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.

Snag Your NHL Team's Schedule

Well, it took a while. But, the NHL season is now in full swing!

As always, with Squareberry, you can SNAG categories of events from other accounts and pull them into your account.

Are you a sports bar or restaurant? Does your small business support a certain team? Snag you local or favorite NHL team's schedule to show off on your social calendar. Just go to http://squareberry.com/nhl and click the "Snag" button in the top right corner and follow the steps.

Once your NHL team's schedule is pulled onto your Planner, you can choose to publish that category as reminders to social media, display it on your web calendars and widgets, show it off on your Facebook calendar or use it as a guide for planning your special events and coupon promotions.

Looking at Calendars as Part of Your Social Media Marketing

When someone says social media, we normally think of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. Those are the current big players in the space and the social sites most commonly used by marketers. But when talking about "social media marketing" it is important to consider looking at other, more traditional media as part of your social media portfolio. Calendars for instance have been around a long time. But, when you look at what they do: schedule events/promotions, communicate to people and draw in groups for a common purpose, they can easily be viewed as a social marketing tool.

What's More 'Social' Than an Event?

Let's not forget the idea of "social" is person to person and person to group interaction. The idea of "marketing" is to generate more traffic and revenue for your business. Social Marketing combines these two things, leveraging peer-to-peer sharing to generate word-of-mouth, drive traffic to your location and increase your business.

For many restaurants, fitness locations and local retail businesses, events and coupon promotions are the best way drive more people into their location. Many events are designed to be social. Trivia Night is full of interaction, live music nights are a great time for people to meet and interact and coupon promotions help bring in groups of friends. All of these happenings are ideal for social media sharing and peer-to-peer promotion.

Your Calendar - Published Across Social Channels

With Squareberry, your scheduled events and promotions are published everywhere. Add an event to your calendar and it is published on your website calendar, Facebook Page calendar, mobile calendar pages and on event widgets. Automated reminders are sent out about your event to social media channels, email and SMS subscribers.

With Squareberry, your calendar is truly part of you social media marketing portfolio. Publishing your events and promotions helps you more closely merge social media and real world events to draw in larger crowds, more groups and better business.