Put Your Club Online

Put Your Club Online Website Goes Live!

2013-05-15T22:39:00.000-06:00

It has taken more than 6 months to build our new website, but it is now ready ... and what a project! Weebly.com turned out to be a wonderfully flexible, easy to implement solution for our new home.

Any just like any move, we feel a certain longing for our previous domicile, so we decided to keep our Put Your Club Online blog alive and repurpose it back to it's original roots ... to provide tutorials and resources dedicated to building a club web presence using Blogger.com.

So we now have three launches to celebrate:

Put Your Club Online - will provide tutorials and resources on everything except Blogger
Put Your Club Online with Blogger - will focus on Blogger.com
AMS&NW Optimist Academy - our companion education website for all tutorials dedicated to Optimist activities not related to internet and computer work.

In the next few weeks you will see new tutorials appear including:

Build a Club Website with Weebly Video Tour
Build a Club Website/Blog with Blogger Video Tour
How to use Facebook
How to use Twitter
How to use Google+
some software reviews

Put Your Club Online is Moving

2012-09-27T20:17:00.000-06:00

Changes at Blogger
Recently the development team at Blogger revamped the administrative panel where the work is done to create a website/blog. The impact is rather dramatic ... all of the screen shot graphics that are currently in the online lessons are no longer valid and the steps in most of the procedures have changed. As a result, the lesson content at putyourclubonline.blogger.com is no longer correct and it will take a significant amount of time to modify that content.

Working with Weebly.com
I recently spent some time working with weebly.com to build a sample club website during a training workshop that I hosted at the AMS&NW District 13 Annual Convention.

I enjoyed the experience so much that I used weebly.com to build a new website for the St. Albert Breakfast Optimist Club.

Facebook Changes
Facebook recently introduced "Timeline" and a new look for pages and groups, so all the Facebook lessons and PDF guides need to be rewritten.

Put Your Club Online is Moving to Weebly.com
Weebly.com offers a much easier, more flexible and faster means to host an educational website and blog, so I will be spending the next year writing and posting replacement lessons along with some video tutorials.

What about Blogger?
I am still a firm believer that Blogger is an exellent Blog and online News delivery system. We will upgrade our Blogger lessons so we can continue to support those users that have used Blogger to host your club websites.

What Comes Next?
We need to unpublish the content that is no longer accurate, so you will see most of the Blogger lessons disappear. We will leave some of the content visible and we will maintain Put Your Club Online here until we are ready to "flick the switch" ... we may even keep it going or rename it so that it is Blogger specific ... time will tell.

Join our journey
So come join us and learn more as we progress through the transition and find more useful online services that you can take advantage of..

Yours in Optimism,
Optimist Gord

Lesson 3: Content is King

2011-10-25T08:00:00.002-06:00

'Content is king' as the saying goes. Without formatted content, a website is a jumbled mess of ideas that lacks cohesion and exhibits no sense of direction. What's important is to always keep the target audience in mind.

Who are we preparing this content for?
Who will make use of the online resources?
How can we make access easy?

Keep this in mind ... when a visitor arrives you have between 6 to 10 seconds to grab their attention long enough to keep them navigating your site.

Your site must be visually appealing. If the home page is too busy with too many graphics, the visitor may leave because your approach is too fragmented to retain the reader's attention.
Your site must be professional looking. If your site is a tool to help fundraising, your site must project a high degree of trust and confidence. Take a look at other club and organization websites in the not-for-profit space that are trying to meet the same goals as yourself. In your mind's eye ...what works and what doesn't?
What a visitor first sees must keep them engaged. If you can keep them for more than 10 seconds, chances are that they will navigate your site until they find what they are looking for ... and you will have met your goal.

The 3-Click Rule

The general guideline that I like to recommend is that each piece of content is no more than three clicks away from the home page. That means careful consideration must be given to navigation, menus, categorizing information, and organization. Does it make sense and does it look like it makes sense?

When Leaving Your Site ... Don't Close the Door

Even links in your site must be carefully thought out. You do not want to create a link that moves the visitor away to another site unless you force them into a new browser window.

