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.

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.

 

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.

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.

Get Feedback by Asking Questions

Get Feedback

...and feedback is a good thing!

Social Media and other aspects of the web have given organizations a great opportunity for getting feedback, responses and more information from their customers than ever before. Organizations should take advantage of this to gain insight and optimize the way they do business, plan events, communicate and more.

Why is feedback so great? Well, it helps you modify and perfect the way you are doing things. It is important to constantly adjust your methods to fine tune them and create the ideal experience for your customers/visitors/etc. Questions can also help promote further conversation and discussion.

Ask Questions on Social Media

Social Media is the perfect outlet for getting feedback. You could post a simple question on Twitter or Facebook. Your question is seen by the people following you, who can respond instantly. Before social media, gaining feedback so instantaneously was uncommon or difficult.

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Respond to Comments/Mentions with Questions

You can instigate further conversation by asking questions to people who have already commented or mentioned you on social media. For instance, someone may mention you on Twitter, saying that they are at your restaurant. Responding with a question like "Have you tried the Salmon?" does two things: it recommends something to your guest and it carries the conversation on, encouraging them to respond further and keep the conversation going.

Squareberry Tally Feature

Squareberry allows you to place a single question on every event you make. Each question comes with 3 buttons allowing viewers to answer "Yes", "No" or "Maybe". This feature allows you to get quick feedback from your viewers while adding an interactive element to your event page.

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."

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.

Understanding Categories

We are continuing our "Understanding" posts this week by talking about categories. Categories are one of the most important aspects of your Squareberry account. They control where events are displayed, how they are published to social media and who can add/edit them.

Creating Categories

When creating a category you start by naming it. This name will display on calendars and on the events. You also select a color and icon. The color is used for the event name text and the icon is shown next to each event name. The next options regard snagging. Snagging allows other Squareberry accounts to pull your category into their account. They can display your content, but they can not edit it. Decide if your category is snaggable and if it requires approval.

"Settings For Publishing Reminder Messages" controls when automated posts about your upcoming events are published on your social media channels. You can have automated posts go out at different times on different social media accounts. Your social media account must be connected to show up here. You can also determine when events are published on RSS feed and to mobile subscribers.

"The "Day Of" settings dictates how many minutes before the event reminder messages are published on the day of the event. So, if you have automated messages set to go out on the day of (above) and you have the Day Of setting at 45, a message will be sent out 45 minutes before the event start time.

The next two settings help dictate the format of the automated messages. The first one determines if the category name should be included in the automated messages and if it should be at the front or back of the message. The second setting determines if a URL that links to event details should be included in the automated messages.

All of these settings are used by events and promotions that are created and put in this particular category. You can create as many categories as you want and customize the settings for each category to your liking.

Using Categories in Other Parts of Your Account

In the Calendars & Widgets section, categories are selected for each view you create. Read more about this in the Understanding Event Views post.

In the Users section, categories are selected for each Author you add to your account. Read more about this in the Understanding Users post.

Best of the Year (part 2)

We are on week closer to the end of the year. Last week we looked at Part 1 of our favorite posts of the year. This week we are looking at Part 2 of the best tutorials and our favorite marketing ideas from this year.

Event & Promotion Automated Social Publishing

Automated reminders about your upcoming events and promotions are sent based on the settings you dictate in categories. This means Squareberry is automatically publishing messages to your social media accounts about the happenings you have scheduled in your Squareberry account.

Read the Full Post >

Boost Your Weekend Sales

Weekends rule for a lot of reasons. Football games. Free days. Alarm clocks are turned off. Sunday brunches. For many local businesses, weekends are the busiest time. Restaurants and bars see a huge influx on weekend nights and many retails stores are busiest on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

Read the Full Post >

Recapping Our Understanding Series

We ran a whole series if articles on understanding different aspects of your account. If you missed any of these articles we encourage you to take the time to read them. Understanding all aspects of your Squareberry account is important to getting the most out of the mobile & social marketing tools.

Read the Full Post >

Gift Cards During the Holidays

Gift cards are a great alternative gift and have become more and more popular over the years. If you are not selling gift cards or promoting your gift cards, you are missing out on a potentially huge market.

Read the Full Post >

There will be no Tuesday Tip the next two weeks due to Christmas and New Year's holidays. We will see you in 2014. Happy Holidays to all!.

Best of the Year (part 1)

2013 is coming to a close. This week we start a two part series of looking back at the best Tuesday Tips of the year. If you missed any of these great posts, now is the time to check them out. Can you believe this year is already ending? 2014, here we come!

Restaurant Promotions That Bring Groups

Instead of offering a 25% off coupon for lunch, try a 50% Off One Lunch Entree When You Buy Another or Buy Two Lunch Entrees Get One Free. These small changes mean two people are buying entrees (and hopefully more) for lunch instead of just one person.

