Best of the Year (part 2)

We are on week closer to the end of the year. Last week we looked at Part 1 of our favorite posts of the year. This week we are looking at Part 2 of the best tutorials and our favorite marketing ideas from this year.

Event & Promotion Automated Social Publishing

Automated reminders about your upcoming events and promotions are sent based on the settings you dictate in categories. This means Squareberry is automatically publishing messages to your social media accounts about the happenings you have scheduled in your Squareberry account.

Read the Full Post >

Boost Your Weekend Sales

Weekends rule for a lot of reasons. Football games. Free days. Alarm clocks are turned off. Sunday brunches. For many local businesses, weekends are the busiest time. Restaurants and bars see a huge influx on weekend nights and many retails stores are busiest on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

Read the Full Post >

Recapping Our Understanding Series

We ran a whole series if articles on understanding different aspects of your account. If you missed any of these articles we encourage you to take the time to read them. Understanding all aspects of your Squareberry account is important to getting the most out of the mobile & social marketing tools.

Read the Full Post >

Gift Cards During the Holidays

Gift cards are a great alternative gift and have become more and more popular over the years. If you are not selling gift cards or promoting your gift cards, you are missing out on a potentially huge market.

Read the Full Post >

There will be no Tuesday Tip the next two weeks due to Christmas and New Year's holidays. We will see you in 2014. Happy Holidays to all!.

Best of the Year (part 1)

2013 is coming to a close. This week we start a two part series of looking back at the best Tuesday Tips of the year. If you missed any of these great posts, now is the time to check them out. Can you believe this year is already ending? 2014, here we come!

Restaurant Promotions That Bring Groups

Instead of offering a 25% off coupon for lunch, try a 50% Off One Lunch Entree When You Buy Another or Buy Two Lunch Entrees Get One Free. These small changes mean two people are buying entrees (and hopefully more) for lunch instead of just one person.

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

Often times, multi-location businesses have a cohesive marketing strategy for their brand while allowing each location to host their own events and even their own promotions. But, it is unlikely that each location would have its own website. A single website for all locations is much more common and generally a more efficient and effective option.

Read the Full Post >

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Even when scheduling messages in advance you can include details in your posts. For example if you are having a live music night, you can send out messages with details of the band. Instead of a generic tweet like “Live Music Night is going great.” you can offer some details such as “John from ‘Grey Cycle’ is truly rocking it tonight! Get here soon to see the rest of their set!”

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Management Guide

Using these templates, you can create sleek and dynamic mobile websites for any organization. We have now compiled the various posts about mobile website management to create a complete mobile website management guide.

Read the Full Post >

Gift Cards During the Holidays

Promote Gift Cards as.. Gifts

The Holiday Season is full of gift giving. It is the main reason for most of the shopping that is done. In our Cyber Monday article we discussed local businesses promoting gift cards. This promotion can carry on past Cyber Monday. Gift cards are a great alternative gift and have become more and more popular over the years. If you are not selling gift cards or promoting your gift cards, you are missing out on a potentially huge market.

The most basic aspect of selling gift cards is letting people know you offer them. Many restaurants or local stores have them, but only discuss them when a customer asks. Your store/restaurant should have signs letting people know and your website should not be shy about it. Additionally, schedule social media posts reminding people that gift cards can be purchased and that they make great gifts.

You can also run small promotions such as 5% or 10% off gift cards. This little push can help you get purchases from people who were undecided and help you sell higher priced gift cards.

After the Holidays

After the holiday season is over, people will be coming in to use those gift cards. Gift cards are best for businesses when the customer buys something of greater value than the gift card. The idea is for the gift card to get them in the door and for your staff to sell them something that costs even more.

Make sure your staff is promoting larger items. For local retail stores and service providers, make sure your larger products and services are up front and featured. Additionally, any promotions you run should focus on higher-end services and more expensive products.

Restaurants can run promotions or events centered around groups and larger parties. Examples of this are discounts on multiple meal purchases, pitchers instead of glasses and group events like trivia nights. Restaurants should be aiming to bring groups in keep them there for prolonged periods. You want them to spend more than the value of their gift card.

Black Friday + Cyber Monday Review

The past two weeks we have discusses Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With the week of Thanksgiving here and the long shopping weekend approaching, we wanted to do a quick review of key points/ideas for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you have any ideas or want to share your experiences with this time of year, feel free to head over to the Squareberry Strategies section of our Forum.

Black Friday

• Lunch on Black Friday is a big opportunity for local restaurants. Most of the shopping is done in the morning to early afternoon and shoppers will need a place to refuel and grab a bite.
• Local small businesses can target the afternoon for promotions. The morning is dominated by large retail chains with big ticket items that are tough to compete with.
• Full Black Friday Post >

Cyber Monday

• Small businesses with online stores should focus on social media to get their local audience sharing and talking about their special offers.
• Restaurants and other local businesses can sell gift cards (a popular git choice) at a discounted rate on Cyber Monday. This is an easy promotion and a way to assure more people will be coming in your doors down the road.
• Full Cyber Monday Post >

 

Next week we will start looking at some tips for promotions and events during the busy holiday season. We will also discuss ideas on bringing in people who are from out of town.

Cyber Monday for Local Business

Read our Previous Post about Black Friday >

Cyber Monday is a more recent tradition in the holiday shopping season. Online retailers looked for ways to capitalize on the hype of post-Thanksgiving shopping. Cyber Monday takes advantage of a workforce sitting at computers following a long holiday weekend. Cyber Monday is becoming (if it has not gotten there already) just as big of a shopping day as Black Friday. Small/local businesses can also take advantage of Cyber Monday to boost sales.

Small Businesses With Online Stores

Many small businesses now offer online stores and ordering. With the creation of easy-to-use content management systems and online stores, local businesses are more capable than ever in this area.

For small businesses with online stores, Cyber Monday can be pretty straight forward. Special promotions and money-saving discounts can be offered to your customers. The key is getting your message out there on a day when all online retailers are looking to promote something. Utilize social media, especially Facebook, and encourage your followers to share you promotions so they spread with your local audience.

Small Businesses Without Online Stores

Things are different for local retailers (or restaurants) that do not have online stores. Cyber Monday normally involves purchasing items online that are shipped to you. However, there is no reason why you can not offer 'online promotions' that are redeemed at your actual business location.

Local businesses can offer special promotions and coupons on Cyber Monday only, meaning the coupon/promotion is only published on your website or on social media for that single day. People can print it or save it on Cyber Monday. At the end of the day, you can take the promotion down. The promotion can then be redeemed anytime after.

Gift Cards

Many local businesses do not have online stores or traditional products to sell. Gift cards are big sellers during the holidays. Restaurants, local retailers and small businesses can take gift card orders on Cyber Monday, offering discounts on their gift cards. Many people will take advantage of this promotion to buy gift cards as gifts for others.

Black Friday for Local Business

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the USA. Generally, it marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season and features large sales, discounted items and early store hours. On Black Friday millions of people go out spending money. They shop, they buy gifts and they often dine out. Despite not having the big ticket items or large advertising budgets, local businesses can still participate in Black Friday (if they choose to be open).

Restaurants on Black Friday

Local restaurants can see a lot of business on Black Friday. Much of the shopping is done in the morning and in the early afternoon. This means, there are a large number of people who are out of the home and will be hungry for lunch (not everyone wants Thanksgiving leftovers everyday). If your restaurant is open, make sure you are letting people know on social media. You can also run a special promotion to help draw in more people.

Promoting on social media is essential. Mobile devices users who are out shopping will be checking Twitter and Facebook to see news, updates, where their friends are and what their friends have bought. Your restaurant should be part of this conversation and let people know that they can stop by your location to refuel.

Small Businesses

There probably won't be a lot of business in the mornings for small/local retail businesses. The morning crowd is dominated by large retail chains with big ticket items and huge savings. However, the afternoon could be prime for the taking. Most shoppers plan out their morning - what stores they will hit and when. But, the afternoon is often overlooked. If you have a local retail store with specialty items that holiday shoppers are interested in, try promoting special "Afternoon Savings". Your small business may not be where they line up at 5 AM, but you could be the final stop on the way home.

