1. “We are totally obsessed with this
software.”
Morgan Sommerville, Stevenson University

2. Great to meet you!
You can call us anytime at 800.552. 2194
Danielle Valenti
Head of Customer
Success
danielle@meritpages.co
m
Jackie Vetrano
Customer Success
Manager
jackie@meritpages.com
Erin Mark
Customer Success
Manager
erin@meritpages.com
Merit on Twitter: @Merit_Pages LinkedIn: Merit Power Users Group

3. Welcome to Merit
We want you to be successful.
This guide will show you how to get
immediate results with Merit. We’ll
provides lots of examples for getting the
most out of Merit, tips from other
colleges, how-to guides, and more, but
the most important thing to know is this:
Just do the basics and you will
win.

4. What are the basics?
Enrollment
Recognize incoming freshmen and transfer students to reach their
younger peers who are beginning the school search process.
End-of-term Dean’s Lists
Broad-based measure of attainment is popular and appreciated,
with high engagement rates; core element of Merit page.
Graduation
Classic outcome-oriented achievement is a milestone in social and
local media, generating discussion among new students and
alumni.

5. Getting started
In this section
•Quick start guide
•Badges
•Granting your first achievement
‣ Step 1: What is it?
‣ Step 2: Who receives it?
‣ Step 3: Where else do you want to send it?

6. Quick start guide
We provide a free orientation and training whenever you or your team needs it.
contact us to set something up: help@meritpages.com. Get started with Merit right
away:
Log in to your Merit account at http://app.meritpages.com
(your account info was already emailed to you)
Go to “Settings,” follow the easy steps to create your badges
and set up your Merit page. (to make meritpages.com look the way you want)
Click “Start” on the dashboard and grant your first achievement!
(we bet you can figure it out on your own but the next pages will show you exactly how to
do it)
1
2
3

7. Badges
You need badges to send an achievement.
Merit makes it easy to get badges fast!
Whether you decide to create your own badges or not,
log in to your Merit account, go to “Settings” click
“Branding.” Enter your institution’s primary and
secondary colors and we’ll create badges for you and
they’ll be in your account in just a few days.
Why badges?
The “badges” that Merit associates with the
achievements you grant are important because they
carry your brand into social networks and identify
students’ accomplishments on meritpages.com.
Think of them like your branded apparel, bumper
stickers, official documents and other university-approved
items. Badges distinguish your
achievements and create brand affiliation with
everyone who sees them.

8. Granting Your First Achievement
Achievements have three simple elements:
1. What is it?
2. Who receives it?
3. Where else do you want to send it?

9. Granting Your First Achievement
Step 1: What is it?
Describe the achievement.
•Select a badge
•Give your achievement a headline
•Write a short intro

10. Granting Your First Achievement
Step 2: Who receives it?
Tell Merit who you’re recognizing.
You can add students on the fly by clicking a button
and adding basic information about them.
Better yet, if you’ve ever granted an achievement to
a student, you can start typing the student’s name
into the achievement granting workflow and Merit
will populate the rest of the fields for you.
For big achievements, like the Dean’s List, you can
request a list of students in a spreadsheet using an
email like this. Your registrar will provide it. They may
want to know about FERPA. Merit is 100% compliant
with the strictest standards of privacy. Be sure to ask
for the students’ first name, last name, email
address, hometown, and zip code. This information
helps Merit create a unique identify for each student.

11. Use an email template to collect student information

12. Granting Your First Achievement
Step 3: Where else do you want to send
it?
Now you have a chance to broadcast your
achievements to a wider audience than your students
and their followers.
Distribution channels
Send to newspapers
•National hometown newspapers
Post to social media
•Facebook
•Twitter

13. Press release types
When you choose to include local media as part of your distribution,
Merit writes two types of press releases for you:
Type one: A press release that includes a list of all
the students from the same newspapers coverage
area. Rather than send several, identical press
releases, Merit combines them into one release with
a bullet-point list of students.
Type two: A press release for a single student.
If there is only one student in a newspaper’s
coverage area.