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Tips for Multi-Location Businesses

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.

Read the Full Post >

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Even when scheduling messages in advance you can include details in your posts. For example if you are having a live music night, you can send out messages with details of the band. Instead of a generic tweet like “Live Music Night is going great.” you can offer some details such as “John from ‘Grey Cycle’ is truly rocking it tonight! Get here soon to see the rest of their set!”

Read the Full Post >

Mobile Website Management Guide

Using these templates, you can create sleek and dynamic mobile websites for any organization. We have now compiled the various posts about mobile website management to create a complete mobile website management guide.

Read the Full Post >

Black Friday + Cyber Monday Review

The past two weeks we have discusses Black Friday and Cyber Monday. With the week of Thanksgiving here and the long shopping weekend approaching, we wanted to do a quick review of key points/ideas for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you have any ideas or want to share your experiences with this time of year, feel free to head over to the Squareberry Strategies section of our Forum.

Black Friday

• Lunch on Black Friday is a big opportunity for local restaurants. Most of the shopping is done in the morning to early afternoon and shoppers will need a place to refuel and grab a bite.
• Local small businesses can target the afternoon for promotions. The morning is dominated by large retail chains with big ticket items that are tough to compete with.
• Full Black Friday Post >

Cyber Monday

• Small businesses with online stores should focus on social media to get their local audience sharing and talking about their special offers.
• Restaurants and other local businesses can sell gift cards (a popular git choice) at a discounted rate on Cyber Monday. This is an easy promotion and a way to assure more people will be coming in your doors down the road.
• Full Cyber Monday Post >

 

Next week we will start looking at some tips for promotions and events during the busy holiday season. We will also discuss ideas on bringing in people who are from out of town.

Black Friday for Local Business

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the USA. Generally, it marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season and features large sales, discounted items and early store hours. On Black Friday millions of people go out spending money. They shop, they buy gifts and they often dine out. Despite not having the big ticket items or large advertising budgets, local businesses can still participate in Black Friday (if they choose to be open).

Restaurants on Black Friday

Local restaurants can see a lot of business on Black Friday. Much of the shopping is done in the morning and in the early afternoon. This means, there are a large number of people who are out of the home and will be hungry for lunch (not everyone wants Thanksgiving leftovers everyday). If your restaurant is open, make sure you are letting people know on social media. You can also run a special promotion to help draw in more people.

Promoting on social media is essential. Mobile devices users who are out shopping will be checking Twitter and Facebook to see news, updates, where their friends are and what their friends have bought. Your restaurant should be part of this conversation and let people know that they can stop by your location to refuel.

Small Businesses

There probably won't be a lot of business in the mornings for small/local retail businesses. The morning crowd is dominated by large retail chains with big ticket items and huge savings. However, the afternoon could be prime for the taking. Most shoppers plan out their morning - what stores they will hit and when. But, the afternoon is often overlooked. If you have a local retail store with specialty items that holiday shoppers are interested in, try promoting special "Afternoon Savings". Your small business may not be where they line up at 5 AM, but you could be the final stop on the way home.

Not for Everyone

Black Friday may not be for every local business. Restaurants are more likely to see big crowds and some local retail shops may decide it is better to just not be open. It all depends on your market and your situation. If Black Friday is not for you, maybe Cyber Monday is...

Next week we will take a look at Cyber Monday, the digital cousin of Black Friday.

Recapping Our Understanding Series

For the past six weeks, we have been taking a closer look at various aspects of Squareberry. Our "Understanding" series has provided insightful looks into popular features and managing sections of your account.

Now, we are taking a look back. If you missed any of these articles we encourage you to take the time to read them. Understanding all aspects of your Squareberry account is important to getting the most out of the mobile & social marketing tools. The articles are listed below.

Understand Your Account Settings

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Event Views

Read the Full Article >

Understanding the Social Media Conversation Inbox

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Your Planner

Read the Full Article >

Understanding the Social Conversation Search Feature

Read the Full Article >

Understanding Listen & Count Polls

Read the Full Article >

We Love Hearing From our Users

If you have any ideas for articles or features you want to see blog posts about, let us know. You can tell us on the Forum or email us at squareberry@squareberry.com.

Understanding the Social Media Conversation Inbox

The Inbox in the Social Conversation Area allows you to manage ongoing conversations in various social media accounts from one centralized location. When someones comments on a Facebook post or replies to you on Twitter, it will show up here and you will be able to comment/reply instantly.

All of the people you are having conversations with are listed on the left side. Clicking a person brings up the conversation with them, showing you the full history of your conversation with that person.

