Enhance Your Website with Widgets - Tuesday Tip

Widgets are a great way to enhance your existing website. With widgets you can show off upcoming events and coupon promotions in a variety of ways and in different places. They help you accomplish several things:

• Keep your website updated with fresh content
• Communicate to people know what you have going on
• Drive traffic with Events and Promotions

What are the Widgets?

Widgets are basically visual blocks of data which are interactive in some way. With Squareberry, the widgets are designed to show off upcoming Events and Promotions that you have scheduled.

There are several types of widgets in Squareberry...

The List Widget is commonly used on Home Page and sidebars on websites. It offers a simple vertical list of upcoming events and you have the ability to control the number of upcoming events it shows.

The Day Widget shows simple day cells (like you would see on a full month calendar) but only shows the number of days you want shown.

The Landscape Slider Widget delivers scrolling panels of upcoming events and promotions. Viewers can scroll through or click to see the full details. The Landscape Slider can scroll vertically or horizontally. It is great for enhancing a home page or even the footer of a website.

The Portrait Slider Widget is the newest widget in Squareberry and offers a strong visual presentation. Its behavior is similar to the Landscape Slider, but the information is presented in a taller more visually striking manner. The Portrait Slider could greatly enhance a website home page or be used on internal pages.

With both slider widgets, the panels are automatically generated. If your event/promo has an image in it, the image is seen. If it does not have an image, a small map for the location is seen. If it does not have a location, then only the text content is shown.

All of these widgets can add visual appeal to your website. They also help to keep people updated and drive real world traffic. It is important to communicate the events and promotions you have going on. All of the widgets automatically update based on your schedule in Squareberry, so there is no need to keep updating them on your website at all.

Original post: http://squareberry.com/news/enhance-your-website-with-widgets/

Tuesday Tip - Spread Your Schedule Out to Draw in Customers

Using the Social Media Planner

The Social Media Planner allows you to schedule your events, messages and promotions far in advance. You can plan, repeat, edit and optimize to lay out an ideal social communications plan. With the Planner, you can build the perfect communications plan to drive more real world traffic.

Spread Your Events and Promotions Out

Normally, you don't want to have your events and promotions pressed into a tight schedule. Spreading things out can help in a variety of ways:

• You are covering more ground offering things for people to participate in at a variety of times.
• You are more likely to get repeat customers. People don't usually want to go to the same place they went last night, but a week from now they will be more interested in returning.
• It gives you more opportunity to get first time visitors. A first time vistor/customer is not in tune with your schedules and will be happy to find something going on when they are able to stop by.

Promote Future Happenings During Current Happenings

A great idea is to promote future happenings during your current happenings. If you have a special event going on with a good crowd, use it as an opportunity to highlight upcoming promotions and events you will be holding. Never assume that everyone already knows about all the happenings you have going on.

Original post: http://squareberry.com/news/tuesday-tip-spread-schedule-for-drawing-customers/

Tuesday Tip - Social Calendars Show What You are Into

Many organizations profile and display their employees at their location, on their website or even in marketing materials. Most of the time, this is done to show the human side of the organization and give the customer/viewer someone to connect with. Having real people's pictures and info let first timers know that there is actually someone there.

A Social Calendar can do the same thing! It is a great way to show off what the people in your organization are into and what they have going on.

Your Social Calendar

A social calendar is a great way to show off community events, staff birthdays, important dates and organizational happenings. Your social calendar could feature birthdays of all your staff members, your weekly staff meeting, a mysterious date a few weeks away when you have a big announcement planned or even Organization parties. Displaying a social calendar like this can breathe life into your organization the same way a "Meet Our Staff" page does.

Snagged Categories Show What You Are Into

Another great way to let people get to know your organization a little more is by Snagging categories and events from other organizations, teams, and fun calendars. This is a great way to show off interests and activities your staff is into.

Your social calendar could contain holidays, local sports teams schedules, birthdays of famous and inspirational people or even anniversaries of important date sin history. Your social calendar can be as personal as you like.