Lesson 2: Why Choose Blogger

2011-10-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

Content Management Solutions

Building a solid website requires a strong toolset. Most website designers now use a browser-integrated Content Management System (sometimes referred to as a 'CMS'). A good CMS will provide a secure administrative panel to manage and control the site, easy-to-use browser-based editors so authors can create and edit pages and news articles through a web browser, and the ability to integrate 'scripts' or components to deliver additional features like a news blog, calendars, video, audio, file storage, and dynamic menus.
There are a couple of limitations with most CMS solutions:

Some cost a lot of money to purchase, or require signing an annual hosting contract with a website hosting provider company.

Some are rather complicated and require an extensive understanding of HTML code and possibly other scripting languages, like javascript, PHP, ASP.NET, and .Net Framework.
Some force the use of the built-in modules instead of allowing the use of preferred 3rd party hosted services.

Is Blogger Now a CMS?

Blogger started as a hosted web log service many years ago. Until recently it required a fair amount of expertise to use Blogger as a platform to host a website. 2010 has turned into a hallmark year for Blogger because they have introduced two important features that transformed it into a more robust CMS:

In early 2010, Blogger added the ability to create static pages and added a dynamic menu gadget. Now bloggers have the ability to easily create static pages and automatically modify a menu, thus transforming a basic blog into a basic website without knowing HTML code or scripting languages.

In June 2010, Blogger introduced "Template Designer" which is a template selection and modification console. Now users can select a pleasant template and apply style changes without knowing HTML code or scripting languages.

Why Choose Blogger?

Here are the reasons why I recommend Blogger as a website hosting solution for service clubs and small non-profit organizations:

Blogger is free. You can host a website / blog for no cost. The only cost you will encounter is the annual domain name registration fee which is approximately $10 US per year.
Blogger uses a simple blog creation wizard. In three steps, you can create a functioning blog.
Blogger has a secure yet simple user management system to control access. You define one or more admin accounts, as many author accounts as needed and either closed-access reader accounts, or you open the website to the public. This provides strong control over the content, and permits you the opportunity to initially build the website / blog and have it reviewed and approved by your club executive before making it publicly available.
Blogger has a robust template/theme management system called "Template Designer". You still have the option to use 3rd party XML or classic type templates if "Template Designer" cannot produce the desired look-and-feel.
Blogger has an administrative panel that permits admin accounts to change the layout, add and remove page elements, create and manage pages and blog posts, and adjust website / blog settings.
Blogger employs 'gadgets' which are blocks that can be added to the header, navigation columns, and footer. There is a large community of developers that provide hundreds of 'gadgets' blocks. Gadgets provide functionality like menus, linked lists, Google calendars, RSS feeds, and dynamic portlets into other hosted services like Facebook and Twitter.
Blogger utilizes an easy-to-use editor to author blog posts and pages. The editor offers a WYSIWYG view and an HTML view. Blogger permits the embedding of html embed code and javascript, so authors can add code for 3rd party services like Google calendars, Picasa web albums, YouTube videos, Box.net file access widgets, contact forms, and Slideshow presentations.
The average internet user can build a dynamic website in less than five working days with Blogger.

Lesson 1: Why Build a Website

2011-10-21T08:00:00.002-06:00

Website Designer & Instructor
Gordon Welling

At a recent workshop that I hosted on building club websites, the group discussed the merits of running a club website. Here goes ... advantages of a club website include:

Visibility: For years we have heard that we are "the best kept secret in town" ... now people have an online venue to learn more about what an Optimist club does in their local community. When trying to recruit new members, or raise funds, or get the word out about a community service project; the ability to offer the website link to the public is invaluable.
Credibility: Almost any serious not-for-profit organization has a web presence. In fact, as more people turn to the internet as their primary source of information, organizations are expanding their online presence from a website to a news blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, etc. A web presence (even if it is just a website) adds that public credibility to your club.
Community Based ... Community Focused: Most parent organizations also have a web presence ... the challenge is that my neighbour is more likely to learn about what our local club provides in our local community from a community focused website.
Current Information Source for Members: In this age of rapid information transfer, a club website can accomplish that faster than physical mail and club bulletins at a much lower cost. A combination of a website and club email notices will usually get the information to members before it becomes dated.
Online Resources for Members: A club website can offer a valuable bank of online resources like club bulletins, brochures, public notices, forms, and letterhead (the list goes on and on).
Lowest Cost for Broadest Reach: A club website is the most cost effective venue to advertise club activities and keep that information always available. Print media may have a wider, more-instant reach, but it is usually expensive to utilize and it's value diminishes rapidly ... ask yourself how long you retain your local newspaper. And now that viral social media like Facebook and Twitter are available, it is possible to out-reach printed media.
Helps us Compete: Websites offer a 24/7 information source ... a well designed and composed website helps clubs 'compete' for the shrinking pool of volunteers and funds to support our club projects and activities.

