Should You Post About Topics Unrelated to Your Business?

Current Events and Topics

Often times, there are current events, professional sports games, political movements and other things happening in you community that are important to your customers and followers. Should you get involved in the conversation about these topics? Obviously there are are some simple examples. Sports Bars should definitely post scores, reactions and announcements about your local teams. Sports Bars' customers want this information and may even consider their favorite sports bar a source of information on this subject.

But what about a small retail store or a non-profit? When is a good time to take part in the conversations and when should should they just stick with posting about what they have going on? If you run a local non-profit group, your followers will most likely not be looking at you as a source for updates on every single game during the baseball regular season. But if the local team wins the World Series, that probably warrants an excited or congratulatory social media post.

The magnitude of the topic or event should be considered. Does this impact my organization and its followers? In the example just given, regular season baseball games don't the non-profit or community, but winning the World Series is something the whole city and community celebrate. As part of the community, you should not be left out of the celebration.

Your Social Media Experts Should Not Project Themselves

An important factor to always keep in mind is the voice of your social media accounts. Like all aspects of your communication and marketing there should be a consistent voice that is concurrent with your brand. Is your organization, young, fun and casual? Then the way you chat on social media should probably reflect this.

It often seems that one or two people are put in charge of creating the content and messages that will be posted on social media accounts. These people always need to remember they are posting as the organization and not as themselves. The wording, phrasing and expressions used should reflect the brand of the organization, not the personality of that individual.

They should also consider this when it comes to current events. The questions should be "Is my organization and my followers interested in this subject?", "Is this topic beneficial and does it positively reflect my organization?" The top or current event may be very important to the individual in charge of your social media, but it may not reflect the brand of your organization.

Marketing During the Holiday Season

Well, the holiday season is upon us. This week, in the U.S. we will celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas is fast approaching. This is a huge time of year for retail, restaurants and other businesses as people take time off, buy gifts, spend time with family and take advantage of special offers and sales.

Holiday Marketing

Because more stores, restaurants and businesses offering specials and sales during this time of year, there is more noise to compete with. Consumers are bombarded with ads from every angle. If you want to be heard this time of year, you may consider increasing the amount of messages you publish to social media, run more events on "off" nights (such as the middle of the week) and make your promotions can't miss opportunities.

This time of the year is one of the most competitive. If you don't want to be missed, you have to make sure your offers/events are heard and you have to make them worth coming to. Remember that most every other business is also running a sale. Let people know why yours is better.

Cyber Monday

Don't forget about Cyber Monday. If you have an e-commerce website or even if you allow people to purchase gift cards or simple items online, make sure to take advantage of Cyber Monday. Every year, millions of people participate in an online shopping surge the Monday after Thanksgiving. Make sure your business or restaurant does not miss out.

Play Off the Current Events and Holidays

Back in July (in honor of the Olympics), we presented a Tuesday Tip with suggestions for playing off of current events and pop culture with your events and promotions. These type of themes promotions can be used even by small businesses and give your marketing a sense of relativeness and freshness.

Read the Full Article Now >

Monitor Twitter Keywords and Generate Leads

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.

Snag Your Favorite NBA Team's Schedule

The NBA season is here! With the MLB season just ending and the NFL season in full swing, it is now time for the NBA season to launch. It is a great time to utilize Squareberry's SNAG features and grab your favorite team's schedule to display on your calendars and widgets and share on social media.

SNAG an NBA Team Schedule

http://squareberry.com/nba

Click the "Snag" button in the top right corner of the NBA calendar at the URL above. You will then be asked to login (if you are not already). Then, select the team you want to Snag and continue.

Now, that team will show up as a Category in your account. You can display this category on calendars and widgets (just like your created categories) and even set social media publishing settings for your team schedule.

Marketing With Your NBA Team Schedule

The most immediate and basic advantage to having your NBA team's schedule Snagged, is that you see the schedule on your social planner. This makes scheduling messages, events and coupon promotions to coincide with your team's games easy.