Can't find a category you want to Snag? Make it yourself! You could become the source for everyone else to Snag from!

Check out the Squareberry Team's social calendar here: http://squareberry.com/about-squareberry/squareberrys-social-calendar/

Original post: http://squareberry.com/news/tuesday-tip-social-calendars-show-what-you-are-into/

Tuesday Tip - Ask Questions + Get Feedback

Questions Get You Feedback...

...and feedback is good!

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 LinkedIn, or use the Question feature on Facebook. Your question is seen by the people following you, who can respond instantly. Before social media, gaining feedback so instantaneously was uncommon.

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.

Original Source: http://squareberry.com/news/tuesday-tip-ask-questions-get-feedback/

Facebook and FTC Reach Privacy Settlement

Some of us can now stop complaining about Facebook's privacy issues.

It didn't took Mark Zuckerberg to arrange a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission too long compared to the recent NBA lockout talks. Facebook was being accused by the FTC in an eight-count complaint where Facebook has misled users regarding the security of their personal information. The social network enabled sensitive user information to be used by advertisers and software developers in order to track potential customers. However, Facebook fell short in asking permission about sharing user details without legal consent.

Mark Zuckerberg and his social network have defied odds after he created "The Facebook" in 2004 in his dorm room like issues with the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin. But the recent FTC charges humbled Zuckerberg and posted a blog post admitting that Facebook made a bunch of mistakes. "Overall, I think we have a good history of providing transparency and control over who can see your information. That said, I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes. In particular, I think that a small number of high profile mistakes, like Beacon four years ago and poor execution as we transitioned our privacy model two years ago, have often overshadowed much of the good work we’ve done." Zuckerberg said.

In order to settle privacy complaints, Facebook has agreed to submit annual goverment audits of privacy practices for the next 20 years. Facebook now suggests a process called "opting in" before making changes to their privacy controls and sharing their information. Facebook will be fined $16,000 for every violation per FTC order. Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC, thinks Facebook is making a good move in making a commitment to privacy without compromising valuable user information. “Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users,” Leibowitz said. “Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not.”

The Facebook-FTC settlement also marks a new phase. It enables social networks to establish more firm ground rules about privacy issues in order to justify using private user info to monetize its free service through advertising. This isn't new for social media enthusiasts because it's apparent that a free service like Facebook or Twitter needs to monetize their service by selling user information to sell to third parties. We all know that social media usage has increased every year which has urged brands and marketers to leverage valuable and private consumer information from social media networks for their campaigns.
Original Source: http://squareberry.com/news/facebook-and-ftc-reaches-settlement-regarding-privacy-complaints/

Use Media from Past Events to Promote Future Events - Tuesday Tip

It is important to document your happenings in some way. Whether you are recording with an HD video camera or just snapping some photos with a digital camera, photos and videos from your past events and promotions can help draw people in for future happenings.

Promote New Events with Old Events

What does that mean? Well, chances are you have had your "Family Night" or "1/2 Price Wings" in the past. If you have taken pictures or even recorded any videos you can use that media to promote the event the next time you have it. For instance, the video you shot during 1/2 Price Wings night of everyone watching the game and easting and drinking is perfect for showing off what it is like at your event.

The next time you hold the same event, you can embed that video in the event you create and anyone who views the event can get a quick glimpse of exactly what it will be like. Seeing other people there, participating at your event will create excitement and help draw first time visitors in.

Use Media Sharing Sites

Taking advantage of sites like Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo can help you in a variety of ways. First, they give you a reliable, easy and flexible place to store your media. Plus, most media sharing sites are free. With your videos on YouTube, you can easily embed them anywhere you want, add more videos and create a strong presence on the world's leading video sharing site.

The media sharing sites can also help you with your search engine optimization. Having a video on YouTube called "Atlanta's Best Wings" can help drive your organization up ranking on that keyword.