Refreshing / Refresh Button

Your Social Inbox will refresh automatically throughout the day. New comments/replies you have received will show up in the Unanswered section. The total number of conversations that are "unanswered" are also displayed on the Welcome screen when you login to your account.

You can also manually refresh your Inbox at anytime by clicking the "Refresh" button.

Unanswered / Answered

Any conversation you contribute to with a comment or reply will be moved to the "Answered" section of the Inbox. You can completely remove a conversation by clicking the "Remove" link in the top right corner of that particular conversation. You can also move a conversation to 'Answered" or "Unanswered" by clicking the "Mark as" link at the top of the conversation.

Reply or Comment

You can easily and instantly write comments/replies on any social media conversation. You can also "Retweet" any message in a Twitter conversation. Click the "Comment" or "Reply" link to bring up the pop-up to compose and send your message.

Understand Your Account Settings

It is important to fully understand all aspects of your Squareberry account. This week we wanted to take a quick look at the Settings area found in the Account Management drop down. These settings can alter small aspects of how your accounts works and control who gets updates/alerts.

After adjusting any setting, make sure you hit the "update" button at the bottom of the page to save the changes you have made.

Account Image

The Account Image is a square graphic that shows in various areas. Your Account Image will show up in the top left corner of your calendars and the top left corner of your events and promotions. The Account Image is usually accompanied by your account name and helps identify your calendars, events and promotions as yours.

Default Event View

Your Default Event View determines which event view is seen at www.squareberry.com/. You can select one of your existing event views that you have created in the calendar & widgets area.

Email Addresses

The "Contact Email" is used for general contact and category Snag approvals. If your categories are set to require approval before being snagged, snag requests will be sent to this address for approval.

The "Reply To Email Address" dictates the reply-to address for all emails sent from your account to followers. This includes emails sent to individuals who have subscribed to categories to get reminders in your account.

The "Email To Send Alerts To" determines the address that is emailed when there is an issue in your Squareberry account. The most common alert emails are Facebook ReAuthorizations and Social Account issues. This makes sure you are alerted when publishing is no longer working so that you can quickly restore any connections that need to be fixed. Alert emails can be disabled by selecting the checkbox for "Disable Alert Emails".

Default Category Icon

The default category icon is used for events and promotions that are in more than one category. This allows you to select a more generic icon to use when multi-category events and promotions are displayed on your calendars and widgets.

Date Format Settings

The date format is simple. It determines what format your dates are displayed in throughout your account and on your events.

Advanced Settings

These settings are set-up by default but can be altered for your account. These advanced settings dictate certain publishing times and behaviors.

The “Special Happenings Publishing Time” controls the time at which social message reminders for “All Day” “Time TDB” and “CANCELED” happenings are to be sent.

The “Account Start of Night” and “Account End of Night” determine the range of time that social messages use the word “tonight” to describe events. For example: You have an event that starts at 1 AM on Sunday, a social message sent on Saturday would say “Tonight at 1 AM” instead of “Tomorrow at 1 AM” if your “Account End of Night” is after 1 AM.

Boost Your Weekend Sales

Weekends rule for a lot of reasons. Football games. Free days. Alarm clocks are turned off. Sunday brunches. For many local businesses, weekends are the busiest time. Restaurants and bars see a huge influx on weekend nights and many retails stores are busiest on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons.

A recent article published on The Buffer Blog entitled "A scientific guide to posting tweets, Facebook posts, emails and blog posts at the best time" looked at research and statistics on social media posting to determine the best times to post.

The data that was looked at enforced the idea that the end of the work week (Thursday & Friday) is the ideal time for posting to Facebook. Twitter has strong engagement on the weekends themselves and later in the day. Click here to read the full article.

Start of Week

Some people do start planning their weekend in advance. Additionally, as the weekend gets closer there is more and more noise on social media channels. For these reasons, it can be beneficial to post one or two messages at the beginning of the week about what you have going on during the coming weekend. This can help your grab some early deciders and plant an idea in other people's head that will be reinforced by your posts closer to the weekend.

Thursday and Friday

This is the peak of Facebook engagement. People are getting bored at work and checking their News Feeds. They are checking to see what is going on during the weekend. Use these days to boost your weekend events & promotions. Post reminders throughout the day and at night to grab as many eyeballs as possible. Encourage sharing of your posts to help your events & promotions spread virally.

The Weekend Itself

The weekend is time for last minute decision makers and friendly reminders. Twitter has better engagement on the weekends, so make sure you have a solid number of tweets going out. Remind people about your events & promotions and send out messages with pictures from your events as they are taking place.

Yep, Football is Back

This past weekend, college football kicked off around the country. College students filled stadiums, cities tuned in and fans watched from their favorite local restaurant or bar. This coming weekend, the NFL will start its season across the USA. Football is officially back!

