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Changing the Domain Name of Your Site

Submitted by Jerimee on July 6, 2012 - 7:21pm

Below is some info on how to change a site's domain name in a manner consistent with good SEO.

What you want to do is provide a 301 redirect for each page to the corresponding page in the new domain. If there is no a corresponding page you could do one of two things, redirect it to the top-level domain www.example.com) or leave it alone and the user will get a 404 Page Not Found error (not good!).

The Google Webmaster Blog provides step by step advice.

Here are the main points:

More Spanish NationBuilder Themes

Submitted by Meredith on July 2, 2012 - 6:35pm

As you may have heard, earlier this year we released our Spanish translation of the Basic NationBuilder theme. We spent a lot of time translating all of NationBuilder's great web templates, and we're excited about expanding NationBuilder's potential to a broader audience.

Because of this great potential, we are happy to announce that we now offer all of NationBuilder's themes translated into Spanish. Check out our gallery here.

Interested in other types of NationBuilder translation? We have some expertise - feel free to contact us to set up a time to discuss!

Storify and NationBuilder

Submitted by Meredith on June 26, 2012 - 11:12am
Ever heard of Storify? Apparently some people have - it won a social media award at SXSW Interactive this year. Nevertheless, I hadn't really spent much time on the platform - so I decided to do a little research. Turns out, Storify is a platform that allows users to easily bring together related digital content such as social media, news articles, videos, and images by aggregating them in a timeline-type format. Seemingly one of its best benefits is that it makes it easy to share multiple types of media in one place, without having to wrestle with various embed codes. Once you’ve created a (free) account, making a new storyboard is as easy as selecting “Create Story.” You can then search by keyword for relevant media to incorporate into the Storify platform, right there in the Storify platform. Media options include Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Google, “breaking news” RSS, etc. Find stories that you like, then drag and drop them to where you’d like to feature them in your story. When you’re ready to share, just hit publish, and your storyboard goes live.

How to Get a Password for a Facebook Connected Flickr Account

Submitted by Jerimee on June 26, 2012 - 4:40pm

Flickr lets you sign up for an account via your Facebook account, which is great for ease of use. But what if your organization's Flickr account is connected to a staffers' personal facebook? If you wanted to share that account with others you'd need to share her facebook password. That's a problem.

Here's how to prepare an traditional username and password for a Flickr account started via Facebook Connect.

Upgrading from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7

Submitted by Will on June 4, 2012 - 12:34pm

First things first: this blog post is not a how-to.

Drupal, as has been mentioned before, is probably the most popular content management system out there. It's open source which means that there's an overabundance of documentation out there on nearly everything Drupal which includes upgrading from 6 to 7. So this blog post is simply a quick review of the upgrade process itself. A process I undertook following the instructions found here.

Drupal 7 and Salesforce

Submitted by Will on June 1, 2012 - 7:49pm

My colleague Kate recently integrated our site with Salesforce, the increasingly popular cloud-based CRM. Our site here is a Drupal 7 site; Drupal is the most popular CMS on the internet, so it's only natural to want to bring the two together. Here's some notes from Kate about how that worked out for us:

Drupal 7 and SalesForce work nicely together with node types. However, they don't work so well with webforms or contact forms. To integrate Salesforce with our site, I started out making a content type of Contact that sends user information to SalesForce. Keep in mind that you will need to properly configure permissions for a contact form to be effective.

The integration works by mapping Salesforce Objects with Drupal CCK fields. The easiest way to do this is by creating a new content type with some custom fields that you want to add into Salesforce. Here, Kate made content type called "Contact" which allows users to create new "Contact" nodes with a certain set of custom fields.

SalesForce Dedupe (removal of duplicate records)

Body: 

SalesForce is a powerful tool for managing contacts and relationships for your organization or company.

Embedding Google Maps

Submitted by Jerimee on May 30, 2012 - 4:28pm

Adding a Google Map into a site is a useful way to show a geographic area in an accessible format. Google Map's interface provides a link to create a code to the left of the map in the browser and includes a link to a menu that allows the user to adjust how the embedded map will appear, its size, and includes the url to add the map to the site dependent on those variables.Google provides additional explanation of the embedding tool that can be found here.

The map is defined by a set of parameters in the URL that define the location of the map and basic display settings that can be manipulated to slightly adjust the map output within the page. The adjustable variables include the type of map displayed (normal, satellite, hybrid or terrain), the zoom level, and the latitude and longitude of the center of the map. A good overview of these variables can be found here. An example of the code can be found here:

Introducing Our NationBuilder Starter Package

Submitted by Meredith on May 14, 2012 - 2:07pm

Ready to get your NationBuilder site off the ground, but need a little help getting started? Richir Outreach is here to help!

Our team of tech-savvy organizers has tons of experience implementing successful campaigns with NationBuilder. We know firsthand what a powerful organizing tool it can be. However, we also understand that, for busy campaigns and advocacy organizations, getting started on a new platform can be daunting. We don't want a lack of time or resources to stand in the way of you of maximizing your Nation.

In response, Richir Outreach is proud to introduce our NationBuilder Starter Package.

Campaigns 101

Submitted by Jerimee on May 7, 2012 - 3:47pm

Campaigns require a systematic approach that balances the emotion of an activist and the planning of a strategist. The following steps will help an organization begin to focus their energy into an actionable process that will enable winning campaigns. Answering the following questions will provide the organizer a path to implementing a successful campaign.

What are we fighting for?

The chosen campaign must be sufficiently broad as to appeal to as many people as possible. Here, listening is critical. Members of your organization will establish their expectations. The leaders of organizations are responsible for distilling those down to identify issues where there is a unique junction of energy and potential for organizational action through a campaign. The organizer must be realistic and have a good sense for the organization's best interests.

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