Easily Share and Promote

YouTube videos are shared, sent and viewed by people all over the world. Having a stronger rich media presence on the web can help spread your organization. Additionally, it gives you more interactive and rich elements to use when promoting your happenings. Your YouTube video from the last time you held your event can easily be embedded onto any event in Squareberry, giving your events rich content to drive viewers into your real world location.

Original Source: http://squareberry.com/news/use-media-from-past-events-to-promote-future-events-tuesday-tip/

5 Ways to Enhance Online PR (Aside from Boasting a High Klout Score)

More businesses are realizing that leveraging social media strategies is essential to increase PR, why? Because the level of social behavior of consumers tend to evolve. It's obvious that social networks and platforms are increasing in use and of great importance as well. So for businesses to entice and capture their target niche, they need to put a premium on online PR rather than spending too much on traditional media. After all, Facebook has become a destination-location for both merchants and consumers. The social network has turned into a marketplace of sorts. And for every social network, influence means power.

But if you are a B2C business, is your Klout score enough to present yourself as "influential"?

Someone can be influential online but not offline. Klout is simply a measure of social media influence, but seriously, is it a true measure of influence? For instance, a CEO of a company has a low Klout score because he's busy in the real world sealing deals, the guy doesn't have time to engage with users on Twitter or Facebook. Does this mean he's not influential in his industry? A fine example of this is Michael Dell Klout score of 64 against Justin Bieber's 100.

So how can businesses increase PR without even boasting their Klout score or even registering on Klout?

Here are some simple ways on how businesses can enhance online PR:

Capitalize on Original Content

Nothing beats original content nowadays. While content curation is practical and easy for busy entrepreneurs, Google Panda is always updating which means curating content is either a good thing or a bad thing: the good - you build PR through backlinking, the bad - you risk yourself of being considered a content spammer. Always keep in mind that the more original recipe you use in your content, the more chances it could be shared. Original content is more appreciated by the social web through shares and retweets.

Be Geographically Competitive

Get online to get offline! It's easier to manage a social media outreach campaign for small and medium enterprises. It all starts by making local listings because Google now puts a premium on local search. Local markers pointing to your Facebook page, Twitter account, and Google+ page doesn't only increase your SEO, but makes it easy for a customer to know the location of your physical store. Always remember that you don't exist if you're not on the map! Be sure to have a detailed snippet of your business in every map listing like in Google Places. Increased local SEO means a boost for your online PR.

Ratings and Reviews Rule

Think buying fans is a good idea to increase PR? Think again. It's better to pitch bloggers a PR to write a review for the product or service your business offer. But you can also put up a listing on Google Places or Bing Local so you can begin to build reviews from satisfied patrons on these pages. Start the ball rolling by asking loyal customers to give you a review, and before you know it a snowball of a review will turn into an avalanche of reviews. Reviews and ratings increase online PR while catapulting your site to the top of local SERPs. You're hitiing two birds with one stone using such.

Organize Communities Using Social Media Dashboards

Organizing your communities on your Facebook page, Twitter, and LinkedIn is important especially when you feed them the most relevant and latest content. Social dashboards such as Hootsuite and Squareberry have proven their worth by minimizing the clutter in your weekly social media campaign.

A more organized weekly itinerary enables your social media team to carefully track which content is most shared, the best time to post a blog entry, and the time engagement is high or low. Sorting out your content is important as well, always ascertain which content is appropriate to feed your Facebook fans and the ones to be shared on LinkedIn.

Make Social Media Integration Work for Your Business

It's obvious that social networks want each other's piece of pie to grow their own userbase. But for businesses, it's an opportunity to come up with a polished social media integration plan. A business can make social media integration work to their advantage, the first step is placing your other social media URLs on your Facebook page which you could also apply to your Twitter account, LinkedIn page, and Google+ page.

Not enough users circling back on your G+ page? Why not tweet your followers to circle you on Google+, or better yet, ask your Facebook fans to check out your Google+ page. Besides, your users should have Gmail accounts that makes it easier for them to be acquainted with Google+ features.
Original Source: http://squareberry.com/news/5-way-to-enhance-online-pr-aside-from-boasting-a-high-klout-score/