So what does this mean for local businesses? Your events and promotions can easily be centered around your local team's games as well as the big nationally aired games. Use these events and promotions to drive in larger crowds and bigger groups.

Snag Your Teams

You can snag your favorite NFL teams schedule here: http://squareberry.com/nfl

When you snag a team's schedule into your Squareberry account, it will display on your Planner. This allows you to easily plan and schedule your events and promotions to go along with the games.

You can also add publishing settings to your newly snagged category, just like you do for categories you have created. You can have the games publish as reminders to your social media accounts and display them on your web calendars and widgets. Having your team's schedule on your calendars gives your organization a more local feel and shows the local fans that you are fans too.

Promotions

Your game day promotions should be group oriented. Instead of discounts on a glass of beer, offer discounts on pitchers. Instead of buy one get one free, make it buy two get one free. You want people to come in groups to your restaurant, bar or other establishment. People like watching games in groups, so it is a natural fit.

Best Tips of the Year (So Far)

Every now and then, it is nice to reflect on some tips from the past. This week we wanted to look back at some of the best (or our favorite) tips from 2013 so far.

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Create a Media Section on Your Mobile Site

You may be interested in creating an entire media section on your mobile website, rather than simply having a single media page. Rich media such as photos and videos are engaging and help keep people on your mobile site... Read the Full Tip >

Summer is Coming – Will Your Marketing Change?

Summer is fast approaching. More than any other season, summer has distinct characteristics which can and should effect how you market. But, it depends heavily on your demographics and location.... Read the Full Tip >

Consider the Wording in Your Scheduled Social Messages

Squareberry allows you to schedule messages far in advance to publish to Facebook Profiles, Facebook Pages, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Groups and Twitter accounts. Scheduling messages in advance allows you to plan your communications... Read the Full Tip >

Listen&Count Polls on Your Mobile Website

In the Mobile Management area, you can easily add an interactive poll to your mobile website. In Mobile Content, click “Add Page” and then “Create New Page”. On the Add Page screen, select the “Listen&Count Poll” page type.... Read the Full Tip >

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... Read the Full Tip >

Timely Tips for Local Businesses Near Colleges

Summer is ending. Soon it will be fall. The leaves will change, etc. More importantly, this time of year signals the start of new college/university semesters. Many local retail stores and restaurants service markets filled with college students.

Now is the perfect time to run marketing promotions and hold events to attract new student customers. You don't want to wait until later in the year. At that point, students will have already found other places to go, mostly based on recommendation and word of mouth. You should to not only join but dictate that conversation by starting the new college year off right.

Hold an Event

Who isn't thinking about a party when the semester starts? New and old students alike will want to get out and get social to start their year off. Hold a "New Year Kickoff" or "Goodbye Summer Bash" at your location. This is a great opportunity for new students to check out your business. Just make sure you make a good impression. This will help you draw them back in over the next few years.

Run Promotions

Simple promotions like "Save 10% When You Show Your Student ID Card" can help draw in new business. Your promotions need to be shared by the current students who have been around. New students look to them for advice. Many classes/programs now form special Facebook Groups so students can communicate and offer tips to each other. Getting your promotion shared in one of those groups would go a long way.

How Do You Get Plugged In?

A lot of restaurants and local businesses near colleges are staffed by students who go to that same college. Your employees can help your spread the word about your upcoming events and promotions. Ask them to share your happening on Facebook & Twitter. They may even be able to get one posted on special class groups & pages.

Tuesday Tip - Adjust Your Dashboard

Changing How Your Dashboard Looks

Squareberry allows you to customize and change your dashboard to display your social/mobile statistics and feedback accordingly. Every organization focuses on different aspects of marketing. Some are Facebook heavy with little Twitter use. Some organizations love to run interactive polls while others focus more on scheduled events. Every organization is different.

Squareberry's dashboard has various boxes that each show off different aspects of your marketing efforts. These boxes on your dashboard include:

• Facebook Followers
• Twitter Followers
• Social Statistics
• Facebook Demographics
• Listen&Count Polls
• Recent Twitter Followers
• Most Viewed
• Recent Sent Messages
• Social Influence Widget
• Recently Created Items

To adjust the Dashboard, click the "Adjust Dashboard" button at the top of the page. A pop-up appears allowing you to drag and drop the boxes into the order you want them to display. The left side of this pop-up is your active dashboard and the right side shows available boxes you are not currently using.

PDF Dashboard Report

Squareberry's Dashboard also allows you to export the Dashboard as a PDF Report. The PDF Report exports a set of boxes showing off a nice summary of your marketing stats. Simply click the "PDF Report" button at the top of the Dashboard page to export the Dashboard report.