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.