For restaurants, publishing messages on the day of a big game can help draw attention and get more people in the door to watch the game at your place.

This strategy can be taken even further, by running coupon promotions to go along with the games. Simple promotions like "Buy 2 Drinks, Get One Free" or "15% Off Everything During The Game" can help bring in groups of people to watch the big game. Running these promotions heavily at the beginning of the season can help you establish your place as the location of choice for grabbing some food and drinks while watching the games.

Making Your Mobile Website a Place to Come Back To

The key word in the title of this article is "back". Like your website, Facebook page and your actual business location, you want people to come BACK. One visit is good, but repeat visits is what you are looking for. Your mobile website needs to be an ever-updating hub of happenings, news and fresh content. Tell people to use it and keep them coming back.

Events and Promotions

For many businesses, special events and coupon promotions are what draw people in. Your mobile website should serve as the ideal location for people to find this information. Create calendar pages on your mobile site to show off your upcoming events and promotions. People, who are out and about, will be drawn in by your happenings.

Mobile News Source

News pages are a great way to keep your mobile website fresh. With Squareberry, you can feed in RSS (such as a blog) or publish your Twitter feed. These options give your mobile website fresh news content without the need to login and update the news page. Your mobile website keeps updated via your existing main news publishing tools.

Keep It Updated

The most important thing to do is keep your mobile website updated with fresh content. Squareberry's calendars will automatically hide past events/promotions, but page content needs to be maintained (if applicable). Don't leave a message about New Year's on your home page until March. Out of date content can turn off potential customers who will think nothing has changed at your business.

If you are a restaurant, keep your current menu updated/available on your mobile website. Squareberry offers an intuitive Menu/Catalog page type which allows you to easily create and update a full menu of items.

Tell People It Is the Place to Come Back To

Signs on your door and/or tables can go a long way. You are probably already featuring Facebook on your collateral, do the same with your mobile website. Tell people they can easily see what's going on, gets news and find promotions on your mobile site. Spreading the word helps get them on your mobile site. Fresh content, news and events/promotions keep them coming back.

Two Daily Deals Strategies

Squareberry's Promotions feature allows you to plan, schedule and deliver coupon promotions on social media, web calendars and more. This feature can easily be used to implement your own "Daily Deals" strategies. "Daily Deals" websites have become very popular in the last year and the concept is appealing to consumers. Taking advantage of this appeal can help any business.

Publish Your Daily Deals Daily

Tongue twister? A little bit. But you get the idea. Publish your deals each day. This means people do not know what tomorrow's deal will be. You keep their focus on one deal at a time.

Here is how you can set this up in Squareberry:

• - Create a category called "Daily Deals" or something similar.
• - Set your publishing settings for this category to be "Day Of".
• - Make sure this category is not included on any of the Views you are using on your website or for your Facebook Calendar. You don't want your entire Daily Deals schedule on display.
• - Schedule Daily Deal Promotions and tag them with your Daily Deals Category

Now, all the Daily Deals promotions you schedule will publish to your social media accounts on the 'Day Of" the promotion. They will not publish before that and will not display on your calendars and widgets.

Daily Deals Calendar

Some organizations may want their deals on display ahead of time. To do this you will schedule your promotions normally in a category of your choosing. But, you may want to have a calendar or widget dedicated to your Daily Deals. This can easily be done:

• - Create a category called "Daily Deals" or something similar.
• - Create a custom Event View in the Calendars & Widgets Area and select only your Daily Deals category so that it is the only category in the View.
• Embed a widget or calendar from this new custom Event View on your website or anywhere you like.

This new calendar will display your Daily Deals category and nothing else. You could use one of the sliders on your website to grab attention or even add the List Widget to your home page to show off your upcoming "Daily Deals".

Mobile Website Page Type Alternative Uses

Mobile Website Management

For this week's tip, we will take a look at the various page types in the Mobile Management Area of the Squareberry platform. Many of these page types are straightforward, but have alternate uses you may not have thought of previously. Let's take a look.

