and event pages can be updated to your organization's specific context.

Training Pages for Creators

Both events and petitions also have a Training page. This page provides an overview of how to run a successful campaign or event. It generally covers the full lifecycle of an action – from initial setup, through the bulk of the action, and into the follow up stages – including tips for actions outside of ControlShift. Remember that this may be the first campaign or public event your supporter has lead, and the Training page should include help for leaders with varying levels of experience.

We provide default content for both petitions and events, but you may wish to customize the tips for your organization.  The text on the training page is customizable from Settings > Content > Petition Manage and Settings > Content > Events. Some customizations you may want to incorporate: specific examples from campaigns or events that have been run on your site, which member of staff leaders should contact if they have questions, etc.

Banners 

In addition to the training pages, ControlShift will show automatic banners as the campaigns and events reach different milestones.

These banners provide less detail than the Training pages and are meant to provide a series of quick tips for how to best use ControlShift's tools to engage their audience. 

Petitions

For petitions, the new banners will guide creators through different stages of their campaign, starting with basic to-dos and continuing through more advanced stages of the campaign. The rules for petition banners are:

1. If the petition has just launched, we'll show the regular social share banner.
2. When the social share banner is dismissed or the user returns to the petition page, if the petition is not inappropriate/spam/suppressed and the initial to-do steps have not been completed, we'll show the initial to-do banner. The initial to-do banner will include prompts to upload an image, set categories (if your organization is using categories), and share on social media.
3. Once the banner is completed, if the petition has at least 25 subscribed signers and the leader has not yet sent an email, we'll show the email banner.
4. Once an email has been sent, if events are available and the leader has not yet created an event, we'll  show the event banner.
5. If events are not available or a petition event has already been created, and if there are at least 100 signatures and there hasn't been a user-written update in the past 2 weeks, we'll show the "add an update" banner.
6. Otherwise, we'll show no banner.

Events

Similarly, for events, the banners will guide hosts through the stages of hosting a successful event – from initial setup, to contacting their attendees, and following up after their event. The rules for event banners are: 

1. If the event was just launched, we'll show the regular social share banner.
2. Once the sharing banner is dismissed or when the host returns to the event page, if the event is in the future and the host has not completed the initial to-do steps, we'll show the initial to-do banner. The banner will prompt the host to choose an image for their event and share the event on social media.
3. Once the to-do steps have been completed, if the event ended 0-5 days ago and the host has not sent an email in that time period, we'll show the "report back" banner.
4. Otherwise, if the event starts in the future and has at least 3 attendees and host has not sent any emails, show the "send an email" banner.
5. Otherwise, we'll show no banner.