Tendenci Blog

Tendenci clients that are really rocking the Photos Module

We just wanted to remind you about our great Tendenci Photos Module, a powerful new feature on Tendenci.  We've seen a lot of clients get really creative with their photos and we think it's a great way for organizations to tell their story.

Photos are often the biggest traffic drivers for a site and give you more places to put keyword rich content, which is great for Search Engines.  For inspiration, be sure to check out these organizations that are doing awesome things with their Photo Albums:

1. Out of Africa with the International Festival in Houston
2. PRSA Houston Events to help advance the PR Professional
3. Wildlife at the Houston Zoo
4. Only in Houston Creative Events

If you are a current Tendenci client you have access to the  Web Site Photos Module on your site right now!  Why not maximize the traffic to your site and have some fun while you do it?

Visit our helpfiles to learn how to get started with Photo Albums for your organization!

Don't let your emails get passed over: Customize your sender display

To show the name you want to appear in the "From" field of a recipient's incoming mail when sending out a newsletter you must adjust the Sender Display field . 

What you enter in the Sender Display field will display in your email along with the new Do Not Reply email address. If you leave Sender Display blank, only the new Do Not Reply email address will display in the "From" field  of your recipient's incoming mail.

This is an example of what your newsletter will look like when it hits your recipient's inbox if you use the Sender Display.

The Sender Display field will automatically populate when a newsletter is created with the newsletter creator's name.  The helpfile on how to edit your Sender Display is located here http://tendenci.com/en/helpfiles/v/474.

You must be sure to include your correct address in the ReplyTo field to ensure email replies are sent to your email address. Otherwise, they will be sent to the DO-NOT-REPLY-TENDENCI@schipul.net and will not make it to your inbox, which would be sad.

For more information on why we use DO-NOT-REPLY-TENDENCI@schipul.net, please read our helpfile: What is DO-NOT-REPLY-TENDENCI@schipul.net

Holiday Spam getting you down?

If you are noticing increased amounts of SPAM on your Tendenci site, there are a few things you can do about it.

Here are a few:

1. Enable CAPTCHA on custom CMS forms - Visit the help file on how to do this: http://www.tendenci.com/en/helpfiles/v/467
2. To enable CAPTCHA on your contact form you just need to activate this command in the site XML. Visit the help file on how to do this: http://www.tendenci.com/en/helpfiles/v/468
3. Lastly, you can block email addresses from submitting forms from your site. - Visit the help file on how to do this: http://www.tendenci.com/en/helpfiles/v/466

If you need assistance, please contact support@schipul.com or call 281.497.6567 ext. 411.

Idea on how your Organization could use the Tendenci Photo Gallery Module!

Hey All Tendenci lovers!

I hope your holiday was great!  Most of you have heard of the Tendenci Photo Gallery Module. If you have not, it is module that allows users/admins to upload and organize photos on your Tendenci site.

Visit the help file that shows you how to add a photo gallery to your site.  It is super easy and fun!

If you are wondering how you can use the photo galleries module to assist you with your marketing efforts.  Here is one idea...

1. If you host or attend an event that is relevant to your industry, take photos!
2. Upload the photos to your Tendenci site using the photo albums module.
3. Link the album from the home page of your site or within the navigation.
4. If you take photos of people within your organization at the event, send a newsletter to your members with a link to the gallery. People love to see pictures of themselves!

This should help to promote your organization for other events you may host. Don't forget to tag your photos in the gallery so that when people search the internet for event photos that will find your gallery!

Get creative and have fun!  Happy New Year!

Designing newsletters for Outlook 2007

Have you played around with Outlook 2007 yet?  There are some great features, but also a few changes that make a big difference in how your email works.

Our Creative Director Tim Newton came up with some helpful tips and tricks for designing a newsletter to play friendly in Outlook 2007.  You can read the entire Help File here with great visuals and explanations, but read on for the short and sweet version:

1. Design your layout without any background colors or images - but creative with border or backgrounds that blend into the layout! (see the newsletter image to the left as an example)
2. You can use a tiled background in Outlook 2007, but must put it into the body tag and specify the image path like this:
   
   <style type="text/css" media="screen">
       body {
           margin: 0px;
           padding: 0px;
           color: #666;
           background: #5a200e url("http://www.creativeleak.com/images/nl1/bg_Tile.gif")  } 
   </style>
3. Background colors can be used in a table or a div, but only if there's not another table or div inside of it.
4. Try adding these elements to your email designs but remember, the key to any good looking design is what the content looks like

Too busy to design an Outlook 2007-friendly newsletter?  Contact us today and let us know what our awesome design team can create for your organization!

