Social Democrat Training | cStreet Campaigns

Social Democrat Training

These training documents are a work in progress. If there is anything unclear or you would like some additional instructions or best practices email [email protected]

To have a conversation about any of the topics here or ask for elaboration, please click through to the topic page and ask your question in the comments. We'll receive a notification and respond as soon as we can. You should also feel free to use the comments to start conversations with other Social Democrat users!

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  1. What is the Social Democrat theme?
    2. The social democrat theme is a custom theme we’ve created that is licensed to you as part of your package. cStreet holds the theme in our nation and we share it to you to use. Because we hold the theme, we can address bugs, or add updates universally which means... read more
  2. Who the theme is meant for
    3. The progressive movement in Canada is a movement whose time has come. We believe in the potential of a well resourced, well connective progressive community to win our local and national battles, to build power within our constituencies, and to wield that power in parliament. Social Democrat is a tool... read more
  3. Making changes or reporting issues
    4. If you have any questions or issues please contact us at [email protected]. cStreet holds the theme in our nation and we share it to you to use. Because we hold the theme, we can address bugs, or add updates universally which means as NationBuilder evolves (i.e. introduces new page types,... read more
  1. Set up your header
    2. A key feature of Social Democrat is the header. We've designed it so that you can achieve ultimately flexibility but also maintain a consistent brand across candidates, riding associations, constituency sites, or party sites. Your provincial logo is already loaded into your template. To activate it for a candidate or... read more
  2. Banner images
    3. In NationBuilder you can add banner images in a carousel across the top of your page. In Social Democrat we made these into balling full-width images so you can make a real impact. Choose images that are fairly large, professional, and beautiful. Your image choice is your first impression for... read more
  3. Header Signup
    4. Your most important call to action is a basic signup. You should carefully consider your call to action and how you want people to feel when they decide to stay connected with your campaign. What we often ask our clients to consider is: what are people buying into when they... read more
  4. Homepage widgets
    5. Homepage widgets are the cornerstone of what makes Social Democrat as flexible as it is. You use widgets to build out your modular homepage into an awesome landing page.  When you tag a page in your site with "homepage", a representation of that page will appear on your homepage. It... read more
  5. "Take a Lawn Sign" page
    6. Lawn Sign pages are important to campaigns. The easiest page type to manage this with is a Signup page type. With a signup page type you can ask users to tag themselves with one of a few tags so you can specify people who would like a big sign, a... read more
  1. Splash page
    2. A splash page is a landing page that you can activate that intercepts traffic on their way to your homepage. Splash pages were famously used in the Obama campaign to drive list growth by putting forward compelling images and calls to action with a simple layout. Users will see your... read more
  2. Squeeze pages
    3. A squeeze page is a landing page designed to capture a user’s action (i.e. opt-in email addresses from potential subscribers). Squeeze pages are used for rapid-response campaigning to convince or otherwise ”squeeze” a visitor into providing a sought-after and coveted action. They remove any opportunity to navigate off the page... read more
  3. Suggestion box page type
    4. Often our clients have asked them to help build a storytelling component into their site. We've developed a simple storytelling tool using a suggestion box. The way to activate this is to create a suggestion box page, set it up as you usually would, and then make sure to check... read more
  4. Blog Posts
    5. Creating a blog post in NationBuilder is a straightforward process, but there are a number of additional actions that we strongly recommend you take when making posts to make sure they both look and function in the most engaging way possible:   Add meta-images to every post (REQUIRED): The thumbnail... read more
  5. The Email Someone Tool
    6. The "Email Someone" tool is a custom addition to the Social Democrat theme. It allows site visitors to send an email that's been customized by your campaign to someone of your choosing. You also are able to capture those users who have sent an email. To set this custom page... read more
  6. Email Your Representative
    7. In your website's control panel and click "+ New Page" to create your RepFind campaign. Name it, give it a slug, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, make sure to select Petition under "Type of Page". Once your new page has been created, navigate to the page's Template tab and copy and paste... read more
  1. Theme Variations
    2. Social Democrat is themed for every territory and province in Canada and has a generic branded theme which can be used for federal candidates. Each provincial theme will incorporate the provincial logo in place of the Federal logo. All the themes use the base party colors which are orange and... read more
  2. Icon System
    3. We've developed an icon system for Social Democrat that runs throughout the designed components. Icons are coded to represent different page types.  On the homepage widgets, icons appear on the left-hand side of the widget beside the headline of the widget to highlight the action of the respective page. Supporter... read more
  1. Point People and Follow-Ups
    2. Important to any organization is how you manage your people, and integral to this process are NationBuilder workflows. This refers to the general process that’s undertaken when a user interacts with the site: what acknowledgement is given, who gets notified, who’s assigned responsibility, and so forth. Workflows in NationBuilder involve... read more
  2. Autoresponses and Acknowledging Action
    3. Whenever someone takes any sort of action on your site—from asking a question to submitting a grant to RSVPing for an event—it's important that they receive some sort of acknowledgement for having engaged in some way. The form of this acknowledgement will vary depending on the action performed (the acknowledgement... read more
  3. Effective Social Media Use
    4. Setting Default Social Media Settings For virtually any page on your site—from single pages to blog posts to events—NationBuilder allows you to specify the default Tweet and Facebook share text (along with the Facebook share image) that gets used if someone wants to share the page, giving you much greater... read more
  4. Searching/Targeting Your Database (And Adding to Lists)
    5. Whether for sending out eblasts to targeted groups of people or for simply keep tabs on who has submitted stories, you’ll need to search/segment your database. To do so, go to People and then click on the little funnel icon. Start the process of filtering your list by clicking the... read more
  5. Other Useful Resources
    6. While we've covered a lot in our documentation, NationBuilder's own site has a wealth of "HOW-TOS" covering a huge range of topics: NationBuilder People HOWTOs NationBuilder Website HOWTOs NationBuilder Communication HOWTOs NationBuilder Finances HOWTOs Settings HOWTOs We've also compiled a list of useful resources on topics ranging from email deliverability... read more