The Online Audit - FreeToastHost

1. FreeToastHost Audit

In the RDG Program, FreeToastHost is used as a marketing site for your prospects to learn about Toastmasters and your club in particular. Because it is a central hub for prospects, it's essential to make sure the site has up-to-date and accurate information. 

This section will assume you have access to the Admin Control Panel so you can make changes.

1.1. Logging into the Admin Control Panel

To do most of the actions needed to audit your FTH site, you'll need your club number and your admin panel password in order to open the Admin Control Panel. Provided you have this info, you'll do the following to get logged in.

1. First, open up your web browser and go to your FreeToastHost site.
2. Look for the Logins section. You may need to accept cookies (GDPR requirement) first. 
3. Select the Login as site admin button.
4. When prompted, enter your club number and admin password in the fields provided. 
5. Select Login. You will (likely) see messages from the FTH developers. Select Keep These and Close.
6. You'll be taken back to the home page, but now the Logins section will look something like this: 
7. Select Launch admin console. This will open the admin console over the home page.
8. OPTIONAL: Use the S, M, or L buttons to adjust the size of the admin console.

Now that you know how to open the admin console, it's time to do some audits.

1.2. Basic Settings

The Basic Settings tab contains some simple, but important, elements for your Marketing Site. This includes club name, description of the club, keywords (for search engines), your website alias or custom website domain, and assorted other settings.

For name, you want the full name of the club. Description is a good place to list a short description of your club, including meeting schedule and location, and will appear in online search results. A sample appears in the above, and here's another:

Are you dreaming of becoming an in-demand speaker? Superstar Toastmasters is dedicated to building up novice speakers into world-class platform experts. We meet on Saturdays from 3:00pm to 4:30pm at the Plaza Conference Center. Come join us for an afternoon of building your skills!

Alias and Custom Domain are something that will be discussed later in Marketing the RDG Club when you build your home base. For now, if there are already settings there, it's not likely you want to change them. Just know that registering a custom domain is highly encouraged, and something that will be covered in future lessons.

Other settings on the Basic Settings tab should be reviewed to make sure they're set correctly. You should also use the Registrar Info field to put in the name, domain, and username (not the password) for your domain registrar, should you have one. Also include the expiration date for your domain(s).

When you're done, select Save, then move on to the next tab: Appearance.

1.3. Appearance

The Appearance tab has several items on it that control how your website appears. You should review them to make sure your site displays as intended.

The Banner Text setting lets you enter different text from your club name to put at the top of your pages. This can be useful if you have a very long club name and want to use a short form of it so it fits better. For example, if your full club name is "Grandview Local Host & Toast Communicators", you may want to use "GV Host & Toast" here as a short form.

Another setting of note is Hide Menu Links. This option is essential if you do not maintain certain aspects of your FTH site. After one meeting at one of my clubs, a guest noted that they had looked at our calendar and didn't see any upcoming meetings, so almost assumed we didn't meet anymore. In response, we decided to hide the club calendar so that no one else would make that mistake (especially considering a lot of people would likely just shrug their shoulders and go looking for another club) and we wouldn't put off potential guests.

When you're done making changes, select Save. 

1.4. Home Page

The Home Page tab controls what content is seen when someone accesses your FTH site. Main Heading controls the tagline that is displayed right under your club name and title banner. Home Page Content is where you'll fill in what's going to appear on the page that people will arrive at when they first come to your site, and is some of the most important material you'll have.

For now, just review the existing content for accuracy. Later in the Marketing the RDG Club program, we'll talk about what content you should have. When you're done, be sure to select Save.

1.5. Meeting Info/Directions

In the Meeting Information/Directions space, you should have the following:

• Your meeting location address (this should be first or near first, because people may need to put it into a GPS or phone)
• The day(s) and time(s) for your meeting (e.g. "We meet on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 6:45pm")
• Directions from major roads or areas. (e.g. "From the south, take I-44 North to exit 230, then turn right onto Giant Street. From the north, take I-44 South to exit 230, then turn left onto Giant Street.")
• Specific, clear directions on how to find your meeting once they reach the building. (e.g. "Take the left entrance into the building, then take the elevator to the 2nd floor. Turn right to find office number 236 down the hall on the right.")

For the Google Maps Address/Iframe, follow the directions provided to embed a Google Maps insert into your directions page. This can be very helpful for people to visualize where your meeting is.