Mobile Website CMS Page Types

Mobile Menu/Catalog Page

This page type allows you to create a catalog of items or a restaurant menu. But, it could also easily be used to create a staff page. Each staff member could be added as an item and even be organized using the spacers. This is the perfect example of using a page type for an alternative and useful function.

Mobile Website Contact Page

A contact page's function can change by simply changing the name of the page. If you are a restaurant and you make a Contact Page called "Order Now", it instantly becomes an order page. Simply have the contact info be sent to an email inbox that takes orders.

Mobile Calendar Page

This page type shows upcoming events and promotions from the categories you select. But, try making it more specific. You could make a calendar page called "Daily Deals" and have one category called "Daily Promotions". Then you can schedule a single promotion for each day.

Mobile Info Page

The Info page type can also be used as an interesting "Contact" page. While it does not have a contact form, it offers a phone call button, links to social media sites, location features and a content area for adding any text and media you want. This page type can easily be used as your page for providing contact info to mobile site viewers.

Think Outside the Box

Management systems always have specific functions and features. Thinking outside the "standard" use case is a great way to make interesting and effective content. The above examples are just a few ways you can use a mobile website page type for an alternative function.

Mobile Website Sub Menus

Sub-Menus are pretty much what they sound like. Instead of having all your pages on one large menu, you can have lower levels of navigation that allow users to move through your site in organized areas. Sub-Menus on a mobile website can be equated to a drop down on the main menu of a standard website.

Utilizing sub-menus on your mobile site can improve navigation and increase the time people spend on your site. Sub-Menus can be used strategically in a few specific areas. Here are some tips for utilizing sub-menus on your mobile website.

Restaurant Menus and Product Catalogs

This is a great place to use sub-menus. Instead of plopping your entire catalog of items or your entire restaurant menu on one large page, you can use sub-menus to break it up and organize. For instance, a restaurant could make a sub menu with 3 pages: "Breakfast", "Lunch", and "Dinner" - each of which are their own distinct page outlining the food items for that meal. The sub-menu in this situation divides the content in an organized way, so you do not have too much on one page.

A retail store with a plethora of items could implement this same strategy to break up their catalog into departments or types of products. The degree of specificity you take it to is up to you. You could have 4 levels deep of sub-menus to clearly organize everything, or keep it simple with a 2 level structure.

Photo Galleries and Media

You can also organize media on your mobile website with sub-menus. The simplest way to break this up is by media type. For instance on your main menu you have "Media" which opens a sub-menu. This sub-menu then has "Videos", "Photos" and 'Audio Clips". Each of these pages feature media of that certain type.

You can also break your media up more categorically. Let's say you are a non-profit organization who does a variety of activities. You could have a sub-menu called "Media" and a photo gallery on that sub-menu called "Building Projects". In this gallery you feature images of various building projects. You could have more galleries, all featuring images of their own distinct activity type.

Mobile Website Sub-Menus

No two organizations are the same. No two mobile websites are exactly the same. It is important to figure out what works best for your mobile site. Sub-Menus can be very useful, but be sure to not overcomplicate your mobile website or make your navigation so complicated that users get lost.

Catalogs and Restaurant Menus

Yes, Even on Mobile

Don't be fooled. The Mobile Web can be just as feature rich and informative as desktop websites. More and more people are browsing on mobile devices and using their phone as a primary resource for information and search.

Catalogs

Some people may never see your full website. If they find you on their mobile device - that may be it. That could be your only chance to catch their attention or sell to them. Why not have your catalog or featured catalog items right on your mobile site?

For example, if you own a stationary store, you will want to show off the products you offer. Including a catalog of your products on your mobile site is the best way to show off what you have and why someone should visit your location to make a purchase.

