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.

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.

'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.

Use the Active Category Feature on Your Calendars

This feature can be found in the Calendar & Widgets Area and can be applied to any of your custom Event Views.

What is the Active Category Feature?

This feature allows you to specify which categories will be active by default when someone loads your calendar. Meaning, you could have a calendar with 5 categories on it, but only one category is showing when the calendar loads. The other 4 categories can then be checked by the viewer and activated.

When to Use It

This feature is great for organizations that want to cross promote happenings. For instance, a restaurant company with multiple restaurants may want to cross promote things happening at their restaurants. On the website calendar for "Bob's Burgers" there could be a category for "Stacy's Stir-Fry" which is not active by default. A user could see it and activate it to see those events also, but they are distracted by these events for another restaurant at the start.

Using this feature allows you to focus viewers on certain information to start while still presenting them with the option to get more information regarding other things (other categories).

Step by Step

• Go to the Calendars & Widgets Area
• Create a new Event View
• Select Categories you want to include in that Event View (all the categories you want to be on that view)
• At the bottom you will see "Specify Active Categories" - check this to activate it and then select the categories you want to be activated by default
• The categories you specify here will be checked and active when a viewer loads the calendar

The Active Categories feature was based on user feedback and suggestions. We appreciate all the feedback we get and encourage users to take part in our Support and Tips Forum.

Encourage Sharing of Events & Promotions

Word of mouth has always existed. When people have a good (or bad) experience, they want to talk about it. They want to share. Social Media was built for this kind of interaction and promotion. It was built for people to tell others about things they like, things they are doing, and things they want to do.

 

1. Send messages encouraging people to retweet or share your page with their friends. You could write a message like “Tell your friends about our events and promotions!” or “Everything is better with a friend! Tell them about our upcoming events.”

2. Encourage sharing and viral activity within your events. Every event you make in Squareberry features social sharing buttons to send across Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and email. You need to encourage people to utilize these buttons. “Hey! Share this event with friend on Facebook to make it even better!”

3. Run promotions that get followers to bring more people. When running a special promotion, it is always good to make the promotion include more meals/people. For instance, instead of a promotions giving 10% off a yogurt, run a promotion for “15% off when you buy two yogurts. Bring a friend!” You can encourage social interaction by running promotions that involve more than one person. 

Squareberry is all about driving people to your real world location for your happenings. Encouraging social sharing and promotions which encourage multiple visitors can help increase the number of people coming to your location, participating in promotions and experiencing you events.

Calendar Widgets With Just One Category

Custom Event Views

In Squareberry, you have the ability to create customized "Views". A view is essentially a group of categories in your account. They can be categories you have made or even categories you have snagged from other accounts. You can also select whether or not to show events and/or promotions on each View you make.

Once you create a customized view, you can then embed this view as any of the calendars or widgets in the app. You can embed that view as a Month Calendar or Vertical Slider Widget.

Single Category Views

An excellent strategy is to create a calendar view with just a single category. This is simply an Event View with only one category in it. This can be used for a variety of things.

If you are a Sports Bar and Restaurant, you could use single category views for a few different things. Snag the category of your local sports team. You can then turn around and create a view with just that team's schedule. On your website you can add a simple list widget on your sidebar showing upcoming games for this team.

You can also make a category called "Special Deals" and create an Event View with just this category. Then, embed a Slider Widget of this View on your home page. Now your Home Page is displaying every promotion and event you tag as "Special Deals" on an eye-catching and interactive slider. Your website will have fresh, relevant content to help drive traffic to your restaurant.

"Featured"

A common method for this is to have a category called "Featured". You can then create a view with just the "Featured" category and display it as a widget or calendar on your website.

Remember that events and promotions can be tagged in more than one category. So, your promotion may fall under "Drink Specials" but it could also be tagged as "Featured" so that it will be sent to display at any View which has the "Drink Specials" or "Featured" category in it.

Events and Promotions on your Website Home Page

A website's home page is the ideal location to show off real world events and promotions. In many cases, web surfers only see the home page. If your goal is to drive them to your real world location or drive participation in an event or promotion, the Home Page needs to be part of your strategy.