Not for Everyone

Black Friday may not be for every local business. Restaurants are more likely to see big crowds and some local retail shops may decide it is better to just not be open. It all depends on your market and your situation. If Black Friday is not for you, maybe Cyber Monday is...

Next week we will take a look at Cyber Monday, the digital cousin of Black Friday.

Embed a Video on Your Event Details

Why Videos?

Videos rule. They grab attention and convey information in a more engaging way to viewers. Using videos can help you promote your events and boost attendance. Earlier this year, Forbes ran an article entitled "Why Online Video Is Vital For Your 2013 Content Marketing Objectives". The article mentions 4 reasons why we are drawn to video:

• #1: The Fusiform Facial area makes us pay attention to faces
• #2: Voice conveys rich information
• #3: Emotions are contagious
• #4: Movement grabs attention

Read the full Forbes article here >

Videos for Events

The easiest way to get video content for future events is to record video during your current events. If you have a special Trivia Night, you can record a short video to show off your big crowd and people having fun. Now, you have this video to use when promoting future Trivia Nights. Add your Trivia Nights video to the event details of your schedule Trivia Nights to help promote these future events.

How to Embed a Video on an Event

• Upload your Video to a video service such as YouTube or Vimeo.
• Get the Embed Code for your video. Copy this code.
• On the Add/Edit Event page, go to the Content area.
• Click the "HTML" button on the content editor.
• Paste the embed code into the page's HTML (the top is usually the best place to feature the video).
• Click the "Update" video.
• Save the Event.

Recapping Our Understanding Series

For the past six weeks, we have been taking a closer look at various aspects of Squareberry. Our "Understanding" series has provided insightful looks into popular features and managing sections of your account.

Now, we are taking a look back. If you missed any of these articles we encourage you to take the time to read them. Understanding all aspects of your Squareberry account is important to getting the most out of the mobile & social marketing tools. The articles are listed below.

Understand Your Account Settings

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Event Views

Read the Full Article >

Understanding the Social Media Conversation Inbox

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Your Planner

Read the Full Article >

Understanding the Social Conversation Search Feature

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Listen & Count Polls

Read the Full Article >

We Love Hearing From our Users

If you have any ideas for articles or features you want to see blog posts about, let us know. You can tell us on the Forum or email us at squareberry@squareberry.com.

Understanding Listen & Count Polls

Listen & Count polls allow you to set-up interactive polls and track how many times people respond with certain keywords.

Setting Up a Poll

In the Listen & Count polls area you can add new polls and edit existing ones. Polls have names, response tracking options, a poll question, start & end dates, a response option and a list of keywords that will be tracked. For each keyword you add, you can add aliases. Aliases are other words that count as responses for that same keyword.

For more details on setting up a Listen & Count Poll, read this blog post.

How Keyword Tracking Works

Responses which include the keywords you dictate are tracked and counted for your polls. On Twitter, keyword in replies to your Twitter messages are counted. SMS works similarly, as keywords mentioned in replies to your SMS number are counted. Website and mobile pages have widgets which show your polls question and allow readers to type in text responses. Responses with keywords are counted for your polls.

Date Ranges

Date ranges determine when keywords are counted. Keyword mentions and submissions outside of your set date range are not counted towards your polls. If you select "No Date Range (ongoing)", all keyword responses are counted.

Displaying Stats

Stats for each poll can be added to websites as widgets, allowing you to share results publicly. There is a Calendar Count Widget which shows results by day. There is also the Poll Count Widget which shows overall stats of your poll which can be displayed as a pie chart or column chart.

Understanding the Social Conversation Search Feature

The Social Conversation area in your Squareberry account allows you to monitor and manage social media conversation. Previously, we took a look at fully understanding the Social Media Inbox. The Inbox is your centralized location for your ongoing conversations. But what if you want to start new conversation or find new things to talk about. That's where the Search features come in.

Twitter Searches

The Search features are currently limited to Twitter. Twitter is generally much more open than other social media platforms. People's posts are public and can be seen by anyone. This allows organizations to find new individuals & leads who are talking about their industry or looking for a company just like them.

The left column of the search section features all of your current searches. Clicking on a search term will show the current search results for that term. You can add a new search term by clicking "Add a Search".

Starting a Conversation

Once your search results are shown, you can Reply to or Retweet any tweet that is shown. This allows you to start a dialogue with someone you may not know. Click "Reply" and a pop-up appears to compile your reply message. You can instantly send the message right from this same screen.

Using Quotes

Putting a multi-word search term in quotes does a search for the words in that order. For example: "miami restaurant" will look for tweets with those two words together, instead of just tweets using one or the other.

Understanding the Social Media Conversation Inbox

The Inbox in the Social Conversation Area allows you to manage ongoing conversations in various social media accounts from one centralized location. When someones comments on a Facebook post or replies to you on Twitter, it will show up here and you will be able to comment/reply instantly.

All of the people you are having conversations with are listed on the left side. Clicking a person brings up the conversation with them, showing you the full history of your conversation with that person.

Refreshing / Refresh Button

Your Social Inbox will refresh automatically throughout the day. New comments/replies you have received will show up in the Unanswered section. The total number of conversations that are "unanswered" are also displayed on the Welcome screen when you login to your account.

You can also manually refresh your Inbox at anytime by clicking the "Refresh" button.

Unanswered / Answered

Any conversation you contribute to with a comment or reply will be moved to the "Answered" section of the Inbox. You can completely remove a conversation by clicking the "Remove" link in the top right corner of that particular conversation. You can also move a conversation to 'Answered" or "Unanswered" by clicking the "Mark as" link at the top of the conversation.

Reply or Comment

You can easily and instantly write comments/replies on any social media conversation. You can also "Retweet" any message in a Twitter conversation. Click the "Comment" or "Reply" link to bring up the pop-up to compose and send your message.

Understanding Event Views

Event Views control your calendars and widgets. Calendars and Widgets allow you to push dynamic content to your website, connecting your entire web presence and showing off your events and promotions. Event Views are designed to be flexible and powerful, allowing you to control what content goes where.

On the Main Menu of your account click the "Calendars & Widgets" button at the top.

Default Event View

Every account starts with a single Event View. This is the default Event View. Every category in your account is automatically added to this view. The name can be changed and color options can be adjusted. But, this Event View can not be deleted.

Custom Event Views

You can add any number of additional event views you want. Click the "Add Event View" button at the top of the page to create a new Event View. Give your new view a name and select the colors you want to use. You will also select which categories will be included in this Event View. You can select any number of categories. You can also decide to include events, promotions or both. Lastly, you can specify active categories.

Calendars & Widgets

Once you have a new Event View created or if you are just using the default Event View, you can grab calendars and widgets. For each Event View you have there are a variety of calendar and widget options listed. Each calendar or widget has an embed code you can grab for placing the calendar or widget on a website. The calendars and widgets will use the settings you have provided for that event view, thus dictating what categories will be pulled in, etc.

Ideas for Using Your Event Views

Follow the links below for additional reading on Event Views, including ideas on how to best use Event Views and how to customize them to meet your needs.

• Single Category Views
• Specify Your Active Categories
• Widget Placement on Your Website

Understand Your Account Settings

It is important to fully understand all aspects of your Squareberry account. This week we wanted to take a quick look at the Settings area found in the Account Management drop down. These settings can alter small aspects of how your accounts works and control who gets updates/alerts.

After adjusting any setting, make sure you hit the "update" button at the bottom of the page to save the changes you have made.

Account Image

The Account Image is a square graphic that shows in various areas. Your Account Image will show up in the top left corner of your calendars and the top left corner of your events and promotions. The Account Image is usually accompanied by your account name and helps identify your calendars, events and promotions as yours.