Restaurant Menus

Most people searching for a restaurant website online are concerned with a few factors: hours, location, prices and food. (What else do you need to know?) Your mobile site needs to offer all of this information and in a sleek, easy-to-use fashion. You may not need to include every single menu item (though there is nothing stopping you). But, people want to know how much things generally cost and what you offer. Be sure to show the range of your offerings to get interest from as many people as possible.

Also, do not forget about the Phone call buttons. Most mobile users are on phones and including buttons such as "Order Now" or "Call Us" can help encourage people to call your restaurant right then and there. Of course, be sure that someone is there to answer the phone and take the order.

Rich Media on Your Mobile Site

Small Screen? Nobody Cares

It's true. A few years back people could not get enough of bigger and bigger screens (TVs, Computer Monitors, etc.). But, now a mobile crazy culture has turned the tide a bit. People want devices to be quick and portable. Even with this desire for compactness, rich media is still very popular.

People love viewing photos and watching videos on phones and other mobile devices. The lack of screen space or high quality audio has not limited the desire for on-demand streaming content. So, when working on your mobile site consider this. Yes, text loads faster and people are often hunting down specific info on the mobile web. But, do not be afraid to jazz things up a bit.

Adding Rich Media to Your Mobile Site

YouTube Videos

YouTube is very mobile friendly, working across almost all platforms (thanks Google). Squareberry's mobile management area offers a few ways to include YouTube videos. First, there is the YouTube video page type, which allows you to provide a URL to a YouTube video and it will be formatted and fit right onto your mobile site. Additionally, you can embed a YouTube video anywhere you are adding custom content (Home Page, Info Pages, or a Custom Content Page).

Photo Galleries

The Photo Gallery page type is a great way to provide visual content for your site viewers. You can upload and arrange any number of photos. You can add multiple galleries and optimize to your liking. Your galleries are optimized for mobile devices and offer thumbnail views as well as full screen versions of your images.

Graphics, Banners, Icons and More

Your menu can be customized with icons for each page to give your site even more pizzazz. You can also add a banner image to your header and customize your background. All of this enhances your mobile site visually to make is more appealing and striking. It is important to feed the visual appetite of mobile device users to get them engaged as soon as they reach your mobile website.

Multi-Location Businesses

Determine How You Handle Your Business

First of all, if you have a multi-location business you need to determine how you handle and promote yourself. The main thing to consider is if you promote your brand as a whole entity or allow each location to have a more autonomous approach (while of course still remaining under the main brand).

A quick way to figure out which you are (or maybe want to be) is to look at how you do things on Facebook. Do you have one unified Facebook page for your brand (for all locations)? Or does each location of your business have its own Facebook page? Typically, you will only have on website, but on Facebook many businesses are more fragmented.

Best of Both Worlds

Squareberry offers the best of both worlds for multi-location businesses and franchises. A customizable solution from Squareberry allows organizations to push content down to corresponding accounts. This means every restaurant in a chain could have their own separate accounts for publishing to their own specific Twitter/Facebook pages. But, the top level (the brand) could still run company wide events and promotions, pushing them down to all the corresponding locations. Each individual location would then be scheduling their own events, messages and promotions that are specific to their location.

This gives a perfect balance of location specific events and marketing with brand wide promotions to create an ideal solution. Multi-location businesses can empower their brand and their individual locations with a balanced approach that helps drive traffic to the real world locations.

Using Campaigns and Reports in Squareberry

It's New - Now What?

The Squareberry team recently added Campaigns & Reports features into the Squareberry marketing platform. This has a variety of capabilities and features. In this post we wanted to outline some of them and discuss best practices.

What is a Campaign?

A campaign is what you make it. Squareberry's Campaign features are designed to be flexible and allow you to use them as you choose. When creating a Campaign in Squareberry, you simply provide a name and a start and end date.

For some, campaigns are simply done over a period of time. For example, a business may run its "Spring Campaign" or "March Madness". Others may choose to do topical campaigns. Topical campaigns are centered around a series of promotions and messages about the same subject. A small food store may run a campaign about their produce and then get a report on how many views they got of produce promotions, etc.