I urge you to not fall into a trap ... that belief that a website can replace other forms of information distribution. A service club should not put all their public-facing presence in a website at the expense of other, more traditional media.

The volunteers that we seek and the funds that we want to raise will not be available exclusively through the internet.

It be-hooves us to use the media that has the best possible chance of success to reach our desired target market. We need to make diversified use of all available information media that our clubs can reasonably afford and gain access to. A club website should be considered an important information tool along with the use of word of mouth, print media, radio, and television.

Lesson Challenge:

Sit down with a few club members who would be interested in building a club website and brainstorm out the reasons and benefits for creating a club website. So what different ideas and benefits did you come up with?

Using Facebook Ads - Insider Tips from George

2011-10-20T09:01:00.000-06:00

I've found Facebook Ads to be very cost effective way of reaching youth people. Facebook makes most of their money through the targeted ads on the right hand side of the Facebook pages. They either get paid for "Impressions" or for "Clicking through". Most are for Clicking Through, which means someone on Facebook actually clicks on the ad and takes them to that advertisers page. Facebook doesn't make money, unless the advertiser is driving traffic to them. So Facebook, really helps you drive traffic to your website or Facebook event, or page. They target Facebook users which will most likely want your product, or event.

My example, from Paintball Paradise (my business), was a trade show event. I was able to target young people, within 50 miles of Prince Albert, that liked Paintball, or mentioned Paintball in their Facebook pages, or Walls. I could take male or females, and various age categories. If I wasn't getting a great response I could increase the target audience, in various ways. I also capped my Budget for click per day, so once the budget was met, the ads stopped running. Creating the Ad was short and easy to do (you need a good picture, and short bit of text).

This is a great link that helps explain, how and why to use Facebook Ads. The links below is for businesses, but the information applies to Optimist Clubs as well.
http://www.facebook.com/business/ads/

The above links goes through 5 Steps to a successful Facebook Ad campaign.

Here's some quick thoughts from my perspective.

Step 1: Identify Your Goals
Do you want to build your fan base, drive sales (attendees to events or sell tickets and such), or just build awareness of your Club, and the good it does in your community? Maybe sign up new members?

Step 2: Target the Right People
This is the extremely powerful tool. You can choose: an area (within 50 miles), or just a city or town, languages, age, gender, Likes and Interests (like what I did for Paintball, but it could be for Oratorical, Essay, poetry, hearing impairments, Police, Law & Order, Junior Golf, sport teams, and such), Relationship Status (singles dances), scouting, guides). Play around and see how many fit into your category, before ever launching the campaign.

Step 3: Design an Engaging Ad
Make sure you mention your own local city or town name, otherwise facebookers might not check it out because they figure it's in Toronto or somewhere else. Call to action, tell them what they need to do. Click here and sign up.

Step 4: Manage Your Budget
CPC vs CPM : Determine if you want to pay on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) basis. I prefer CPC, but it depends on what you need, and what works. Set your daily budget, and bid price per CPC or CPM. If you bid too low, Facebook doesn't run your ads, until everybody with a higher bids runs out of daily budget. I did this, and nobody clicked through (too low), so I upped the bid the next day, and started to get clicks. Minimum budget is $5 per day. Bid prices vary between $.05-$2 per click, but they will give you an example of a good range.