Default Event View

Your Default Event View determines which event view is seen at www.squareberry.com/. You can select one of your existing event views that you have created in the calendar & widgets area.

Email Addresses

The "Contact Email" is used for general contact and category Snag approvals. If your categories are set to require approval before being snagged, snag requests will be sent to this address for approval.

The "Reply To Email Address" dictates the reply-to address for all emails sent from your account to followers. This includes emails sent to individuals who have subscribed to categories to get reminders in your account.

The "Email To Send Alerts To" determines the address that is emailed when there is an issue in your Squareberry account. The most common alert emails are Facebook ReAuthorizations and Social Account issues. This makes sure you are alerted when publishing is no longer working so that you can quickly restore any connections that need to be fixed. Alert emails can be disabled by selecting the checkbox for "Disable Alert Emails".

Default Category Icon

The default category icon is used for events and promotions that are in more than one category. This allows you to select a more generic icon to use when multi-category events and promotions are displayed on your calendars and widgets.

Date Format Settings

The date format is simple. It determines what format your dates are displayed in throughout your account and on your events.

Advanced Settings

These settings are set-up by default but can be altered for your account. These advanced settings dictate certain publishing times and behaviors.

The “Special Happenings Publishing Time” controls the time at which social message reminders for “All Day” “Time TDB” and “CANCELED” happenings are to be sent.

The “Account Start of Night” and “Account End of Night” determine the range of time that social messages use the word “tonight” to describe events. For example: You have an event that starts at 1 AM on Sunday, a social message sent on Saturday would say “Tonight at 1 AM” instead of “Tomorrow at 1 AM” if your “Account End of Night” is after 1 AM.

Boost Your Weekend Sales

Weekends rule for a lot of reasons. Football games. Free days. Alarm clocks are turned off. Sunday brunches. For many local businesses, weekends are the busiest time. Restaurants and bars see a huge influx on weekend nights and many retails stores are busiest on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

A recent article published on The Buffer Blog entitled "A scientific guide to posting tweets, Facebook posts, emails and blog posts at the best time" looked at research and statistics on social media posting to determine the best times to post.

The data that was looked at enforced the idea that the end of the work week (Thursday & Friday) is the ideal time for posting to Facebook. Twitter has strong engagement on the weekends themselves and later in the day. Click here to read the full article.

Start of Week

Some people do start planning their weekend in advance. Additionally, as the weekend gets closer there is more and more noise on social media channels. For these reasons, it can be beneficial to post one or two messages at the beginning of the week about what you have going on during the coming weekend. This can help your grab some early deciders and plant an idea in other people's head that will be reinforced by your posts closer to the weekend.

Thursday and Friday

This is the peak of Facebook engagement. People are getting bored at work and checking their News Feeds. They are checking to see what is going on during the weekend. Use these days to boost your weekend events & promotions. Post reminders throughout the day and at night to grab as many eyeballs as possible. Encourage sharing of your posts to help your events & promotions spread virally.

The Weekend Itself

The weekend is time for last minute decision makers and friendly reminders. Twitter has better engagement on the weekends, so make sure you have a solid number of tweets going out. Remind people about your events & promotions and send out messages with pictures from your events as they are taking place.

Yep, Football is Back

This past weekend, college football kicked off around the country. College students filled stadiums, cities tuned in and fans watched from their favorite local restaurant or bar. This coming weekend, the NFL will start its season across the USA. Football is officially back!

So what does this mean for local businesses? Your events and promotions can easily be centered around your local team's games as well as the big nationally aired games. Use these events and promotions to drive in larger crowds and bigger groups.

Snag Your Teams

You can snag your favorite NFL teams schedule here: http://squareberry.com/nfl

When you snag a team's schedule into your Squareberry account, it will display on your Planner. This allows you to easily plan and schedule your events and promotions to go along with the games.

You can also add publishing settings to your newly snagged category, just like you do for categories you have created. You can have the games publish as reminders to your social media accounts and display them on your web calendars and widgets. Having your team's schedule on your calendars gives your organization a more local feel and shows the local fans that you are fans too.

Promotions

Your game day promotions should be group oriented. Instead of discounts on a glass of beer, offer discounts on pitchers. Instead of buy one get one free, make it buy two get one free. You want people to come in groups to your restaurant, bar or other establishment. People like watching games in groups, so it is a natural fit.

Make Your Mobile Website Interactive

Squareberry gives you the power to broadcast your events and coupon promotions across a wide range of media. Your special happenings are sent on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, SMS, web calendars and on your mobile website. But beyond your events and promotions, it is important to make your mobile website interactive.

Interactive Mobile Website Pages

Adding interactive pages makes your website more functional, giving it a purpose being simply providing static information. Interactive elements can include forms, sharing features and polls, all of which can be done with page types featured in the Mobile Management area of Squareberry.

The "Listen&Count Poll" page type allows you to add an interactive polls to your mobile site. You can add any of the specific Listen&Count polls you have created or set the page to always use the most recently created poll.

The "Email Send" page type allows you to create a menu option that allows users to quickly send an email, sharing information you dictate. This allows you to create a "Share" feature for mobile site visitors to send your site or other information to a friend using the native email functions on their mobile device.

The "Contact Page" page type allows you to utilize a simple contact form and phone call button. This can be used as a contact page, as an online ordering page or anything else you come up with. Not only is this an interactive element on your site, it gets site visitors interacting directly with your and your organization.

Media on your Mobile Site

Rich media, while not fully interactive, is much more engaging than just using text. Add videos and photos throughout your mobile site to better engage your audience. You can also take advantage of the Photo Gallery mobile page type to add touch-friendly photo galleries.

Best Tips of the Year (So Far)

Every now and then, it is nice to reflect on some tips from the past. This week we wanted to look back at some of the best (or our favorite) tips from 2013 so far.

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Create a Media Section on Your Mobile Site

You may be interested in creating an entire media section on your mobile website, rather than simply having a single media page. Rich media such as photos and videos are engaging and help keep people on your mobile site... Read the Full Tip >

Summer is Coming – Will Your Marketing Change?

Summer is fast approaching. More than any other season, summer has distinct characteristics which can and should effect how you market. But, it depends heavily on your demographics and location.... Read the Full Tip >

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Squareberry allows you to schedule messages far in advance to publish to Facebook Profiles, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter accounts. Scheduling messages in advance allows you to plan your communications... Read the Full Tip >

Listen&Count Polls on Your Mobile Website

In the Mobile Management area, you can easily add an interactive poll to your mobile website. In Mobile Content, click “Add Page” and then “Create New Page”. On the Add Page screen, select the “Listen&Count Poll” page type.... Read the Full Tip >

Using Snagged Categories As Planning Guides

Not every tip is a huge, mind-blowing, world flipping idea that will change the way you conduct business or handle your mobile and social marketing. Some tips are small, simple but great. This week’s Tuesday Tip is one of those, offering a simple idea that can lend you a helpful hand in your marketing strategy and planning... Read the Full Tip >

Timely Tips for Local Businesses Near Colleges

Summer is ending. Soon it will be fall. The leaves will change, etc. More importantly, this time of year signals the start of new college/university semesters. Many local retail stores and restaurants service markets filled with college students.

Now is the perfect time to run marketing promotions and hold events to attract new student customers. You don't want to wait until later in the year. At that point, students will have already found other places to go, mostly based on recommendation and word of mouth. You should to not only join but dictate that conversation by starting the new college year off right.

Hold an Event

Who isn't thinking about a party when the semester starts? New and old students alike will want to get out and get social to start their year off. Hold a "New Year Kickoff" or "Goodbye Summer Bash" at your location. This is a great opportunity for new students to check out your business. Just make sure you make a good impression. This will help you draw them back in over the next few years.

Run Promotions

Simple promotions like "Save 10% When You Show Your Student ID Card" can help draw in new business. Your promotions need to be shared by the current students who have been around. New students look to them for advice. Many classes/programs now form special Facebook Groups so students can communicate and offer tips to each other. Getting your promotion shared in one of those groups would go a long way.

