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.