Step 5: Review and Improve
The reports are great, so check them out. They will tell you who is clicking through, every deomographic. Very easy to use, and maybe you will need to modify your campaign. Change it up and experiment. Let us know, how you do.

Facebook has many free resources to help you design better ads, because if you aren't successful, they are not successful either. They want you to succeed.

Sponsored Stories
There are also things called Facebook "Sponsored Stories". I have not tried these but they could work too for your club. This is a link to Facebooks Sponsored Stories.
http://www.facebook.com/business/sponsoredstories

Experiment, play around, see what works and what doesn't. Let everybody know, share that information. This will help our clubs grow and do bigger and better projects in our communities.

Module 1: Getting Started

2011-10-20T08:00:00.001-06:00

Making the decision to create a website for your not-for-profit organization or service club is not something to be taken lightly. It will take time and effort of many volunteers, and once the website is made publicly available, it must be continually maintained.

There are many factors that need to be considered, and I hope that this Module will provide you with some insight into the process behind the planning and preparation required to build a club blog / website.

Lessons included in this module:

Lesson 1: Why Build a Website
Lesson 2: Why Choose Blogger
Lesson 3: Content is King
Lesson 4: Three Reasons People Will Visit Your Website
Lesson 5: Plan the Work
Lesson 6: Work the Plan
Lesson 7: Prepare the Content

Lesson 7.1: Free Tools
Lesson 7.2: Tips on Writing Effective Articles
Lesson 7.3: Prepare Content .TXT Files
Lesson 7.4: Create .PDF Files
Lesson 7.5: Create .ZIP Files

Lesson 8: Create a Club Account

Welcome George Lewko & Building Club Websites Returns

2011-10-19T12:58:00.003-06:00

Hi All.

George Lewko

I just wanted to pass along a couple of updates. First, I want to welcome George Lewko as a contributing author to "Put Your Club Online". George, like myself, is self taught on using Facebook and Blogger for building club websites. George has just authored an article on adding a Google Calendar gadget to an existing Blogger club website in the navigation column. I hope you'll appreciate his efforts and our different styles.

We welcome anyone else who wants to contribute their knowledge and experience in building a club website, using Facebook or Twitter, or using other online services for your club. It just takes a little time and soon you'll get published.

I've decided to re-release the Put Your Club Online Lessons that we previously published. You should start seeing a new article appear every other day. The first module "Getting Started" contains 13 lessons. Once a Complete Module has been released, we will make that content and any supplementary items available as a PDF guide.

Adding a Google Calendar to your Blog

2011-10-19T12:54:00.000-06:00

I found this fantastic "Widget" or Gadget in Blogger. Add a Google Calendar. There are a few ways of doing this, but I've used two of them.

You can add either add an entire Goggle Calendar to your blog or website, or
Add a summary of Up Coming Events, say the next 5 Events listed in your club's Goggle Calendar (5 can be changed).

I've added both our my Club's Blog site, the entire Goggle Calendar is found at the bottom of the page, and I've added 2 separate Google summary Calendars to the upper right hand side (The first one being the next 5 Forthcoming Events [which automatically deletes old events and adds new ones], and a Special Events Summary of the next 5 Birthday's and Anniversary's of Club members and spouses.

Check them out at
http://paoptimists.blogspot.com/

To add the big monthly calendar to your website or blog, requires a public calendar in Google Calendar. Google Calendar will generate the html code for you to add to your website, after you have made any tweaks (size, shape, color, monthly, weekly, and such).

In Google Calendar, you must choose your Goggle Calendar to be shared (I have several), and click "Calendar Settings". Remember this must be a public Goggle Calendar to work, so you must turn this on in the Calendar Settings, which does make the Goggle Calendar visible to search engines.

If you look down, you will see "Embed This Calendar", right next to a small calendar. On the right side of the small calendar, you will see "Customize color, size and other options", which lets you do some customizing. After you have customized the Goggle Calendar the way you like it, click "Update HTML". Then "Copy and paste the HTML below to include this calendar on your webpage", copy this code.

This is the code you place in your webpage, or into your blog. In to your blog, you need to pick a new "widget" (add a gadget). You need to pick "HTML/Java Script". Cut and paste your Google Calendar Html into it.