How Do You Get Plugged In?

A lot of restaurants and local businesses near colleges are staffed by students who go to that same college. Your employees can help your spread the word about your upcoming events and promotions. Ask them to share your happening on Facebook & Twitter. They may even be able to get one posted on special class groups & pages.

Post About Your Calendars & Upcoming Schedules

Most local businesses are all about getting more people in the door. For restaurants and local retail stores, events and promotions are great way to drive more foot traffic and generate sales.

Post About Your Calendars

Some people may not know about your calendars or your events. Some people may be knew to your organization or only recently started following you on Facebook or Twitter. Some people may just need to be reminded.

Schedule messages that link to the calendar on your website or to your Facebook page calendar. Of course, you want to make sure that your calendar is full of nice events, promotions and snagged events when people start looking at it. You can even setup a message that repeats every month, reminding people to take a look at your social calendars for upcoming events and promotions.

Schedule Social Media Posts About Upcoming Schedule

It is important to let people know about all the upcoming events and promotions you have going on. Some people's social calendars fill up early in the week. As you schedule events/promotions in the Planner of your Squareberry account, schedule messages along with them to let people know what is coming up.

For example, if you have 2 promotions and 1 event happening next week, you could schedule a message for Monday talking about those 2 promotions and events with a link to the calendar on your website or your Facebook page calendar. This gives a nice overview of your upcoming week and can help get people mentally committed to heading to your location.

Create a Media Section on Your Mobile Site

You may be interested in creating an entire media section on your mobile website, rather than simply having a single media page. Rich media such as photos and videos are engaging and help keep people on your mobile site. This post will walk you through the easy steps of creating a "media section" on your mobile website in the mobile management area of Squareberry.

Start With a Sub-Menu

The first thing you need is a sub-menu. On the Mobile Content tab select the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button. Then select "Add Sub-Menu on the popup. This will take you to the Add Sub-Menu screen.

On the add Sub-Menu screen, provide a name for your sub-menu. This will essentially be the name of your media section. You could call it "Media", "Photos & Videos" or anything else you want. Once you create this, it will be added to the menu structure of your mobile site. You will see the sub-menu on your Mobile Content.

Add Media Pages

Now you need to add media pages to the sub-menu you just created. On the Mobile Content tab, click on the sub menu you just created. This will take you to that sub-menu. Click the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button to add a page to the sub-menu, which means you are adding a page to your "media section".

Squareberry's Mobile Management area has several page types which can be used in this scenario, including Photo Gallery and YouTube Video. Photo Galleries allow you to quickly upload multiple photos to easily make a touch-friendly photo gallery. YouTube Video pages simply show a YouTube video for quick and easy play.

Alternatively, you can use the Custom page type to add any combination of photos, graphics and videos you want. These pages will all be added to the sub-menu you created, effectively building a mobile media center.

Track How Your Events & Promotions Perform

There is a lot of talk about analytics, metrics and return on investment when it comes to online marketing. Most of the time the focus is on how many clicks your organization gets, how much traffic you see or your number of "Likes" on Facebook. For most organizations, the most important thing to measure is how they actually do in the real world. Squareberry's event and promotion features are designed to help you market real world activities and specials that can lead to greater attendance and higher sales.

Events - Count It

Tracking the effectiveness of your "Events" is pretty straightforward. Simply count the number of people who show up for your event. This can be accomplished by having someone at the front entrance who's job is to count, running a raffle that everyone participates in or by counting "groups" based on number of transactions/checks.

Getting any kind of count can help you in your long term goals. If you track the attendance of your events you will be able to recognize trends and adjust to them. If your numbers begin to drop, you will know you need to mix it up or promote your event in different ways.

Promotions - Count It

For retails stores and restaurants, counting promotions is fairly easy. Your Point of Sale (POS) system should offer a promotion/coupon feature. You can input the promotion manually each time someone shows you their coupon or you can utilize the barcode feature to scan the coupon right off printed coupons and mobile devices. Your POS system should keep track of how many times your promotions was used by customers.

Sales - The Last Word

For businesses, the most important things to track is sales. This is obviously something you will already be doing. You may want to look at sales during periods or on days where you run promotions/events compared with days when no special happenings are going on.

Sales should be the last word and determining factor. You may feel your promotions or events was not as popular as you hoped, but your sales may have still seen a healthy boost and the effects could be ongoing from that boost. Sales numbers will always be king.

Using QR Codes for Your Mobile Pages

Recently we released new enhancements to the Mobile Management area which makes it easier than ever to link directly to a mobile page or utilize a QR Code to send people directly to a page on your mobile website. Every page you create in the Mobile Management area has a unique URL and a unique QR code that points to that page.

Utilizing QR Codes to Boost Your Brand

At the top right corner of the edit screen for each mobile page is a button "Link & QR Code to This Page". Click on this button to get a QR Code for the page you are currently editing. You can easily download the QR Code at that time.

Calendar Pages

Calendar pages are always great to utilize. Add a QR Code to your restaurant menu, in a local publication or on a mail-out. You can quickly send people to your events/promotions page on your mobile site to help draw them in to your location. Calendar pages help you carry people from printed material to mobile-friendly site, from mobile site to real world events and promotions.

Contact Forms

Your printed advertisement, brochure or mail-out can quickly be given an easy call-to-action by utilizing a contact form. Add a QR code on your printed material that links to your contact form. This allows anyone who sees your ad or brochure to instantly contact you via contact form/email. This can help generate leads, generate sales and get registrations.

Photo Galleries

QR Codes are perfect for enhancing printed materials. Local newspapers, magazines and publications can utilize mobile photo galleries and QR Codes to take their printed items to another level.

Start by creating a photo gallery page type. Upload photos related to the article or topic you are covering in the publication. The QR code can then be placed on your printed publication next to relevant information/articles. Now, people reading your publication can easily scan the QR Code and get a touch-friendly photo gallery on their mobile device to enhance their reading experience.

Using the New Image Uploader for Mobile Galleries

The photo gallery page type in the Mobile Management Area allows you to create simple, sleek and touch-friendly photo galleries for your mobile website. Photos are organized into a gallery view and can be viewed as a slide-show when you select an image.

Recently, a new image uploader was put in place for Photo Gallery pages in the Mobile Management Area. This new uploader allows you to upload multiple images at once, making creating photo galleries faster and easier.

Uploading Multiple Photos

When editing a photo gallery page in the mobile management area click the "Add Photo" button. This will bring up a popup with 3 buttons: "Select Files", "Upload" and "Clear". Click the "Select Files" button. This will bring up your system's file browser. To select multiple files on Windows hold the Control button and click on the files you want to upload. To select multiple files on Mac OS hold the command button and click on the files you want to upload.

Then click "Open" or "Select" on your file browser window. The images you selected will now appear in your upload popup. You can select more files, clear the selected files or click "Upload". If you click the upload button your images will being to upload.

Once the images are done uploading you can close the popup and your images will now appear under "Photos on This Page". You can drang and drop to reorder the images in your gallery. Click "Save" at the bottom of the page when you are done.

Tuesday Tip - Adjust Your Dashboard

Changing How Your Dashboard Looks

Squareberry allows you to customize and change your dashboard to display your social/mobile statistics and feedback accordingly. Every organization focuses on different aspects of marketing. Some are Facebook heavy with little Twitter use. Some organizations love to run interactive polls while others focus more on scheduled events. Every organization is different.

Squareberry's dashboard has various boxes that each show off different aspects of your marketing efforts. These boxes on your dashboard include:

• Facebook Followers
• Twitter Followers
• Social Statistics
• Facebook Demographics
• Listen&Count Polls
• Recent Twitter Followers
• Most Viewed
• Recent Sent Messages
• Social Influence Widget
• Recently Created Items

To adjust the Dashboard, click the "Adjust Dashboard" button at the top of the page. A pop-up appears allowing you to drag and drop the boxes into the order you want them to display. The left side of this pop-up is your active dashboard and the right side shows available boxes you are not currently using.