In Squareberry, you can tag any event, message or promotion with any campaign you have created to include in that campaign.

PDF Exports

There are two places where PDF reports can be exported:

• Social Dashboard: You can export an "Overview Report" at anytime. This report includes social follower growth graphs, social stats, your most viewed happenings, social influence and Facebook Demographics. The Dashboard PDF Report offers a snapshot of your current social marketing efforts.
• Campaigns: You can export a PDF Report of your Campaigns at anytime. Stats reflect the time period of your campaign as well as the events, messages and promotions you tagged for that Campaign.

3 Lesser Known Features - Tuesday Tip

There are some things in Squareberry you may not know about. Tricks, tips or even features you do not use. Squareberry is an expansive platform covering Mobile, Social Media Publishing, Web Calendars, and more. Because of this, you may not be aware of or fully taking advantage of all the aspects of the platform. We wanted to share 3 things in Squareberry you may not know about. Hope you find them beneficial.

1. Drag and Drop Your Location Pin

Locations help drive digital views to your real world business/organization. Your location can be attached to any event or promotion you create. In the Locations area of Squareberry you simply add a location and provide the needed details. A small map is displayed on your events and with your promotions.

When editing your location you can drag and drop the marker pin on the map to set it exactly where you want it. This allows you to mark your location exactly, or mark what entrance is the best to use. Often times Google Maps may not mark your place exactly where you want it to be.

2. Social Media Inbox

Squareberry allows you to plan, schedule and publish your messages and special happenings. But what next? Social media is all about conversation with real people. Squareberry's Social Conversation Area is built to allow you to keep the conversation going, find leads and answer your social followers.

The Social Inbox allows you to track and manage your social conversations. Anyone who replies, comments or mentions you shows up in your Social Inbox. You can then easily reply to them and track your conversation back and forth. People you reply to are automatically moved to the "Answered" section and you can remove conversations, mark as replied and keep the talk going from right within the Inbox.

3. Advertising on Your Calendars + Events

You can add Advertising to your calendars and events. In the Ad Management area you can unlock Ad Groups to add customized banner ads and text & image ads. These ads display on your calendars and can link to any URL you choose. You can use these to promote specials, things on your website or big events coming up.

The advertising feature is also a great tool in fundraising efforts. Ad Spots can be sold to local organizations looking to promote themselves on your online calendar and events. Learn more now >

Tuesday Tip - Announce Your Schedule Changes

Often times, your events social media messages and coupon promotions are planned and scheduled far in advance. In fact, that is one of the great things about using Squareberry. But, there are always uncontrollable circumstances and things that happen to break up your plan. It is important to communicate changes to your schedule to keep your followers, customers and community updated.

Why the need to say anything?

In the digital age, people store, track and organize their lives in a variety of ways. Some set reminders, others schedule in their personal calendars. Many keep updated through social media and other apps to know what is going on where and when.

Your steady followers and customers may be accustomed to a certain schedule or plan. Others who have checked your web or Facebook calendar may have seen an event or promotion coming in the near future and planned to participate. If these people show up and find your location closed or not holding the special happening they thought was going on, it can cause confusion and dissatisfaction.

Canceling or Changing

With social media, you have the power to quickly and effectively communicate any changes to your schedule. You can blast a few messages out across your various social channels and quickly get everyone informed about your changes.

Additionally, you can mark any events or promotions you have scheduled in Squareberry as "Canceled". The Canceled feature is a great alternative to simply deleting items. The happening appears crossed out on any calendar or widget view you have - easily identifying it as canceled to your viewers/followers.

Instead of saying nothing, your automated reminders about the happening will say "Canceled" and clearly let everyone know that your event/promotion is no longer happening. Clear communications allow people to stay happy and up to date.

