How to get started with Cheerity

Step 1 - Create your campaign

Getting started with Cheerity is easy. When signed up, you will log into your dashboard and land on your campaigns page. We've created a first campaign for you, called "Main." Click into it to start building your campaign. When you're ready to build other campaigns, you will create them from this page by clicking the "Add campaign" button.

Step 2 - Choose a template

There are a couple of templates to choose from that preconfigure your campaign. The most common template is the "Awareness" one. Awareness campaigns have single counter that tracks participants (or photos). The counter starts at zero and ticks up as your campaign grows.

Select the "Unlocked Donations" template if you would like for photos added to trigger a donation. This could be from a corporate sponsors, or your board of trustees for instance. Unlocked donations could have a monetary value (i.e. "Every photo unlocks a $5 donation") or an emotional equivalent (i.e. "Every photo feeds a hungry neighbor"). Selecting this template will add a second counter to your campaign track the impact of unlocked donations in addition to your campaign participants.

The "Photo Petition" template replaces your counter with a progress bar so you can track campaign growth towards a goal. You can use this template for more traditional petition campaigns where participants "sign with their photo," while still providing their name and email at the end of the experience.

We'll be adding more templates soon!

Step 3 - Adjust your settings

Under settings, you can add a new for your campaign to replace "Main." Depending on the template you selected, you will have a number of other settings to adjust. In all cases, you can choose to limit the geographic region from which people can participate in your campaign. By default, campaigns allow for global participation. You also can change the campaign language to another language than English.

Step 4 - Add styling and images

Let's move on the styling. This is where you will make your campaign look like your brand, and where you'll add frames and other images.

In the "Image" subsection, start by uploading your (horizontal) logo file. A transparent png works best on any color you might choose for your background. Your "Campaign Image" and Campaign Share Image" are typically composites that show a selection of framed photos. The placeholder images you see in your campaign are available as Canva templates for you to customize. You'll want to work on your photo frames first, as these get incorporated in the campaign images. The final element, the "Favicon" gets added to the browser tab of your campaign. It's usually a square icon and may be the same image that you use as your organization's profile picture on Facebook or Twitter.

The "Frames" sub section has a placeholder frame that you can overwrite with your assets. For the secondary version of your frame, or horizontal frame, you will have to indicate where the placement of the participant's photo will be (left, center or right). If your campaign has only one frame, don't worry about creating a special icon. This element is only shown if participants can pick from multiple frames. You can add the square frame in this spot. Click the plus button to add an additional frame, name it and add your image files.

Each frame has room for a frame-specific suggested share message. The copy you add will be show to participants who select that frame. Leave it blank if your campaign has a single suggested share message for all participants.

Check out this article for templates for frames and collages

In the "Colors" subsection, you can add your brand palette to make your campaign look like an extension of your own website. Clicking on any of the circles will open a dialog where you can select a color, or type in a hex code. Selections you make are reflected in your preview on the right side of the screen.

In the "Fonts" sub section, you can select pick Google fonts to use for your headlines, button text, body copy and your participation counter (Stats font). You also have the option to add a font that you do not see listed. The system only accepts .woff files (web open font format). You can use a converter like this one to convert a .ttf or .oft font to .woff.

Step 5 - Add content

Crafting the copy for your campaign can feel daunting, but we've made it as simple as we could. The fields under the "Campaign" subsection are what your participants see when they join. The placeholder values explain what content we're suggesting and also are a good indicator for character counts. As you type, you can see how the length of your copy measures up to the suggested length for each input. In most cases, it's ok if you go over the suggested maximum length by a bit. The "Social share headline" and "Social share description are the exception. If you exceed the character count, the social networks will truncate your text. In all cases, the preview on the right is a good way to see how text fits and flows.

Under the "Participant" subsection, you'll add the copy the copy that a participant shares when they join. Your "Participant share message" is the suggested caption that will accompany their framed photo when shared to a social network. Unless you toggle off the option for participants to personalize that message, they can edit it to make it their own. The "Email share body" is (usually longer) version of the "Participant share message" that is used only when people share with friends via email. Make sure to leave the text {link} in your message, it will be replaced by the link to the participant's photo page.

Use this template to compile your copy before you start building

The subsections "Flow" and "Opt-in" contain the messaging participants see as they progress through the flow and when asked to leave their name and email. You do not have to replace the placeholder values, but can tweak the language if you prefer. If you would like to capture location information via user input (the platform collects inferred location by IP address), you can toggle on the option "Capture Zip/Postal Code" under "Opt-in." Toggle the "Disable Thank You Pop-Up if you prefer not to capture user data at all.

Step 6 - Adjust sharing options

Under "Social," you can customize the options that are presented to participants for sharing their framed photo and message with friends. You can drag the icons around to rearrange them and drag additional options into any of the available slots. Make sure you set your selections for both "Mobile" and "Desktop" as some of the options, like Instagram and SMS, are available on mobile only.

Step 7 - Launch

When you are happy with your campaign in preview mode, click the purple bottom on the top right of the screen to launch it. Now you're ready to start promoting your campaign!

Don't worry, your campaign can be updated after launch right from your campaign builder. Just make any edits and click "Save changes" to apply them to your live campaign.

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