PDF Dashboard Report

Squareberry's Dashboard also allows you to export the Dashboard as a PDF Report. The PDF Report exports a set of boxes showing off a nice summary of your marketing stats. Simply click the "PDF Report" button at the top of the Dashboard page to export the Dashboard report.

Facebook Hashtags Are Here - What You Need to Know

What Are Hashtags?

#This is a hashtag. You've seen them. You may or may not use them. Their popularity expanded on Twitter and are also used on services like Instagram and Tumblr. Hashtags allow people to unify topics. Clicking on a hashtags allows you to see posts by users using that same hashtag, thus seeing what everyone is posting about that specific topic.

Until now, hashtags on Facebook had no functionality. Nothing stopped you from writing "#fun" on your Facebook post, but it had no specific function. Now, hashtags will be automatically turned into links which can be clicked by people who see your posts. They will then see a a feed of all other posts shared with them that use that hashtag.

From the Facebook Blog:

Introducing Hashtags on Facebook Starting today, hashtags will be clickable on Facebook. Similar to other services like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest, hashtags on Facebook allow you to add context to a post or indicate that it is part of a larger discussion. When you click on a hashtag in Facebook, you'll see a feed of what other people and Pages are saying about that event or topic.

Read the full post from Facebook here.

Image from Facebook Blog

What This Means for Your Marketing

This is great for marketers and organizations on Facebook. It will help expand your reach and help your followers share what you are talking about in a more meaningful way.

For example, if you own a restaurant in San Antonio, you may want to send a message about watching the Spurs game at your location. You can add "#Spurs" to your message. Now, people around San Antonio will be posting the same hashtag and if someone clicks on one to view people talking about this topic, your restaurant may be present on that feed. Using hashtags helps you get your post in front of followers who are interested in the same topics at that moment.

Messaging From Squareberry

Whether you are sending an instant message or schedule messages far in advance, you can include your hashtags in the message you compose. The most interesting aspect of this is for people who publish to both Facebook and Twitter. Previously, using messages with hashtags on Facebook looked silly and offered little to no benefits.

Now, using the same message on both Twitter and Facebook is more feasible and can be more effective. The only major difference remaining between the two services is the character limit. Facebook still allows you to publish much longer messages. Because of this, you may consider still scheduling separate messages for your different social networks.

Tuesday Tip - Create Customized Calendars & Widgets

Showing off your events and promotions on your website is a key aspect of integrating your complete online presence. Squareberry allows you to create customized "views" with specified categories. This means you can have any number of calendars and widgets which display certain events/promotions based on the settings you dictate.

Create a New Event View

When you create a new Event View, you start by giving it a name. This name will be displayed on the top of the calendars. Next, you select what categories you want on this view. Events and Promotions from the categories you select here will be used on these calendars and widgets.

There are also various color settings you can alter. These colors effect the calendar views but have no effect on the widgets. You can also dictate a timezone for your view, this will adjust the time of the events to display in the specified timezone.

Lastly, you can decide to include events and/or promotions. If you do not want promotions on your view, simply uncheck the promotions setting. This allows you to control categories and event/promotions so that you can fully customize your calendars and widgets to show exactly what you want to show.

Embed Your Customized Views

Once you have created your customized view, it is easy to add it to your website. On the Calendars and Widgets list screen, there is an embed button to the far right of every listed calendar/widget. Click this button and you will get a pop-up with the embed code. There are different options for each calendar/widget which you can adjust to customize this particular embed. When ready, copy and paste the embed code into the HTML of your website.

Single Category Views

An interesting and effective strategy is to create single category views. This allows you to feature certain events and promotions on your website. Read More Here >

Samples of Calendars & Widgets

Click Here to check out samples of all the calendars and widgets currently available on the Squareberry platform.

Mobile Contact Page, YouTube Video and Email Share

We continue to look at different mobile page types with our Tuesday Tips. This week we are looking at the Contact Us page type, the YouTube video pages type and the Email Share page type.

Mobile Contact Us Page

The Contact Us page is exactly what it sounds like. Many websites and mobile websites feature a contact us page that allows site visitors to enter information that is sent to someone at the organization.

The Contact Us page type has two main features. The first option is to provide an email address where the contact form sends information to. When someone fills out the contact form on your mobile site, the information will be sent to the email address you provide here.

The second is a phone call button. This button functions the same way as the phone call button on the Info page type. The text displayed on the button can be customized and the phone number to be called can be customized.

YouTube Video Page

The YouTube video page is very simple. It only has one option and feature. Simply provide the URL to a video on YouTube and it will be displayed on that page on your mobile website. The URL needs to be to a specific video, not a channel.

Email Share Page Types

The Email Share page type is similar to a contact page, but utilizes the native email functionality in mobile platforms. You must provide an Email Subject and an Email Message. When a user clicks on this page on the menu it activates the native email functionality on a site visitors phone. The subject and message are inserted into the email. The visitor can then determine who to send the email to and customize the message content if they choose.

The Email Share can be used for encouraging people to share your mobile site. An example of what to put in the message contant is: "Hey there! Maile's Studio cafe is a great place for food, friends and fun. I highly recommend you checking this place out. Learn more: http://www.mailesstudiocafe.com". This makes it easy for people to share your site with friends and family.

Mobile Home Page & Calendar Pages

We are continuing our series of posts on various page types in the Mobile Management Area. This week is all about events and promotions. Events and Promotions are displayed on the Home Page as well as on the Calendar page type. As always, categories are key. Categories control where events and promotions are displayed.

Mobile Website Home Page

There are two sections of the mobile website home page. The second section is a custom content area. This area allows you to add text, images, embed videos and more. The custom content area allows you to make your home page what you want it and give it the look and the content you want.

The first feature on the home page is the "Event/Promotion Slider". This feature has a drop down to select categories from. Upcoming events and promotions from the selected categories will be shown on an interactive slider at the top of your mobile website home page.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can set mobile site visitors to be taken to your website menu or to this home page when they first land on your site. The setting for this is found in the Site Settings tab.

Calendar Pages

Calendar pages come in two styles: List Calendar and Slider. The Slider version functions just like the slider on the home page. Events and promotions from your selected categories will be show on a slider.

The List Calendar looks very much like the List Widget. Events and Promotions are listed with their date. You can select which categories you want to show your happenings from.

Events and Promotions

With the Home Page and with the Calendar pages, each event/promotion can be selected by the site visitor to see details. Every event and promotion has a mobile optimized version that is displayed on your mobile website. The mobile Events/Promotions still offer locations/directions, content and more.

Using Info, URL Redirect & Custom Mobile Page Types

Over the past few weeks, the Tuesday Tip has looked at the mobile page types in the mobile management area. Each page type allows you to add a different type of page to your dynamic mobile website and easily create an enhanced experience for your mobile site visitors. This week's tip looks at 3 of the remaining mobile page types, how to use them and ideas on what to use them for.

Info/About Mobile Page Type

The Info/About page type creates a great looking page with various features and elements. It starts with a custom content area at the top, perfect for text and images. Next is a phone call button which allows you to dictate the label on the button and the phone number that will be dialed when this button is selected by a mobile device user.

Below this are social links which allow you to link to your various profiles and social media pages around the web. This is great for boosting your complete online presence. You can also select locations to show on this page so people can easily find your locations and get directions.

The Info/About page type does not need to be restricted for an "About" page. Another great use for this page type is for individual locations of businesses with multiple locations. A restaurant or retail store with multiple locations can create an About/Info page for each of their locations, complete with its own info, phone call button, social links and location map.

URL Redirect

The URL Redirect page type is very simple. All it does is send the mobile site user to a URL you specify. Other than dictating the URL, you can decide if you want the URL to open in a new page/tab or on the same page. Remember, this can link to any URL, not just a webpage. You can link to a PDF, map or file download you have hosted online.

