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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