Offer an Alternative

If you start sending out messages about a canceled event it is important to offer an alternative or special to replace it. For instance, if "Live Music Night" is canceled you may want to send a message like this: "Live Music is CANCELED tonight. BUT we got you covered. Half off all drinks from 7-9 PM. COME ON IN!". This can help drive traffic that you may have lost due to the cancellation.

You can also let people know your canceled event is rescheduled or coming soon. "Live Music will happen next week at the same time."

Tuesday Tip - Non-Profits, Highlight Your Events

Non-profits are often reliant on member or local participation. Whether it is a community event or a fundraiser, non-profits need more people involved to help spread their message, push their cause or reach their goals. Leveraging social media and online communications is ideal for non-profits who have tight budgets and need to reach larger amounts of people.

Get Better Event Participation

It is important to communicate your events in every aspect of your online presence. Add a full calendar to your Facebook Page and to your website, clearly displaying all your events. Publish reminders about your upcoming events to social media so your followers know what is going on.

You want to remind people about what you have going on and send them easy information on getting involved. Include links in your social messages that send people to your Facebook or website calendar. Add a link to a registration page or even provide a phone number. Make it as clear and easy to get involved as possible.

Encourage Sharing - Multiply Your Reach

You will also want to encourage sharing of your information. This can help multiply the number of participants and drive more traffic to your events.

• Describe the need or mission. This can appeal to different types of people. Telling them your story and what you are trying to accomplish can help motivate.
• Ask people to share. Send messages like "Hey everyone! We are trying to get more participants for our fundraiser tomorrow. Please retweet and share this."
• Share past stories, photos and videos. It is important to show that other people are involved. Sharing testimonials, photos of people in action and videos can help encourage others to get involved or share your information.

Track your Views

Pay attention to what events are being viewed most on your calendar or from social media. If you have an event getting a lot of views but real world participation is lacking, you may need to modify your call to action or how you have presented the event. Once you start seeing what is working and not working, you can optimize your plan to maximize your follower participation.

Track Real World Results - Tuesday Tip

Squareberry delivers your events and coupon promotions across a variety of channels, including social media. It is important to track how effective the events and promotions you schedule are.

What do I track in the App?

Squareberry allows you to track the views of all your events and promotions. You can also track the number of clicks on any links you send (using our URL shortener). The Dashboard provides you with analytics on Facebook demographics, graphs showing your followers, and more. All of these can help guide you and let you see how effective you are being. But, sometimes you need to track your real world results.

What Are Real World Results?

There are tons of stats and tracking systems online. But for many local organizations who run promotions and events at their own location, results are defined at the real world location. This is where they get participation and make sales. If you owned a restaurant with 5000 Twitter followers but the place was not filled on Saturday night, would you be satisfied?

Tracking your real world results is important. When you plan and schedule an event on Squareberry, it is important to track how many people end up attending that event at your location. The analytics, views, etc. provided in the app are great, but to truly know your results you need to see how much real world traffic you get.

Tracking your real world traffic and participation in promotions that you run can help you determine your plan for promotions and events in the weeks to follow. You may be seeing few people using your lunch coupons on Monday and decide to instead run a promotion for Sunday afternoon. These decisions can only be made when you know your Real World Results.

Squareberry Drives Real World Traffic

Squareberry was built to do more than send messages online. It allows you to plan, schedule and communicate your real world happenings to drive traffic to your location. Web results are great, but the goal for many organizations will always be to get REAL WORLD results.

New Menu and Buttons

We have updated the Menu design in the application. This new simplified menu makes it easier to jump to the things that matter most: Dashboard, Social Conversation, Social Planner, Facebook Fan Page and Calendars & Widgets. Many of the other options and controls will be found in the Control drop down menu (Gear button).

You may also notice that the Events, messages and Promotions "List Screens" are not readily featured any longer. Most users enjoy using the Social Planner as there means of scheduling and we have featured that prominently. If you need to use the traditional List screens, for searching or scheduling, you can find them from the Planner.

