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Admin notifications and Blink improvements land at BigTent

Published February 9, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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Yesterday we rolled out two much-requested features that are sure to improve the way you receive updates about your BigTent groups:

1. Admin notifications. We’ve set things up so that any admin who manages part of the enrollment process (membership approval, payment processing) can now receive email alerts each time a new member joins, declines to join, or needs approval to be admitted to the group.

By default, we’ve turned on these notifications for admins. There’s a link in each email to adjust your notification preferences.

2. Blink delivery options. When we switched the Blink — a system message that provides summaries of group news, events, member, and photo activity — to a weekly delivery schedule last month, a ton of feedback poured in that made us realize that many groups rely on day-specific messaging to stay in the loop about group events.

Based on this feedback, we’ve reinstated options to receive your Blink daily or on a certain day  of the week.

It’s always our goal to develop features that improve the lives of group leaders and members, and we hope you’ll enjoy these recent upgrades. Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Best,

The BigTent Team

BigTent celebrates National Wear Red Day

Published February 5, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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Today is National Wear Red Day — are you wearing red?

Since 2004, the holiday has existed to help raise awareness of heart disease in women. Heart disease is the #1 killer of American women, and one in four women dies from the disease.

BigTent has joined the movement, and we’re a proud media sponsor of the 2010 Go Red for Women movement in the Greater Bay Area. If you tune into our Twitter channel, you’ll notice that we’ve changed our background and we’re tweeting heart health tips every day for the month of February.

BigTent also hosts several groups to help you eat better, relax, and get into shape. Here are a few you may be interested in:

No Excuses Workouts — get free daily inspiration and workout tips from your Virtual Personal Trainer, Jonathan Roche

Saving Dinner — learn how to save money and eat healthier by planning your meals in advance

The Hatched Egg — provides support to help members overcome anxiety, panic, and stress

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Group of the Week: Kari and James Tie the Knot

Published January 29, 2010 Big Features 1 Comment
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Even when she’s not coming up with creative marketing campaigns as a BigTent Account Executive, Allison Talamantez is busy figuring out other innovative ways to use BigTent. To Allison, it made perfect sense to plan a friend’s wedding through the site.

We thought this was such a cool application of our group service, we had to ask her for more details:

Q: Why did you choose BigTent?

A: We are a group of 10 bridesmaids for our dear friend Kari. We love Kari lots! However, we are working all across the country and have limited time. It was tough digging through all the emails we were sending back and forth to make plans. Plus, we needed to collect funds. Using BigTent’s built-in event payment system has helped us distribute financial responsibilities evenly.

Q: How else is your group using BigTent?

A: We are using it to figure out all the special details for the bride-to-be. We can’t wait to watch two of our dear friends join their lives together!

Q: When you’re not helping plan a wedding, what else are you up to?

A: I am your typical American mom. I work, I love my kid, and I try to do things on the side. Not to mention I try to do it all well.

Q: We also hear you’re into marathons right now.

A: Yeah, for some reason, I pledged to run 12 marathons in 12 months. Right now I’m on number 7.

That’s quite a lot to juggle! We’re glad that BigTent can spare Allison some more time to spend with her family (and out on the track, too).

How to Organize Your School Online: Recording and slides now live

Published January 28, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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School leaders from 15 different states signed up to hear words of wisdom from Croce PTA leader, Monica Baucke, in our BigTent webinar, How to Organize Your School Online.

As promised, we have posted Monica’s 10 tips for improving your communications and increasing parent involvement, as well as a recorded version of the webinar.

If you have any questions or ideas, you may wish to join Monica’s online discussion group, PTA/PTSA/PTO Parent Groups.

Please feel free to share these resources with your leadership teams. We welcome any questions or feedback you may have.

Best,

The BigTent Team

Follow Monica on Twitter: http://twitter.com/myptofview

Follow BigTent on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Slides and audio available: Flying with BigTent webinar

Published January 28, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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BigTent’s webinar, “Flying with BigTent,” was lots of fun this week! It was great getting to share some tips with FlyBabies on how to get the most out of BigTent.

