Tuesday Tip - Last Minute Promotions & Events

Squareberry allows you to plan and schedule your event and promotions far in advance. This helps make your life easier. You are not scrambling to post social messages or updating your calendar late at night. Your schedule can be ready to go ahead of time.

But, things happen. Sometimes you need to run an event/promotion at the last minute. You may need to drive more traffic after having a slow couple days or you may need to react to a situation in your community. Whatever the reason, you will most likely need to run a last minute event or promotion at some point.

The Sooner the Better

"Last minute" is just an expressions. Don't actually wait to the last minute to tell people about it. The sooner you can get the word out, the better. The whole point of an event or promotion is for people to participate in it. Events without people attending them are not exactly exciting.

The sooner you can start to get the word out the better. With social media, sharing is king. You want to give as much time for things to spread as possible and as much time as possible for people to fit your happening into their schedule.

Last Minute Strategies

• Post to Social Media Right Away - As soon as you know you are going to run this last minute event or promo... POST IT. The sooner the better so get on it. Post instant message to Facebook and Twitter. Schedule some message to go out periodically over the next few hours and make sure you include details on the event/promo.


• Still Add it To Your Calendar - Just because your event is last minute does not mean it shouldn't be on your calendar. Some people don't plan their social outings in advance and you want to make sure everything happening at your organization is visibile to those checking. Additionally, it is good to fill your calendar as much as you can to show the "non-regulars" how much stuff you have going on.


• Tell People At Your Location About It - If you are a restaurant or store, people are at your location even when there is not a special event or promotion. Tell these people about what you are doing later. Tell them you are having an event tomorrow and to invite their friends. This can go a long way.

Mobile Website CMS - Info, URL Redirect & Custom Pages

Squareberry offers a mobile website management system with various page types that can be created. 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 mobile CMS 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.

Using QR Codes for Your Mobile Pages

Squareberry's Mobile Management area makes it easy 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.

Create a Photo Gallery on 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.

Adjusting Your Social Marketing 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.

 

'Email Send' Mobile Page Type

Squareberry's Mobile management area offers a variety of page types to make building a mobile website easy and effective. The newest page type is called "Email Send" and it can be quite useful for many different organizations.

What it Does

The 'Email Send' page will do just that. It will send an email. It is essentially the same as creating a "mailto:" link in HTML. When an end user clicks this page on the menu it will call the default email program on their mobile device. The email subject and message you dictate will show up in their pre-composed message. This can be quite useful for getting people to share your site or information about organization.

Build Your 'Email Send' Page

First, create a new page in the mobile management area. Give your page a name and select 'Email Send' as the page type.

Next, select an icon for your page. In this example we have selected a heart since it is all about showing how much you love Maile's by sharing it with friends.

Then, it is time for the main content. You need to provide an email subject and the email body content. The subject would be something catchy that the end recipient will want to open and read. The person sharing your email will more than likely not change anything in the subject or message. They are more likely to add to it then alter it.

Save your page and you are ready to go.

The Result

Now, when someone selects this page on your mobile site, it will generate an email using the default mail app on their phone.

Search Twitter Keywords, Generate Leads, Start Conversations

In the Social Conversation Area of Squareberry, there are three main sections: Search, Social Feeds and Inbox. The Search section allows you to monitor keywords on Twitter. Any keywords you add will be on the left tabs and feed in public tweets using those keywords.

Search Tips

1. Use quotation marks to search for phrases. When you are inputting a search term, you can add quotation marks to search for the whole phrase. If you search for multiple words without quotation marks, your results will include Tweets with those keywords, though the words may be separate in the tweet.

2. Add Local Terms. Use your city name, neighborhoods, or local phrases to help bring in Tweets from people talking about your specific area. There are so many Tweeters out there, you want to do the best you can to bring in the best possible leads.

Reply to New Leads

Social conversation goes both ways. Not only will you monitor what is being said, but you can easily join the conversation. Hit "Reply" next to any of the Tweets in your search and you can instantly reply to that person. Recommend your business, answer their questions or even ask for feedback.

Think of these Tweeters as leads. Everyone out there Tweeting is a potential customer or new follower. The more you engage and be part of the conversation, the more traction your can gain, people you can influence and business you can generate.