Home Page Widgets - What's Happening!

Home page widgets are the ideal way to communicate your real world happenings on your website. Rather than plopping a traditional calendar or static graphic, these widgets will auto-update to show off your upcoming events and promotions. You can select specific categories when creating your views, to limit your widgets to just those selected categories.

With auto-refreshing widgets, you never have to worry about making sure your website homepage is up to date. You know you are always showing off your upcoming events and promotions and driving people into your real world location. Special Events and Coupons are the perfect way to get more people to your location.

Easily Add a Calendar Widget to Your Home Page

Adding these widgets is very easy. With Squareberry, you are given simple embed codes for every type of widget. These can easily be added to any website. It is as easy as adding a YouTube video. You can create customized views with certain categories, allowing you to show off just the events and promotion you want with any widget or calendar.

The Slider Widget gives any website motion and solid content. Events and Promotions slide by, creating an eye-catching display of your happenings. The List Widget lists your upcoming happenings and auto-refreshes to show off your next X number of events or promotions.

Tuesday Tip - Add Notes To Locations

Many locations are not as simple as an address. Maybe you are on the second floor or to the right of the elevators. Adding helpful notes to your location(s) is a great way to help people get to where your events and promotions are being held.

Your Location May Be More Complicated Than You Think

Many locations are not big buildings with huge signs on busy intersections that everyone knows about. Often times your location is more complicated. You may be in a crowded shopping center or around the corner. It is important to provide useful help and tips for people who have never been there before.

You location notes do not have to be about directions. They can also be helpful tips to make a customer's experience better. For instance, your building may have a small parking lot in the front, and plenty of parking in the back. Letting people know about the parking lot behind the building (which usually has more spaces) is a great tip to add to your location notes. It lets a first time visitor feel comfortable and more willing to come to your location.

Ask a First Time Visitor

A great way to find out anything bad or difficult about your location is to ask someone who is visiting for the first time. Getting this kind of feedback can be very helpful in determining what you need to let people know about. In many cases, you may learn something you never knew about your place. It may be difficult to see from the road, or the sign is only visible from one direction. There are a variety of situations that you would never think of on your own, since you go there all the time and are so familiar with it.

Getting to Your Location is What It is All About

Your location is what it is all about. Those coupon promotions you run and special weekly events are all about getting more people in the doors. Utilizing the location features in Squareberry can help drive more real world traffic. Isn't that what all this marketing stuff is about?

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."

Customizing Your Calendar Views

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.

Adjusting 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.

Mobile Web Tips For Businesses With Several Locations

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.

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.

Add Your Events & Promotions to Your Website

Home Page

Your website's home page is obviously a great place to start when featuring events and promotions. The home page is what everyone sees. It is where your most important information is and might be the only page someone sees.

Great options for your home page:

• The List Widget - Very popular for the home page. It is simple and always shows your next X number of upcoming events. Another popular strategy it to put a link to a full calendar page right above or below your home page list widget.
• Portrait Slider Widget - This is a bold statement and can span the whole width of your home page. The items in this slider widget are larger and very eye catching. When using this widget it is highly recommended to add images to your events to get that bold/visual appeal.
• Landscape Slider Widget - Similar to the Portrait Slider Widget but smaller in size, this widget is a great alternative if you do not want to take up as much vertical space. Again, the idea here is eye catching featured items.

Website Sidebar

Many websites have a sidebar. This is a very common element of a website. For sidebars, the list widget is the most popular item. The List Widget offers the ability to show off your upcoming events and promotions across your website with a small feature on your sidebar. You can make it as small as you want, showing off just 3 or so upcoming happenings.

Full Calendar Pages

Widgets are great, but don't forget about a full calendar. For organizations like schools and churches, calling attention to your full calendar is a great idea. This is one of the top reasons people visit your website. They need to see what is going on.

Now, if you are a small business or restaurant, you may not want to call as much attention to your full calendar. But, it is still good to have. People like to see what is upcoming. Placing links/buttons next to your widgets that send people to your full calendar is a great way to utilize it without throwing it in people's faces.

