Getting Started User Guide

We've tried to keep the basic membership registration as simple as possible with easy member approval on the Register page. Upon registration you can immediately access the site and you'll receive a confirmation email.

We strongly encourage you to spend some time on your profile information.

Please read the terms of use that you're agreeing to abide by. We take them seriously, you should too. Thanks.

You will find a login link at the top of most pages on the main site and various obvious links on network subsites.

The login is standard but includes Google Recaptcha which can be irritating if it senses anything hinky such as multiple login attempts in a short period of time from the same IP address. Internet explorer seems to trigger additional security also.

As a side note: we recommend using the Chrome browser and being logged into your Google account when doing activity related to your business and brand. It might seem inconsequential but Google tracks activity and these data points are aggregated and establish relevancy - which is good for both your operations and the community network.

When you login you will be redirected to your profile page so that you can keep your profile info and activity up-to-date. Spending time adding as much information as possible on your profile and keeping it updated is a good idea.

When you're logged in you'll see different navigation menu options and content. The Admin navigation tool bar will appear at the top of the page for members that have Author, Editor, or Admin role status on a subsite. 

We recommend going to the Social Bookmarks site (you might need to refresh that page to display properly), it will automatically upgrade you to 'author' status allowing you to add a bookmark post with freshly written description, and share that post. While there please BE SURE TO SHARE AND LIKE other posts.

Then upon returning to the mainsite you will now see the admin bar which makes navigation easier.

Hovering over your profile name will open a menu with useful links relating to your account and membership.

The admin bar makes it easy to navigate to other network subsites and access account information.

One of the ways people will find your public profile page is from the members directory. 

The Members Directory is searchable, and the member 'cards' have a number of features including quick links to activity and private messaging.

Members can opt-out of messaging - and spamming with unsolicited drivel is subject to getting accounts banned completely and permanently (please see previous notes about reading terms of use).

Yes, you can do some self-promotion using your membership and profile. No, you can't harass members with spam messages. If you have to ask 'what is considered spam' then don't message members. 

When you login you'll be redirected to your public profile page. 

Navigating to your profile edit page can be done a couple of ways.

From the profile page, on the right side next to your avatar image there is a small arrow; click that and a menu will drop down.

For members that have Author, Editor, or Admin role status on a site the adminbar on any page hovering over your user name will prompt a menu to drop down.

Link to YOUR PROFILE

Once you're on the editing page a number of options become available.

We strongly recommend updating as much information on your profile as possible.

When uploading images please make sure to optimize them before using them. There are many online resources, check out Cloudinary which also is an image CDN and is free.

Your profile picture will work best at square 150x150 px.

Your cover image can be various sizes and will adjust for different sized devices. We use 1350x350 which seems to work well. You can try using your images from Facebook or Twitter to see how they look.

By default, until you upload your own images, we use images from Unsplash.com which is a great resource to use quality images for free.

Contact Info allows adding your address, public email, and your website URL.

The Social Network settings allows links to your social profiles or pages. Just add the URL you want.

Review Links allows you to enter the URL of your public reviews on Facebook, Tripadvisor, Yelp, and Google.  You should be using these addresses in links in various places so its handy to have them here for reference.

We encourage you to join groups of your peers and areas of interest.

Take a look at the Groups page.

Google crawls and indexes 'activity' pages. This makes the Community Network valuable in establishing your personal brand identity and authority as being related to the Tours, Travel, and Hospitality; and that you're active and involved.

Aggregated activities from all members can be seen on the Network Activity Stream page.

Activity such as publishing posts, forum participation, and commenting will show up in member profiles.