You have added a large Google Calendar to your blog.

To add a Summary of the next 5 Events, you will add another "Widget" or add a gadget. Do a search for "Events", and the first one to come up in the search will be "Forthcoming Google Events Calendar". Choose it.

It will ask for a "Email address, or unique *@google.com address (where * is the unique ID for your calendar)", you find this in your Google Calendar, under "Calendar settings". Below "Embed this calendar" is "Calendar Address" To the right of this you will find "Calendar ID:" *@google.com, cut and paste this Calendar ID into the "Widget". Pick the number of items to be displayed, I used 5. Change the Title is you want. Click "Save".

You should now have a small summary of the next 5 events in your Google Calendar.

If you have questions on Google Calendar, I'll be making up a quick guide for it next.

First Steps–Create a Facebook Presence

2011-09-20T12:55:00.000-06:00

Why such an emphasis on Facebook, and why create a Facebook presence before a club website or blog? Popularity. Facebook is growing rapidly as more people register and use the service. There are over 700 million registered users on Facebook, many of them are probably club members already.

Facebook is all about community. It is easy to become a Facebook user, easy to use the service and allows people to engage one another using messages, chat, activity feeds, video, and static information. Facebook collects, stores and shares data by categorizing it, indexing it and making available to an internal search engine, and to public search engines like Google and Bing.

There are some important concepts to understand with Facebook, so let's discuss them now:

Account - every individual is allowed one and only one Facebook account. To open more than one account violates the Facebook terms of service agreement. Violators can have their account closed and their data can be removed without notice. A user can create an account profile and can host many other Facebook entities, like pages and groups.
Profile - each user’s account gets a profile, a personal write up that describes the individual who operates the account. A profile is personal and should not be used for a business, an organization, and a group.
Group - is a controlled collection of users who can use a Facebook Group to share information and contact one another. Groups can be secret or secure or open. Groups include a rudimentary built-in documents app but do not support adding 3rd party apps like Facebook pages do. A Group is designed to allow members to collaborate, discuss a variety of topics and share ideas.
Page - is a public entity that is used by people to share information. Pages have the same public visibility as normal websites. They are indexed by Facebook and public search engines. Everyone with web access can see the content of a Page. Facebook pages can be extended by adding 3rd party applications which add extra "tabs" to the page.
Access and Participation - all entities have different levels of access:
- Accounts - users request to become a "Friend" and the receiving user must agree. This provides bilateral consent to share and exchange information.
- Groups - users are either invited and can request to become a "Member" of a Group. The admin or another Group member can accept the invitation (depends on how the Group permissions are configured).
  - Secret Groups are not visible to Facebook search. Secret Group members must be logged in to see the Group and its content.
  - Secure Groups are visible in Facebook search results but Group members must be logged in to see the content and post new content. Other Facebook users can see the group information but cannot contribute to the group.
  - Open Groups are visible to Facebook and normal internet search engines and the content is available to any logged-in Facebook user.
- Pages - users "Like" a page that they want to interact with. Anyone can see the content of a Facebook page. Logged in Facebook users must "Like" a page before they can contribute to the page and share content on that page.

HOW CAN FACEBOOK HELP A CLUB
A service club can create a Facebook Page as a public presence on the internet. It is the most popular medium that permits your club members to interact with the general public. Facebook pages offer clubs a means to extend their message, causes, projects, fund raising efforts, and fellowship to their registered fans.

See our PDF Guide – Create a Facebook Page

Service clubs can also create a Facebook Group as a mini secure or private portal to provide a private online community for club members. Open Groups can be used a public presence within the Facebook global community. Announcements of club meetings and special events can be announced and members can be notified of those events and activities.

See our Guide – Create a Facebook Group

While Facebook is not the only online service that can help with assisting efforts of volunteers, it is probably the easiest to set up and enable for designated members. The only caveat is that members must all have Facebook accounts which is something that some people still refuse to do.