Custom Page Type

The custom page type is a blank slate. There is no template, options or set fields. It is just a large content area that you can add your own custom content to. You can add images, text and embed objects such as videos. There is even an HTML button for advanced users who want to add their own HTML code.

In theory, you could make an entire mobile website of just custom content pages. But, this is not recommended. Take advantage of the other page types Squareberry offers to build your dynamic mobile website. Think of more alternative uses for the page types and play with the different features and settings to achieve the look you want.

Add a Photo Gallery to Your Mobile Website

How to Add a Photo Gallery Page to Your Mobile Website

Squareberry's Mobile Management area allows you to add sleek photo galleries to your mobile website. Every photo gallery is optimized for mobile devices and is touch-friendly. Users will be able to swipe between photos and more on their mobile devices.

To start, you select "Photo Gallery" on the New Page screen. You will need to provide a name for the page and a menu icon to use. After adding these things, click "Create".

After you create the page you will see a "Photo On This Page" section. Here you will add new photos to your gallery page and reorder them to your liking. Click "Add Photo" to upload a new image to add to your gallery.

Images you have uploaded will then show up in the "Photos On This Page" section.

You can drag and drop the images you have added to change the order they display in your gallery. After reordering and uploading new images, make sure you click the "Save" button to save the changes you have made.

You can always come back, edit the page and add more images. You can redorder and add new images at anytime.

Reasons to Have a Photo Gallery

Many different organizations can utilize a photo gallery on their mobile website. It is always great to have a gallery showing off your location, parking, the front of your building etc. Things like this can help people more easily find your locations and get into your business.

It is also great to utilize photo galleries to show off your past events. You should take photos at every event or special promotion you have. Put these photos on your mobile website to show off how much fun people have at your events. Featuring media from past happenings can help boost attendance at your future happenings.

Summer is Coming - Will Your Marketing Change?

Should Your Mobile and Social Marketing Strategy Change With the Seasons?

Summer is fast approaching. More than any other season, summer has distinct characteristics which can and should effect how you market. But, it depends heavily on your demographics and location.

The biggest changes in summertime revolve around education and travel. Summer is when high school students and college students are, for the most part, out of their routine and in different locations. Travel/tourism also sees a boost. These changes effect you differently depending on your location.

The Student Demographic

Summer results in a migration of young people, mainly college students. Many return home or travel to other cities for the summer, before returning back to school in the fall. Because of this, your local area may see an influx in young people returning home, eager to find places to eat, events to go to and stores to visit while in town. Be aware of this shifting demographic and market accordingly.

You may be on the other end of the migration. Perhaps your business is in a college town or area and summer is slower than the other parts of the year. You can have fun with this by running promotions like the "Still in Town" promotion or having a "Why Did I Take Summer Classes?" special night. Embracing your situation and being relative/current helps boost your brand on social media and draw in these young customers to your location.

Summer also releases high school students into the wild. If your organization offers a product, service or events for people of this age, you may want to adjust your hours of operation or offer more specials during the day. During the summer, you have more young people out and about looking for things to do.

Tourism

If your city sees a boost in visitors during the summer, your marketing strategy needs to shift from being geared towards recurring locals to attracting people who have never been to your location before. There are various ways to accomplish this. Here are a couple:

• 1. Twitter Searches - Utilize the social conversation area in Squareberry to search for keywords on Twitter. Find people asking about restaurants, shops, and things to do. Often times when people are out of town, they turn to the web for advice on what to do and where to eat in places that are unfamiliar. Find these people and reply to them, offering your business as a possible destination for them to check out.
• 2. Utilize Your Regulars - You can also offer promotions to your regular customers who bring in first timers. This encourages people to bring friends/family who are visiting from out-of-town into your business or to your event. Let your local customers know that your place is the places to bring anyone in the area on vacation.

Not For Everyone?

Of course, these suggestions do not apply to everyone. You may not cater to student-aged people or to tourists. Your business may be entirely local. Even if this is the case, be aware of how seasons effect your organization. Various professional services and local businesses have high and low times based on the time of year, the weather and more. Always consider these factors as you lay out your marketing plan.

Using the Catalog Page Type in the Mobile Management Area

Catalog/Menu Mobile Pages

One of our favorite page types in the Mobile Management Area is the Catalog/Menu page type. With this page type you can add a stylized menu or list of items. Each item has its own detail page with any type of content. The most popular use of this page type is for restaurant menus, but it can easily be used in other ways.

How to Use the Catalog/Menu Page Type

To start, you select "Catalog/Menu" on the New Page screen. You will need to provide a name for the page and a menu icon to use. After adding these things, click "Create".

Now, the page is saved and you can get started with adding content. There are two types of content you can add: "Item" and "Spacer/Title". A Spacer/Title is a display only element which has a different appearance than items and can be used for categorizing items on your menu, or as a heading.

Items are the main function in this page type. Each Item has a name, a "price" and content. You can add text, add images, embed videos and more in the content area. The Item name displays on the menu page. When a user selects that item they are taken to that item's page where the content details are shown and the "price" is shown in the top right corner.

Click Here to See an Example >

Alternative Uses

Though this page type is ideal for restaurant menus and retail catalogs, it is not limited to these uses. For example, the 'Price" field is labeled as such, but the word "Price" does not appear anywhere on the front-end mobile website. You can easily use this field for any other type of label.

A great example of an alternative use is to use this page type for a staff page. Each member of your staff would be added as an item with their job title in place of a "price". You can use the Spacers to categorize your staff into groups.

Another great example is to use it as a portfolio. If you offer professional services, you can use spacers to divide things into service categories. Items will be used for each example of services you have offered, be it a case study, customer testimonial, visual examples etc.

The Catalog/Menu page type if powerful and flexible. It allows you to quickly and easily create an organized and effected area of your mobile website. It has a variety of uses and possibilities.

Using the News Page Type in the Mobile Management Area

The Mobile Management Area in Squareberry allows you to create dynamic pages for your mobile website in a variety of ways with different page types. One of these page types is the "News - RSS/Tweets" page type. Using this, you can easily add fresh content to your mobile site that is constantly updating without you having to go in and update it.

Creating a News Page for Your Mobile Website

Start by going to the Mobile Management Area and clicking the "Add Page/Sub-Menu" button at the top of the Mobile Content area. Then click "Create New Page". On the New Page screen, select the News page type from the drop down, give your page a name and select a menu icon. There are two options for a News Source: Show recent Tweets or Show Recent RSS Posts. If you want to show Tweets, you will be asked to provide a Twitter ID. Recent Tweets from this ID will be pulled and shown on your News page. If you want to use an RSS feed, you will need to provide a direct URL to the RSS feed online. Recent RSS feed posts will be displayed on your News page.

Not Just Your News

The most common reason to implement a News page is to share your brand's news and updates. This means your blog's RSS feed or your Twitter account's Tweets. But, a News page can be used to share other people's news to further enhance your mobile website. For example, if your have an organization that offers professional services of some kind, you can create a full "News" section on your mobile site and pull in various sources. Here is how you would do this:

• 1 - Create a Sub-Menu called "News"
• 2 - Identify Twitter/RSS news sources that offer tips, ideas, updates and information about the type or services you offer or your industry.
• 3 - On the Sub-Menu, create a "News" page as discussed above. Use one of the sources you identified and name the page accordingly.
• 4 - Repeat step 3 with more news sources until you have a nice assortment of news pages.
• 5 - Review and look at what you have created. Make sure all the news sources are working and showing up on your mobile website.

With the steps above, you can create an entire News section of your mobile website. This can help take your site to the next level. It will be a resource and a destination for information. It will also help boost your brand and help your organization appear stronger and more in-tune with your industry.

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Scheduling Social Media Messages Far in Advance

Squareberry allows you to schedule messages far in advance to publish to Facebook Profiles, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter accounts. Scheduling messages in advance allows you to plan your communications and takes care of the other parts of your organization, without worrying about updating social media accounts throughout each day.