In case you missed the session, a copy of the slides and the webinar recording are now available.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you at a future webinar.

-The BigTent Team

Grow your BigTent group by inviting Facebook friends

Published January 21, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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We’ve just released an easy way for you to grow your BigTent groups. We’ve upgraded our Tell a Friend feature so you can invite friends directly through Facebook.

Just select the friends you’d like to invite, your friends will see a request on their Facebook Home pages.

For this feature to work, your BigTent group must be set up to allow members to invite their friends. If you’re an admin of your group, visit manage > invite members > new invitation settings and make sure this is the case.

We hope you’ll enjoy this increased ability to grow your group. Stay tuned for more cool integrations with Facebook, and let us know if you have any questions or feedback.

Best,

MaryAnn and the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/BigTentGroups

BigTent Blink gets a makeover

Published January 20, 2010 Big Features 2 Comments
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New BigTent Blink

Featuring a fun new design, and an overhaul of content, the new Blink delivers recent activity from all your groups in a single, easy-to-read glance. Now you can:

- See alerts for new tentmail, gifts, and admin and moderator tasks.
- Use the new index to jump to content for any of your groups (perfect for busy leaders with many groups).
- View group updates of new forum posts, group news, events, members, photos, v-gifts and more, all neatly organized by group.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments about this new design.

Cheers,

The BigTent Team

Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Special BigTent Webinar for FlyLady Fans

Published January 13, 2010 Big Features 7 Comments
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Happy New Year, FlyBabies! To help you start 2010 off right, BigTent is hosting a free webinar to give you 10 useful tips for getting the most out of FlyLady’s and other groups on BigTent. Tips include:

  • How to leave comments on FlyLady news posts
  • How to update your profile
  • How to join or start other groups of interest

There will also be time during the webinar to answer any questions you may have. Register for FREE today!

All you need is Internet access and a phone/computer headset to attend. We hope you can join us.

Best,

Rufus & Mia @ BigTent

GOODY and BigTent team up to support Girls on the Run

Published January 8, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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BigTent is excited to announce a new campaign with GOODY, maker of innovative styling tools and fashionable hair accessories for women. GOODY has pledged to donate $10,000 to Girls on the Run, a life-changing, experiential learning program that aims to educate and prepare girls for a life time of self-respect and healthy living.

How does BigTent fit in? GOODY has enlisted our social media services to spread the word about Girls on the Run. We’ve created a virtual gift of confidence. Send the gift of confidence to your friends, and GOODY will donate $1 to Girls on the Run. If your friends pass on the gift of confidence, GOODY will again make a donation.

Got a minute? Send a gift on BigTent or visit the BigTent-powered Facebook app to raise money for Girls on the Run.

Let us know if you have any questions.

Best,

Ken & the BigTent team

BigTent introduces topics-only forums digest

Published January 6, 2010 Big Features Leave a Comment
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To provide your members with more control over how they receive emails from your group’s forum, we’ve introduced a new email option: a topics-only daily digest!

This new digest is ideal for groups who have a high volume of forum messages and have members who only want a few emails a day from the group. Here is a quick summary of details:

- You can choose to receive the topics-only daily digest by going to settings > email options. Then find the forum setting you want to change and set it to “Email daily message digest (topics only).”

- The topics-only daily digest will be sent after 25 new topics have been posted to the group, or at the end of the day, whichever comes first.

-Similar to the topics & comments digest, there are links to view the full discussion thread on BigTent, send a group-wide response to the topic, or contact the topic author directly.

- The topics & comments daily digest is still an option. This option is still the default for new members joining your group.

We hope your members find this new email option helpful. If you have any question please contact us by clicking “help” on any BigTent page and choosing “Submit a support case.”

Happy New Year!

Best,
Mary Ann & the BigTent Team

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BigTent & Goody Support Girls on the Run

Send this virtual gift and Goody donates $1 to GOTR


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