PAGE or GROUP – HOW TO DECIDE
A Facebook Group can also be used instead of a Facebook Page as a public presence for your service club. The major differences between Pages and Groups include:

Who can see the Facebook Presence – Facebook Pages are seen by everyone who has a web browser and internet access. Facebook Groups are more tightly controlled. If a Facebook Group is configured as a “Open” Group, it will be visible to anyone who is logged into Facebook.
Hint: If visibility to anyone on the internet is important, choose to create a Facebook Page.
Who can post content – Facebook pages require that an individual “Like” the page before they can post content to that page. Facebook Groups require that an individual “Join” the Group and be approved as a member before being able to post content. Facebook Groups have tighter controls for content publishing.
Hint: If you need to control who can post content to a registered list of Facebook users, choose to create a Facebook Group.
Hint: If you need to need to hide the Facebook presence from everyone except the approved registered Facebook users, create a “Secret” Facebook Group..
Ease of set up – Facebook Groups are much easier and faster to set up and publish. Facebook Pages support more configuration options and can take considerably more time to set up and publish.
Hint: If you are not concerned with customizing the Facebook presence, choose to create a Facebook Group.
Which is easier to customize – Both Facebook Pages and Groups come with the core applications provided by Facebook. Pages can be customized by adding more Facebook applications. Facebook Groups do not support adding more applications so customizing a Group is very limited.
Hint: If you need to enable additional applications for your Facebook presence, choose to create a Facebook Page.
What about friendly URLs – Facebook Pages must garner 25 or more “Likes” before applying for a username which will convert the URL to something like www.facebook.com/username, like www.facebook.com/amsnwoptimist. Facebook Groups can immediately apply for a group email address which will convert the URL to something like www.facebook.com/groups/groupname like www.facebook.com/groups/mysampleclubmembers/.
Hint: If you need to immediately enable a friendly URL, choose to create a Facebook Group.

If all other factors are equal, here is how to decide based on a primary factor:

Security is the primary factor – If all other factors are equal and security is the primary factor, choose to create a Facebook Group.
Flexibility is the primary factor – If all other factors are equal and being able to add more features and applications is the primary factor, choose to create a Facebook Page.
Visibility to Internet Search Engines is the primary factor – If all other factors are equal and making the Facebook presence visible to the Google, Bing, Yahoo and other internet search engines is the primary factor, choose to create a Facebook Page.

FIRST STEPS - SERIES ARTICLES
Here is a list of the rest of the "First Step" articles in this series:

First Steps - Getting Your Club Online
First Steps - Create a Generic Email Account
First Steps - Create a Secure Portal with TeamLab (coming soon)
First Steps - Create a Blog/Website with Blogger (coming soon)

Join Us on Facebook

2011-09-09T12:41:00.013-06:00

Well, we have taken the Facebook plunge and now have our own Facebook page. Please visit us at www.facebook.com/pages/Put-Your-Club-Online/162910130458317 and "Like" us.

We need 25 friends to "Like" us so we can apply for a vanity URL, like www.facebook.com/putyourclubonline. Can you help us get there? We hope you can.

First Steps - Create a Generic Email Account

2011-09-08T12:21:00.000-06:00

Most online services require an email address to register to that service. It is best to create a generic email account that can be used. You have the option to create a generic email account on any popular public free email service like Gmail, Windows Live, and Yahoo Mail. Here are some PDF Guides that you may find helpful:

PROTECTING YOUR CLUB'S FUTURE ONLINE PRESENCE

You will be using the generic email account to register for most of the available online services you subscribe your club to in the future. It is critical that you always think about the sustainability ... what would happen if you suddenly were no longer available? Would your club's online services and resources be locked up with no way to manage them or delete them? This is an rarely envisioned when clubs first start out, but always presume that the worst could happen.

At a minimum, always ensure that two individuals who trust each other and which the club executive trust, have the "keys to the kingdom". Write down the login credentials (login name and password) and ensure that a copy is provided to the other club member you trust. Ensure that a written record is maintained of all of the online services subscribed to and the login credentials used. Both of you should be equally conversant with how to manage each service, or you may want to split the work load between both of you.

After creating this basic online presence, you can extend to using other services that may be of specific use for specific needs.