Message Wording

Real Time Wording

When you are scheduling your messages days, or even weeks in advance, you still want it to sound like you are sending the message at that time, for that moment. A while back, we offered a blog post on wording your scheduled messages: http://squareberry.com/news/tuesday-tip-scheduled-real-time-messages/

Give Details

Even when scheduling messages in advance you can include details in your posts. For example if you are having a live music night, you can send out messages with details of the band. Instead of a generic tweet like "Live Music Night is going great." you can offer some details such as "John from 'Grey Cycle' is truly rocking it tonight! Get here soon to see the rest of their set!"

The second example is actually easy. Certainly you can know the name of the band and the name of one of the band members ahead of time. You can still offer details about what is going on at your location, even if this message is actually scheduled days in advance.

Search Friendly Words + #Hashtags on Twitter

Of course when we talk about wording, we need to consider the actual words. Twitter offers search features that allow users to see who is talking about certain topics, etc. Try to use words that people will search for, such as your neighborhood/city, type of business you are, services/products you offer, etc.

Using hashtags for Twitter posts is an obvious and essential strategy. You want to Tweet about things other people are also Tweeting about and you want to encourage your followers to use the same hashtags to help spread the news. Use hashtags (don't abuse them) for your Twitter posts and keep in touch with what hashtags people in your community are using.

Using Twitter Search to Find Leads

When using the Search section of Squareberry's Social Conversation Area, there are a variety of ways to find people relative to your business. Using these techniques can help you find new leads, generate conversation activity, spread the word about your brand and more.

Longer Strings of Words

The more detailed your searches are the better chance you have of finding the right Tweeters. Simply searching for "Miami Restaurants" will pull a lot of Tweets from a wide range of contexts. Instead, you can string together longer phrases like "Miami Lunch Spot" or "South Miami Sushi Lunch" to get refined results. Adding more detail about your type of food or the neighborhood you are in can help you find better potential customers.

Use Quotations

Using quotations around words causes the search to pull results with that exact word sequence. So if you search "Live Music in Miami" you will pull results (when available) of Tweets with the phrase "Live Music in Miami".

This search practice is fairly common and can also be done on many search engines. Searching without quotations will pull results with the words you dictate, but not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all words.

Think About Your Customer

Always think about the person you are trying to reach. What would they post on Twitter? What kinds of questions would they ask, hoping for a response from friends? For example, if you own a restaurant, you may search for "grab lunch downtown". This will pick up Tweets by people asking "Where is a good place to grab lunch?" or "Any suggestions for where to grab lunch downtown?". If you are using Search as a means of bringing in new customers, your goal should be to find Tweeters who are searching for your type of company or in need of your services.

Then What...

After you find a potential customer or lead you just have on thing to do... TWEET them. Send a Reply to their Tweet right from inside Squareberry. When they respond to your Tweet, the conversation can be tracked and managed in your Social Inbox.

Using Listen&Count Polls on Your Website

Listen&Count Interactive Polls

One of the newest aspects of Squareberry is the Listen&Count polling features. Listen&Count allows you to track keyword responses on social media, through SMS, on your mobile website and even on your existing website. Adding polls to your existing website is easy and is a great way to make your website more interactive with visitors.

How to Embed a Poll on Your Website

If you want to add an interactive poll to your website you just need to follow these few easy steps.

1. When creating your Listen&Count poll, make sure you check the option "Track on Website Poll". This will cause a new text box to appear labeled "Enter Text to Display on Your Website Poll and Listen&Count Mobile Page(s)". Text entered in this box will appear on the Web Poll Widget that you embed on your website.

2. Every Listen&Count poll you create can be embedded on your website using a simple embed code. On the Listen&Count list screen click the "Web Poll Widget" for the poll you want to embed. A pop-up will appear that displays the embed code for this poll and you can select and copy this text. Paste this embed code into the HTML code of your website in the appropriate place and the poll will display there (just like embedding a YouTube video).

Best Practices for Website Polls

Home Page

Usually, the best way to feature something on your website is to put it on the home page. Adding a poll to your home page is the best way to ensure people see it and respond.

Side Bar

Another great way to feature your poll is on the sidebar of your website (if your website has a sidebar). Sidebars often run across websites and display on every page. This means your poll will be see throughout the site.

Graphic Links to Poll Page

Another method is to embed your poll on a page on your website, then link to it with graphics/buttons around the site. Create a graphic for your homepage that says something like "Take Our Weekly Poll". A nice graphic will catch the attention of site visitors and get them to click on the graphic and take the poll.

Mobile Website Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

Many small businesses and restaurants have the opportunity to open additional locations. Often times, multi-location businesses have a cohesive marketing strategy for their brand while allowing each location to host their own events and even their own promotions. But, it is unlikely that each location would have its own website. A single website for all locations is much more common and generally a more efficient and effective option.

In this post, we look at a few ideas and methods for handling multi-location businesses on your dynamic mobile website.

Show Off Your Locations

Use Info Pages

Squareberry's mobile management offers a "Location" page type which allows you to simply show off locations and provide directions etc. But, utilizing the "Info/About" page type allows you to provide more details, links, images, text and more.

On your mobile website, you can create an Info/About page for each location your business has. Each of these pages can feature a phone call button, location, links to social media pages and a general content area where you can add text/images about that specific location.

Use Sub-Menus

If you have a lot of information, photos, videos and more about each location you can utilize sub-menus on your mobile website. Simply add a sub-menu for each location and then add an assortment of pages to each location's sub-menu. This means you can have an Info page, Contact page, Video page etc. for each location. Your mobile website visitors can select the sub-menu of whatever location they are interested in and find a plethora of information and media options about that location.

Events and Promotions

Your upcoming events and coupon promotions are an essential aspect of your marketing. The flexibility of Squareberry's Mobile Management Area allows you to lay them out in a variety of ways. Events and promotions can be featured on your mobile website in a variety of ways.

You can add a Calendar Page for each location featuring only categories of events and promotions relavant to that location. Alternatively, you can use topical calendar pages with certain categories that include events from all locations. This option helps in cross-promoting events from location to location.

The best solution always depends on your business and your customers. Make it easy for people to find your events and promotions while still communicating newly scheduled happenings and cross-promoting your locations.

Listen&Count Polls on Your Mobile Website

Mobile Management Listen&Count Page

In the Mobile Management area, you can easily add an interactive poll to your mobile website. In Mobile Content, click "Add Page" and then "Create New Page". On the Add Page screen, select the "Listen&Count Poll" page type. You can name the page and change the menu icon, like any other mobile page type. For Listen&Count Poll pages, you have two options: "Use Current/Latest Listen&Count Poll" or "Use a Specific Listen&Count Poll".

Use Current/Latest Listen&Count Poll

The first option uses the current/latest Listen&Count Poll that you have created. This means, the page on your mobile website will automatically update to show new/fresh Listen&Count polls that you create. If you create polls that have an End Date, they will no longer display on your page after reaching the end date. A newer poll with a later end date will then replace it. If you have no dated poll created, it will then display the most recently created poll with no date range.

Selecting this option allows you to create pages like "Weekly Poll" or "Latest Poll' which will automatically update to show new polls you are creating in your account. There is no need to keep coming back to the Mobile Management Area, you can easily create new polls and they will automatically be displayed on your mobile site.

Use a Specific Listen&Count Poll

If you select the second option, a drop down appears allowing you to select any of your existing polls to display. The selected poll will show up from that point on and will continue to display until you change it. This setting is useful for permanent/ongoing polls with no end date, or polls you want to display for a long time without being replace by other polls.

Custom Event Views & Automatic Snagging

Event Views

In the Calendars & Widgets area of Squareberry, you have the ability to create new "Event Views". Event Views are essentially a grouping of categories and settings which can be displayed as a month calendar, list calendar, slider widget, etc. You can make any number of these views with any number/combination of categories.

