Stories are the primary way most teams deliver news and messaging to their Subscribers - much like a news article, a Story provides provides written information created by your team, but may also include videos, images, and more.

To create a Story, go to Content, then click the red megaphone icon (Create a Story icon) on the left side of your screen.

To edit a Story that already exists, click the Pencil icon under the story image in your Content hub tables.

Once clicked, the Story Editor will open and you can begin to create or edit your Story.

The Authors toggle inside Content Controls designates whether you see the Authors header.

Toggled Off

You will not see the Authors header. When toggled off, the Story created in your Instance will show as being authored by your Organization.

Toggled On

You will see the Authors header. When toggled On, you can use the drop-down list to select an author for your Story. The authors you can select from are the Author Profiles created inside Content Controls.

Read more about Content Authors or learn how to toggle Authors on/off inside Content Controls.

You can add a Story title by typing in the field where it says Make it Memorable.

We recommend 85 Characters to keep it short and sweet, but you have a maximum of 200 characters available. Style and formatting are set by your Branding Settings and Cerkl.

This title can be seen in the following places:

Under the Title, you have the option to enter text that will be used as a Subtitle and a Summary in several locations. Without a Subtitle or Summary, a portion of the article will be used for the News Digest summary.

The Subtitle & Summary gives your Subscribers a good idea of the Story’s content before reading so they can determine if it’s something they are interested in reading more about.

This text is used as the summary text in your News Digest, as the subtitle on Stories in your Content Archive, and is pulled in when using the Content Block Element in Blasts. When writing the Subtitle & Summary, there is a maximum of 250 characters, and style or formatting are not supported.

In the screenshot below, you can see what the Subtitle & Summary of your Story may look like inside of the News Digest (depending on your Subscribers layout preferences).

Under the Subtitle & Summary section, you will see the place where you can enter the content of your Story.

Inside the text editor, you have a variety of formatting and styling options in the tool bar. There are a lot of customization options here, and we encourage you to check out all the tools at your disposal.

To learn more about the text editor capabilities, please review Story Text Editor Overview.

Your Story Image is the image that represents your Story inside of the Subscribers’ News Digest, at the top of the Story Page, in Content Block Elements in Blasts, and on the Content Archive page.

You can add your Story Image by doing any of the following:

The Story Image size is recommended to be 1500 x 1000px, or a 3 X 2 ratio.

Supported file types include:

The maximum image upload size is 1600kb. The max file size for a .GIF file is 1mb.

If an image is not added when published, when shared via News Digest, an image will be randomly selected from your Image Placeholders set under Settings > Branding.

After an Image has been added to a Story, there are several options available to replace, refine, or edit the image.

You can rename your Story Image and include updated alt-text. Alt-text provides descriptions of images for readers utilizing accessibility tools.

Hover your cursor over the image for additional options including:

Click the Garbage can icon to remove the image, and reselect a new image.

Click to save the image for future use in your Image Gallery. For more information, please review Add Images to the Image Gallery - Add From Content Story Images.

Before you click to Add To Gallery, we recommend that you review and update the Image Name and Alt-Text. By default, whatever is set as the Image Name and Alt-Text in the Story Image details will be saved to the gallery.

For more information, please review How to Use the Image Cropper

Under the Publish Dates header, you can select the date and time that your Story is published, a Circulation End Date, and an Expiration Date.

When a Story is Published, this means it is eligible to send and read through all available channels.

If passed the Circulation End Date, it will not be sent in News Digests or be shared in other channel feeds. It will still be available when searching, for use in the Content Block Element in Blasts, and in the Content Archive.

If passed the Expiration date, it will not be made available to Subscribers in any channel, including the Content Archive. Stories which were sent in a Blast or Digest which have expired will still be accessible from the links clicked in those emails.

Select your Dates in one of the following ways:

When viewing the calendar, Important Days will be highlighted in yellow. If you select a Date that falls on an Important Day, you will see an Important Day callout detailing the Important Day Name, Date, and Message for that day.

If you do not want your Story to expire, you can toggle off Expiration Date to make it Evergreen. This will ensure the Story is always available in your Archive. The Story will also continue to send in News Digests unless a Circulation End Date is selected.

Under the Categories header, you can select the Categories of interest that are related to the Story you created.

Categories are used to identify which pieces of Content best fit a Subscriber's interests. As Subscribers read more Content, our AI learns what they are interested in and will funnel more relevant Content into their News Digests.

To learn more about Categories, check out Categories Explained.

When creating a Story, you will need to tag your Story with the appropriate Categories. You can tag your Story with as many Categories as you like by doing either of the following options:

To access your Distribution Settings, click on the blue gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen when you are editing a piece of Content.

In the Distribution Settings, you can configure:

There are a lot of options to review, so please continue reading: Content Distribution Settings.

Once you are done creating your Story, or you want to save it so you can finish later, you have the ability to preview your Story, save it as a draft, or publish it.

Below, each of the action options are explained:

If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@cerkl.com or use the support Chat toward the bottom right-hand corner of any cerkl.com page.