FIRST STEPS - SERIES ARTICLES

Here is a list of the rest of the "First Step" articles in this series:

First Steps - Getting Your Club Online
First Steps - Create a Facebook Presence (coming soon)
First Steps - Create a Secure Portal with TeamLab (coming soon)
First Steps - Create a Blog/Website with Blogger (coming soon)

Our Thanks must go to jscreationzs and Ambro / FreeDigitalPictures.net for the free use of the artwork and digital photo in this article.

First Steps - Getting Your Club Online

2011-09-06T09:02:00.001-06:00

Many clubs have not gone online because they do not have anyone who is willing to undertake the project to create a website, a blog or some other online presence. That may have been true a few years ago, but "Web 2.0" is upon us.

Now, anyone with basic computer skills can create an put their club or business online using available free online services. The first question is "How do we get started".

WHAT ONLINE PRESENCE DOES YOUR CLUB NEED

Before you can launch into building an online presence, it is important to engage the club members into a discussion to determine what kind of online presence is needed.

Most service clubs exist to deliver service to their communities for a specific purpose. Optimist clubs, for example, focus on running community service projects focused on local youth, raise funds to sponsor local youth activities and programs and recruit members to run those projects and raise funds. So when looking at online presence, ask a few questions. Does your club want their online presence to (and possible matching online services):

explain who you are and what you do? (website, blog, facebook)
help point out the community service projects you perform? (website, blog, facebook)
help recruit new members? (blog, facebook, twitter)
demonstrate how active you are in our local community? (blog, facebook)
explain what kind of help your club needs? (website, blog, facebook)
allow your members to share in fellowship? (facebook)
allow your members to share their volunteer experiences? (blog, facebook, twitter)
allow the community you support to comment on your club's activities? (blog, facebook, twitter)
allow your members to communicate in a secure community to plan projects? (facebook, secure member portals)

Keeping in mind that service clubs are volunteer organizations, creating and maintaining an online presence will be done by a volunteer. Whatever presence is created and whatever online services are used, it should focus on the following traits:

It must have value to the service club. If not, members will not participate or use it.
It must be easy to use so that anyone with average computer skills will be able to manage it.
It should not be excessively time consuming.
It must be no-cost or low-cost.
It should allow and encourage member participation by being engaging and fun.
It should be easy to transfer administrator rights to different club members.
It should use most popular and most recognizable services which will put your club in front of more of the public eye (your target audience).

GETTING STARTED

There are hundreds of available of online services. The trick is to select those services that can be easily combined into a cohesive combination of services that will take the minimum of time to create and maintain. It is important to remain focused and to select those services that will work best to build an online presence.

As a guideline, you will probably want to focus on creating an online presence with those services that are easiest to create and configure, and ones that most of the club membership will use. We suggest the following strategy:

Create a generic email account to use when registering accounts with online services.
Create a Facebook page.
Create an online secure portal for club members.
Create a blog/website.

After creating this basic online presence, you can extend it to using other services that may be of specific use for defined needs.

FIRST STEPS - SERIES ARTICLES

We will continue this discussion with a series of articles exploring each of these first steps:

First Steps - Create a Generic Email Account
First Steps - Create a Facebook Page (coming soon)
First Steps - Create an online Secure Portal with TeamLab (coming soon)
First Steps - Create a Blog/Website with Blogger (coming soon)

Credits

Our Thanks must go to jscreationzs and Ambro / FreeDigitalPictures.net for the free use of the artwork and digital photo in this article.

What's Up Doc?

2011-08-18T18:16:00.002-06:00

Optimist Gord

In my last post I informed you that we were rebranding the "Put Your Club Online with Blogger" website because much of the content is no longer correct. I have been working with the new administration panel in Blogger and am happy to report that many of the tasks are the same as before, but the look and feel of the new admin panel is radically different.

Much of the change was driven to redesign the admin panel interface to make it easier to navigate and use. In fact, it feels like it works faster. The developers at Blogger have even added a few new features including a "mobile" template that presents your blog or website in a form factor designed for smart phones like the iPhone.

While I have not had time to discover and test all the new and modified features, I am happy to report that the admin panel redesign has had no affect on any blogs or websites deployed before this major change. If fact, if you haven't tried to access the admin panel in the recent past, you will not have noticed any changes.