At the top of the Planner there is a "See All" link net to Events, Messages and Promotions. These links send you to the full list of each type of scheduled item. The List screens allow you to filter and search in ways the Planner does not, so we wanted to leave them intact in some way. Though, in most day to day usage, the Planner is the ideal choice for planning and scheduling.

Stay tuned for more updates coming very soon.

Tuesday Tip - Run Ads for Extra Revenue

Ads are a great way to earn extra revenue on a popular website or even a calendar. In most schools, churches and non profits, the Calendar page on a website is the second highest viewed page behind the Home Page. Taking advantage of this by running sponsorships or using banners to promote things is a great idea!

Raising Money Is Pretty Much Always Nice

It is hard to argue against an easy way to raise funds for your organization. Running sponsorship spots on your Squareberry calendar is easy and effective. You can easily cover your cost with one sponsor and use the rest of the spots for easy revenue.

Depending on how much work you want to put into it, you can easily raise thousands of dollars for your organization. You don't have to set up sponsors for a year and walk away. You can run sponsorships for 3 months or even 1 month and then get new sponsors. The Squareberry Ad Management feature is designed to give you the power.

Check out the Free Fundraising Guide >

Businesses Like It

Banner Ads on your calendar are appealing to local businesses and sponsors who want to reach your audience with their message. If you are a non-profit or school, many organizations like to sponsor just out of good will or a community mindset. The return you are giving them is better than many other sponsorships they may be involved in.

Get Your Audience Involved

One of the best ways to find sponsors for raising money is to ask your existing audience. If you are a church, ask your members. If you are a school, ask the parents. People involved with organization love to sponsor them and it gives them an even more approachable audience for promoting their business to. In many cases, you will not even need to look outside your existing community/audience to find sponsors.

Tuesday Tip - Fan Only Content on Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages can be a powerful platform for generating leads, driving in new customers and retaining existing customers. A customized Facebook Page is an essential aspect of that. These customized pages and extra tabs are becoming as common as standard websites and allow for powerful and creative interactions.

"Fan Only" Content

Customized Facebook Pages allow you to set content exclusive to those who have "Liked" your Facebook Page. This can be a powerful marketing tool and leads to creative and useful implementations.

With these capabilities, you could offer exclusive items to Fans. For instance, coupons or contest entry forms to those who have "Liked" your page are great ideas for generating more "Likes". The key is to make your "Welcome Page" eye catching and clear. When people visit your page they need to know why they should "Like" it.

Don't Be Too Tricky

While offering exclusive content and elements to those who are fans, it is important to not be too tricky. Remember, the Welcome Page (content for non-fans) is seen by everyone and may be the only thing someone sees. In many cases, you have one chance to get someone to "Like" your page.

Devoting your entire Welcome Page to encouraging Likes can help you get more fans, but it also can cloud your message or make exactly what you are offering unclear. A great idea is to have a video on your Welcome Page. Videos are eye catching and attention grabbing, allowing you to deliver the message you want right away. But remember, you do want to get those "Likes". At the end of your video include a "Remember to Like our Page for More Updates and Special Offers". A message like this at the end of the video is a great way to encourage more "Likes".

Best Social Media Tips from 2011

2011 Was a Great Year!

This week we are looking back at some of the best Tuesday Tips from 2011. We look forward to providing more Tuesday Tips in 2012. If you have any ideas for a Tuesday Tip or questions/suggestions for Squareberry, visit the forum and let your voice be heard: http://squareberry.com/forum/

Here are our 5 favorite Tuesday Tips 0f 2011:

• Add your location to Drive Traffic to your Events and Promotions
• Run Events + Specials That Encourage People to Bring Friends
• Schedule Messages During Events
• Repeat But Don't Be Repetitive
• Show Off Events and Promotions on Your Home Page

Thanks for reading the Tuesday Tips this year. We hope you have a great 2012! We are very excited about the enhancements coming very soon to Squareberry!

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