You can see samples of all the views and widgets here: http://squareberry.com/features/online-calendars/web-calendars-widgets/

What is the Subscription Widget?

The Subscription Widget can be found in the Calendars & Widgets section. But, it does not display events like the other widgets. The subscription widget allows you to embed a small form on a webpage to quickly get subscribers to categories. The image below shows what the subscription widget looks like.

What it Does

The subscription widget subscribes those who input their information to the categories for that widget. Meaning, all of the categories you have selected for that event view are subscribed to when using that views subscription widget.

Reminders about upcoming events and promotions are then sent to subscribers based on the settings you have set for each category. Reminders are sent via email and SMS text message.

Use Views with Select Categories

Depending on your organization, getting email and SMS notifications from every category may annoy or overwhelm a subscriber. Instead of using your default event view which contains all of the categories, you can add a new event view with a few select categories and use that subscription widget.

For example, a school may have a large number of events going on each week. Events views can be broken up with different categories. A fine arts calendar, an athletics calendar etc. You can also have different subscription widgets for each of these. This would allow people interested in athletics to only get reminders about athletics.

It is also important to note that subscribers can subscribe to multiple things. If a user subscribed via one widget on your website, they can still subscribe via another widget to add more categories to their subscription.

Put Events in Multiple Categories

Squareberry allows you to select categories for your events and promotions. Categories determine when automated reminders are published about your events, on what calendars/widgets they are displayed on and which subscribers will get an email/SMS reminder.

Multiple Categories

Events do not need to be limited to a single category. Adding categories functions like tags. You can add multiples to any event. This comes in handy as many events apply to more then one category. A restaurant may have a Family Event that falls in the Family Fun category as well as the Food Specials.

Calendars & Widgets

Multiple categories comes in handy with calendars and widgets. You can have a "Featured Events" category and a widget on your website home page that displays only this single category of events. However, you may not want to only tag events as Feature, you may also one to tag them with "Food Specials", "Family Fun", "Contests" or whatever category best classifies them. Utilizing multiple categories allows you to arrange things for optimal widget and calendar display.

More Subscribers

Adding multiple categories increases the reach of that event with subscribers. If you only use one category, only subscribers to that single category get the notification. More categories means more subscribers getting notified.

Alias Tips for Listen & Count Polls

When creating a Listen & Count poll, you can add various keywords to listen for. For each keyword you can add aliases. Aliases are other words that count as responses for that same keyword. Below are a few tips to on using the aliases feature.

Common Misspellings

Typos are fairly common on mobile devices (or even on the computer). Listen & Count polls are conducted via web widgets as well as Twitter and SMS. It is not uncommon for someone to type a response with a misspelling. You will want to make sure this misspelling is also counted as a response. Put common misspellings of your keyword as aliases. If someone submits one of these misspellings as a response it will still be counted.

Synonyms or Related Words

Many words have synonyms or shortened versions. These alternative words may be submitted by your followers. You don;t want to miss a response simply because someone typed a word that is not the exact word you wanted.

Examples

Below are some examples use the two strategies for aliases mentioned above.

• Keyword: Chocolate
• Aliases: coco, cocoa, chocolat, choclate, choco, chocolte

• Keyword: Vanilla
• Aliases: vanilla, vanill, vnilla, vanila, french vanilla

Aspects of an Event

See the Parts That Make Up a Events

Events in Squareberry have a few set fields and an open content area where anything can be added. You can add images, text, links, videos and more in the content editor.

The chart above outlines the various aspects of an event. These pieces make up what is viewed when someone clicks an event on your calendar or clicks a link on a social media reminder message.

Aspects of a Promotion

See the Parts That Make Up a Promotion

Promotions in Squareberry function much like events. The main difference between promotions and events is that promotions have a set of pre-defined fields, rather than an open content area.

The chart above outlines the different pieces that make up the promotion. They are displayed in the same order that the fields appear in when you schedule a promotion in you Squareberry account. Promotions allow you to publish redeemable coupons on calendars, widgets and social media to drive people in to your real world location.

Promotions are also optimized for mobile devices. Your followers and customers who view your promotion on their mobile device will see a mobile optimized coupon that is perfect for redeeming at your location.