You may want to promote a campaign, a new policy, an event or a set of guides, and the sidebars, landing pages and search results page are good places to do it. Govintra gives you four ways, from a targeted panel that knows who is looking to a plain picture. This page helps you choose, and lists where a promotion can go.
Which tool to use
An intravert: a targeted panel in a widget area
The intravert is the tool built for this. Each intravert is an image, some text and a button leading to a page, and it can be limited to a date range, to logged-in staff, to chosen teams, grades or locations, and to the tasks in a category or the news of a type it sits beside. Once a person selects it or dismisses it, it stays hidden for them for a set number of days, and the widget moves on to the next eligible intravert. Create the intraverts, then place the (Govintra) Intraverts widget in the areas you want and tick which intraverts are eligible there. See the Intravert guide, starting with Create a bank of intraverts and Place intravert widgets.
An ultravert: a site-wide message that places itself
For something everyone must notice, such as a systems outage, a deadline or a launch, use an ultravert. It needs no widget area: it appears as a toast, a banner, an interstitial or a ticker on every page it is targeted at, with its own timing, frequency and audience rules set on the ultravert itself. See the Ultraverts guide.
A pinned story or post: promote content you already have
If what you want to promote is a news story, a blog post or an event, pin it. The (Govintra) News widget has a Pin stories field and the (Govintra) Blog posts widget a Pin posts field; pinned items sit at the top with a Featured badge. The News widget can also be placed on the Blog Landing area to promote news to bloggers, and the Blog posts widget on the News Landing area to promote your bloggers.
A plain image, text or HTML widget
For a simple static advert, use the standard WordPress Image widget with a link, or a Text or Custom HTML widget. These show to everyone, every time, and are not tracked or dismissed. There is no Spots plugin in Govintra.
Where a promotion can go
Go to Appearance, then Widgets. Each area below is a place on a page; add a widget to it and it appears there. Sidebars sit to the right of the content, under the editor’s own sidebar content and any Related list, and above the type and tag pills.
- Homepage: Homepage hero area, Homepage full-width, Homepage first column, Homepage second column, Homepage third column.
- Tasks and guides: Tasks Landing (the How do I? page) for “doing” messages, and Task Sidebar on every task and guide. An intravert here can be limited to a task category.
- News: News Landing (the News page), News Sidebar on every story, and News Update Sidebar on every news update. An intravert in the News Sidebar can be limited to a news type.
- Blog: Blog Landing and Blog Sidebar.
- Events: Events Landing and Event Sidebar.
- Other modules: Project Sidebar, Training Sidebar, Vacancy Sidebar, Team News Sidebar, Comms Hub Sidebar.
- Pages: Page Sidebar and Page Sidebar (Right), used by the page templates that have a sidebar.
- Search Results: on the results page, one of the most visited pages on any intranet. See Add a widget to the search results sidebar.
- Footer: Footer Left, Footer Right 1 and Footer Right 2, on every page.
Only the areas for modules that are switched on are used, although all of them are listed.
Tips
- Put one intravert widget in each area at most, and one on the homepage. Two on the same page compete, and confuse the rule that hides an intravert once someone has selected it.
- Match the message to the place: a “book your flu jab” panel works in the Task Sidebar beside HR guides; a “read the annual report” panel suits the News Landing area.
- Give every campaign an end: a date range on an intravert, an expiry on an ultravert, or a note in your diary to remove the image widget. See Techniques.
- For the homepage as a whole, see Setup widgets on the homepage.