Monetizing your association's Web site

Want some ideas on how to help make your Web site work for you?  Check out these revenue generating tips from Ed Schipul's article:

1. Membership fees – Organizations can increase membership and generate profit from their event online registrations and having a healthy organization.
2. Job listings – Job boards are a proven money maker, with association Web sites like www.ppag.org and www.haf.org benefiting financially.  This is a valuable service to provide your members as it helps connect companies to good people and brings in extra dollars to grow your organization.
3. Business Directories – Tendenci's business directory module is another proven money maker, for example Only in Houston's Creative Directory Listing. Some organizations choose to offer this as a member privilege, while others open the directory up to any and all interested businesses. Either way, it's a valuable component of your association's Web site.
4. Newsletter sponsorships – Newsletter and email sponsorship opportunities, for the right vertical market, can produce great results! 
5. Courses – Association Web sites like www.pharmacytechnician.org charge for continuing education through Tendenci with great success. Their pricing model is around $7 per course, or free with membership, which also drives membership.
6. New lead generation – People being found on Tendenci sites typically renew their membership in that organization. This isn't able to be directly tracked back to Tendenci like Membership Fees, but overall a healthy organization brings in more members and makes a profit.
7. Banner Ads – Banner ad click through rates are rapidly decreasing, but it *is* a valid way to get brand impressions and does drive some traffic while providing revenue to the organization. www.spegcs.org is a good example of this.

How are you making YOUR Web site work for your organization?  Let us know - we love to hear your success stories!

Want to know who your Web site's top contributors are?

Ever wonder who your Web site's top contributors are?   Wouldn't it be nice to know who is helping your organization grow online?

Tendenci makes it easy for you to see who has added the most content to your Web site.  Learn how to view your Top Contributors at the click of a button by reading this help file here.  Transparency is great!

Picture this - pretty up your user profile

Want to put a face to a name?  Encourage your users to personalize their profiles on your site by uploading their photo.  This is a great way to ensure members can recognize each other at your next meeting or conference - no more staring at nametags all day!

It couldn't be easier to upload an image to your profile:

1. View your user profile
2. Click the gray profile photo box (the one with the big question mark in it)
3. Browse your computer for your image
4. Click submit and voila - your profile just got friendlier!

Before:

After:

Put a face with that name!

Did you know you can upload photos of your members to your site? Members (and admins) can view their profile and click the Upload your Picture! link.

Turn your members directory into a facebook! It's easy and a great way for your members to get to know each other!!

Do you have a category called "Category"?

Does your Search Articles page show a category called "Category" lumped in with your real categories? Do you have a "SubCategory" too??

These were set up during the development process to populate your category lists. Now that you have real data on your site, you can get rid of these generic category labels.

Just go to your Site Variables listing for your site and find the one for Articles Category. Change the default name from "Category" to a basic category you currently use on your site, such as "Member News" or "Community Events". Do the same for Articles Subcategory.

Use this same process to get rid of the generic categories in Directories.

Not sure how to change your site variables? Contact Schipul at 281.497.6567 and anyone here can walk you through it!

Hot Tip - Get fax happy with Tendenci

Save a few minutes of your day by using your Tendenci site to generate fax cover sheets for you.   Search for the sendee in your Web site's membership database and click on the 'Fax' icon (see below) to get the process started.

From here you get an automatically generated fax sheet with editable fields for you to type in document page numbers, subject and notes -- all with you and your contact's information already filled in.  Just another little way that Tendenci makes your life easier...

Chat it up on your Web site

Did you know that you can incorporate chat boxes on your Web site without downloading or installing a single piece of software?

Using a free program like Gabbly, you can embed a chat window onto a CMS page on your Tendenci site and enjoy immediate communication with as many members or clients as you like.

This is a fantastic tool to use during a conference, meeting or brainstorming session.  Now having members in multiple physical locations doesn't have to be such a headache.  Chat boxes are also a great way to collaborate online without even having to pick up the phone. 

Read our help file on adding chat sessions to your site here.

Posting opinion pieces on your site

Tendenci is powerful in its ability to give all of your members a voice.  Distributed authorship is great not only because it gives your Web site new and interesting content, but also because it keeps your membership active and engaged.
But sometimes you may want to make the distinction between an opinion-based piece of content posted by a member and a more objective one written/posted by your organization.

No problem - you are able to label any article with a disclaimer stating that it is a piece of 'unofficial content' by following these easy steps.

What not to do when adding new content to your site

Schipul loves to repeat the 'Content is King' mantra.  By now you may be tired of hearing it, but it's true!  Fresh content really is important to your search engine ranking and the way your users interact with your site and your organization. 

Everyone likes to be able to add content to their site quickly and easily - which is one of the great things about the Tendenci software.  However, some users have found that one of the fastest ways to do this is by re-activating OLD content.  Not a good thing to do.

Example - An already expired job position comes open again and instead of creating a new job and posting it, an administrator re-activates that original (old) job listing.  Don't let this happen to you!

But why is activating old content on your Tendenci site so bad?:

1. Dates matter to the search engines.
   You may be able to trick your human users into believing they are seeing new info, but search engines still remember the original add date and are likely to NOT score your old reactivated page.  Yikes!
2. Dates matter to humans.
   Your users DO notice the low numbered ID for the listing. Would you rather attend an event that is number 5 or 500? Doesn’t the latter seem more alive and current?
3. RSS!
   RSS feeds pull your site's information based on the content's creation date and time in the database. You may not be able to see this date information, but it is there hiding on every object. Extending an expiration date will NOT put your content back in the RSS feeds. This is by design RSS feeds are supposed to be new content. New is cool!

The moral of the story is to always add new content as new content.  Doing so will keep the search engines, your site users and your RSS feeds happy and up-to-date.  Happy content adding!