Enough about the new admin panel. I really wanted to report on some of the changes that we have completed:

The old theme has been scrapped and replaced with a brighter, more lively theme. Now I won't fall asleep proof-reading my posts.
We increased the width of site from 800 to 1000 pixels. Now the column for article posts is wider and there will be less scrolling to read the content. This change will also permit me to use graphics that are slightly larger.
We created a new branded logo that comprises four color interwoven rectangle shapes that represent the interconnectivity of modern social networks. As we shift our content to discussing social networks and social media, we thought it appropriately represents our new direction.
We modified our URL so now we are resolving putyourclubonline.blogspot.com.
We prepared a new 320 pixel width banner graphic that can be used in conjunction with RSS feed widgets for other blogs and websites.

Some of the work that we have left to complete includes:

Reviewing the older lesson articles to see if there is any generic content that can be revised and released.
Revising the navigation to better deliver the content based on the online service or software application that we write an article about.
We want to develop a short blogroll of useful online resources that can extend our knowledge about Blogger. Now that we have taken our old content offline, we need to quickly make some references available to our readers.
Creating a feedburner feed for the site.

One of the firm convictions that I have is that our site will only contain reviews of online services and software applications that we use or have actually tested. I believe that we must "eat our own dog food" before we recommend a solution to you. So as we move forward we will be building a "test" solution that models a typical service club. In most cases, I will also integrate the same technology into "Put Your Club Online". So what does this mean for the future?

Well, our short range plan is to produce a concise series of articles on creating a simple website and blog using Blogger. This will replace the online lessons that we had posted before. The more intricate information will be added to a "Guide" that will be made available in PDF and possibly eBook format. In addition to Blogger, we want to also cover how to create a Facebook presence and integrate that with your website/blog. Integrating other online services like Twitter, YouTube, Box.net, SlideShare, and Flickr/Picasa will be added as well.

As you can see, we have a rather large journey ahead and I hope that you will enjoy our travels.

Until next time ...

YIO - Optimist Gord

"Put Your Club Online with Blogger" has been retired

2011-08-17T18:28:00.036-06:00

Optimist Gord

A shift in focus to social networks

The recent explosion of popular community based network services like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Linkedin has changed the dynamics behind how we use the web to interact with people. Putting up a website is not the primary means for getting a service club online anymore. Now it is a mix of different different social networks that can connect us to the correct group of people that becomes important. It is not just about content, but equally on how we deliver that content and who we direct it at.

The Revamped Blogger Admin Panel
On another but related related tangent ... recently the Blogger development team revamped the administrative panel in draft.blogger.com. The admin panel is where the work is done to create a website/blog. The impact is rather dramatic ... all of the screen shot graphics that are currently in the online lessons are no longer valid. While most of the procedures remain similar, there may be differences in the steps to complete most tasks.

While the older admin panel is still available, it would mean writing a parallel series of lessons for creating a Blogger blog and website. Sine the new panel will eventually be implemented as the default, the lesson content at clubsonlinewithblogger.blogspot.com would no longer correct and it will take a significant amount of time to modify that content. Additionally, with the advent of social networks as a dominant tool for clubs, we believe that the interest and focus needs to be realigned to better discuss all of the online options.

"Clubs Online with Blogger" is no more ...

We have decided to make some radical changes with our website/blog:

First, we have rebranded the site as "Put your club online" and changed the URL to be putyourclubonline.blogspot.com;
The website/blog will be reworked to focus on the multiple different online venues that are available for hosting service clubs online;
Blog posts will focus on specific topics related to online services, including reviews of available services and software;
More in-depth self-help learning content will be made available in PDF and Web help formats; and
The inclusion of some training videos.

Of course this will result in an immediate removal of the existing content. The intent it to reproduce it in a set of PDF guides that will be made available for download. We don't want to leave our readers hanging, so we will be working on a PDF guide for creating a club online presence using Facebook in the very near future.

We ask that all of our readers be patient with us as we progress through this transition.

Respectfully submitted,

Optimist Gord

optimistgord@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/OptimistGord
optimistgord.wordpress.com