Once you're done, select Save at the bottom of the page.

1.6. Social Links

The Social Links tab lets you list your club's various presences on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and so on. 

Enter your URLs as appropriate, then select Save. If you have sites that are going unused, you may want to delete them from here.

1.7. Floater Messages

Floater messages are text messages you can set to appear on the top of the page. You can have a different messages for logged in members and for site visitors.

It's suggested that you enter your next meetings info into the Non Member Message field, and a link to your Easy Speak/Member site in the Member Message field, as shown above. Updating the Non Member Message field needs to be done monthly.

When you've made edits, be sure to select Save at the bottom of the admin panel.

1.8. Access Settings

The Access Settings tab lets you control access to tools and functions on your FTH site. 

You may need to decide in an executive committee meeting who gets access to what. Logging in to the site admin panel gives you access to everything; logging in as your user account gives you access to tools specified in Access Settings.

If you make changes, use the Save button to keep them.

1.9. Administrator Info

On the Administrator Info tab, you can set the contact information for the administrator of your FTH site. 

At minimum, fill in the name and e-mail address of your FTH site administrator into their respective fields. It's also recommended that you turn off (uncheck) the Send notifications about admin logins from unrecognized devices and IP addresses box, to help cut down on e-mail noise from admin panel logins.

When you're done making changes, select Save. 

1.10. Membership Management

Getting into Membership Management

Now that you've covered the main Website Settings tabs, it's now time to use the Select a Module dropdown box to access other functions. Let's start with Membership Management. Select the Select a Module dropdown, then select Membership Management.

Membership Management, like other modules, consists of several tabs. In this case, they are lists of people in different categories.

Because of it's more powerful and convenient mail list features, the RDG program recommends you keep prospects, guests, and former members lists up to date. To view any of those, simply select their respective tab.

Auditing Members

In the RDG program, your members should primarily be listed in your Member Site; however, having your members listed in FTH is useful as well. You should check your members list against the list that Toastmasters International has. If you find your list has members that TI doesn't have, you need to find out why and fix that. If TI has members you don't have, they should be added. Also, you should be sure that officers are setup correctly on this screen, otherwise people will not receive mails from contact forms and such.

Adding People to Lists

1. In the Membership Management window, select the Quick Add tab.  
   
2. For the Add the following people as: dropdown box, select the group you want to add people to (usually Guests). 
3. In the blank box underneath, enter contact details. Enter one person per line. The format is <First Name> <Last Name> <E-Mail Address> <Phone # in NNN-NNN-NNNN>. For example:
   

   John Smith jdsmith@gmail.com 123-456-7890
   Jane Smith janesmith@hotmail.com 987-654-3210

4. Select Save when complete.

Move People Between Lists

This task is useful when guests become members and members become former members.

1. Select the tab of the list you want to move members from (for example, if you want to move a guest to the member list, start on the Guests tab). 
   
2. Locate who you want to move on the list and select the check box next to their name. (You can make multiple selections if appropriate)
   
3. From the Membership Tools dropdown box, select the appropriate Move to option. (for example, to move a guest to the members list, use Move to Members List)  
   
4. Select Save when done.
   

Edit Contact Details

1. In Membership Management, select the tab of the list that contains the person you want to edit.
   
2. Select the field you want to edit and make the appropriate changes.
   
3. Select Save when done.
   

When all your changes are done, use Close to return to the main control panel.

1.11. File Manager

The File Manager lets you post files for download. 

For an online audit, you should make sure that: 

• Your files are up to date (very important for New Member Applications) 
• Files that are supposed to be publicly accessible are unlocked
  
• Files that are supposed to be private are locked
• The files are named correctly (no spelling errors, etc.)
• Note in the above screenshot, the guest packet is differentiated from the member packet by using all caps. This provides a cue that they're different.

When you're finished making changes, select Save, then Close.

1.12. E-Mail & Contact Forms

After reviewing the files you have, use the module select dropdown to go to E-Mail & Contact Forms.

Check the settings on the Email Settings, Email Security, Contact Us Form, and Mentoring Form. You want to make sure the appropriate people are receiving the e-mails they should (you may want to review it in an executive committee meeting). For the Contact Us Form, it's recommended you set the VP PR, VPM, and President as contact points.

When finished, select Save, then Close.