For example, you could make a view with just a single category of events and promotions. Then you can display that on your website as a List Widget on your website sidebar or as a slider on your home page. Event Views give you flexibility to customize, control and deliver your events in a variety of ways.

Your "Default" Event View

By default, there is an Event View already created in new accounts. This Event View can not be deleted, but its settings/colors/name can be edited. The main difference with this default view is that you can not control the categories. Every category, whether created by you or snagged from another account, is added to this default event view. Basically this event view includes everything automatically.

*The Default View is easily identified as it does not have a delete button/option.

New Automatic Snagging Features

We recently introduced a new auto-snagging feature that allows you to Snag all categories from an account. Instead of snagging individual categories and having to worry about each time a new category is created, you can now snag the entire account and categories added to that account in the future will be automatically snagged.

This new snagging feature lines up perfectly with the default event view. Say you have added your default event view on a website as a month calendar. Then, you want to snag and display all categories from a certain account. When you snag that account, the categories will be added to the default event view and thus display on your calendar. In the future, if that account adds any new categories they will be automatically snagged and added to that view. The default event view makes it so that the whole process can be automatic.

Use Listen&Count for Customer Feedback on Social Media

Ask Questions on Social Media

Social media is not a one way channel. To fully utilize the power of social media, you need to start conversations. Conversations help you get people talking about your organization and allows you to receive feedback from them. One of the best ways to do this is by asking questions. Questions encourage your followers to respond, and asking questions on social media is easy, fast and monetarily ideal.

With Squareberry, you can easily schedule social media messages in advance to ask questions and get feedback. With the social conversation area, you can monitor and manage replies and comments that people make in a centralized social inbox. This makes viewing and responding to your followers' comments fast and easy. But, you may also want to track what kind of responses you are getting. The new Listen&Count polling system allows you to do this.

Track Descriptive Words to Measure Response

Listen&Count is flexible enough to allow you to track any keyword mentions, regardless of the context. Because of this, you can use it to gauge the opinions of your followers and see how people choose to describe your organization, services or products.

For example, if you have a restaurant, you can create a new Listen&Count poll and add keywords like "Great", "Good", "Okay", "Delicious", "Tasty", "Perfect", "Pretty Good" etc. Then, over the course of a few weeks or a month, you can schedule various messages asking about different food items you offer on Twitter. Your followers/customers will respond with answers to your questions and you can track how many positive and mediocre responses you get based on the keywords mentioned by your followers.

In person surveys or long forms are no longer ideal and take too much time. With social media and Listen&Count Polls keyword tracking, you can easily gather and monitor customer feedback.

Using the New Listen&Count Polling Features

What is Listen&Count?

Listen&Count is the new set of polling features in Squareberry. With Listen&Count you can track keyword responses from followers on Twitter, SMS, mobile devices and websites. Response stats will display on your account dashboard and you can even embed pie or column chart graphs on websites to show off your results.

Create a Listen&Count Poll

Setting up a Listen&Count poll is easy. Go to the Listen&Count Polls area (now a main option on the top menu) and select "Add Listen&Count". First, give your poll a name. This name is displayed at the top of your web poll widget and in your account to identify this poll.

Next, decide where you want to track responses. Check off SMS, Twitter and/or Website to determine where responses will be counted. If you check "Website Poll", a new text box will appear. In this box you will enter text that will display on your Web Poll Widget.

The next option is date range. This determines the date range during which responses will be counted. If you set dates, only responses between those dates will be counted and displayed as stats. "No Date Range" means your poll is ongoing and has no end point.

The Keywords area is where you add what words will be tracked and counted. Main Keywords are displayed on stats widgets and counted. Aliases are alternative words also counted towards the stats of that main keyword.

Lastly, there is an option for how you count multiple responses from the same person. This applies to Twitter and SMS. If you select "One Time", only the first keyword response from a Twitter user or SMS subscriber will be counted.

Get More Responses

Once your poll is set-up you need to get more responses. If you checked "Website Poll" and typed some text to be displayed you will be prompted to send a message with this text when you save your poll. This is a quick way to send an instant message out to get responses to your poll.

After setting up your poll, go to the Planner and schedule any number of messages to publish to Twitter and/or SMS. Your messages can ask questions, request responses etc. Any replies to you during your set date range and with your keywords will be counted for your poll.

In the Squareberry Mobile Management Area, you will find a new page type called "Listen&Count Poll". This allows you to quickly add a poll to your mobile website. You can select a specific poll to use or set the page to always show the latest/current poll.

You can also integrate your normal website with the Web Poll Widget, found on the Listen&Count list screen. Embed this on a sidebar or even your website home page. Your inputted text will display and website visitors can instantly respond to your poll.

View and Share Stats

Your account Dashboard now has a new box for "Listen&Count". If this is added to your Dashboard you can quickly see a pie chart of responses to your current Listen&Count polls.

The "Poll Count Widget" can be found on the Listen&Count list screen. This widget can be embedded on any website and has a pie chart or column chart option. This displays the stats to your poll and allows you to show off responses from your followers.

New Features - Interactive Polling Features

Run Interactive Polls with 'Listen&Count'

The Squareberry Team is very happy to announce the launch of Listen&Count Polling Features! With Listen&Count you can run interactive polling campaigns and track keyword responses mentioned by your followers.

Listen&Count Polling Features Include:

• Create Polls, Add Keywords & Alias Terms to Listen for & Track
• Get Responses on Twitter, SMS*, Website Polls & Mobile Pages
• View Results Charts on Your Account Dashboard
• Embed Charts as Widgets on Your Website to Show Off Results

Listen&Count Polling Features Availability
Listen&Count polls are available in all paid account types and marketer solutions. At this time, the Listen&Count area and features are not available in the free version of Squareberry.

If you currently have the Free version of Squareberry but want to try the new Listen&Count Polling features, email us at squareberry@squareberry.com and we will get you started with a free trial!

*SMS Polls - To gather and track responses to a Listen&Count Poll on SMS text messaging you need to have an active Twilio connection for sending SMS. Tracking responses to Listen&Count polls on SMS only works in accounts connected to Twilio and using SMS. Twilio connection is only available in Mobile + Social accounts.

Using Snagged Categories As Planning Guides

Not every tip is a huge, mind-blowing, world flipping idea that will change the way you conduct business or handle your mobile and social marketing. Some tips are small, simple but great. This week's Tuesday Tip is one of those, offering a simple idea that can lend you a helpful hand in your marketing strategy and planning.

Snagging Categories

In Squareberry, events and promotion are organized into categories. Categories determine where events are displayed, when reminders about them are published to social media and more. You can "SNAG" a category from another account to display and use in your account.

For example, we just announced the availability of this year's NHL schedule. You can snag your favorite team's schedule to display on your calendar or share it on social media. But, beyond using them directly for sharing and publishing, snagged categories can help you plan and strategize your marketing efforts.

Use Snagged Categories As a Guide

The Planner in your account is your master blueprint. It lays out your events, messages and promotions. It is where you view things you already scheduled, edit content and add new happenings. The Planner is the main place you spend your time in your account.

The Planner is also where you... plan. This is where you decide when events will take place, when you will run promotions, when you will send messages, etc. While planning your marketing efforts, it is important to have context and be aware of other things going on that will affect your audience.

Almost every organization can benefit from snagging "Holidays". This will add all the holidays to your Planner and calendars if you so choose. Holidays affect your audience greatly. They determine if your audience will be at work or school, if family is in town, etc. Knowing when holidays are and scheduling messages, events and promotions around them can be a great asset.

You also want to be aware of other important happenings for your audience. Local events, sports teams, quirky days like "National Cheese Day" and others are all relevant. Your social and mobile messaging is being sent out to people aware of all these things. You need to show your organization is aware of them too, is part of the community and holds events/promotions that are relevant to what is happening.

Snagging other categories of holidays and schedules so they show up on your Planner allows you to always be aware of what is happening while planning and scheduling your marketing communications. It works as a guide, gives you ideas and helps you assure your content is fresh and relative.