Yes, Even on Mobile

Don’t be fooled. The Mobile Web can be just as feature rich and informative as desktop websites. More and more people are browsing on mobile devices and using their phone as a primary resource for information and search.

Catalogs

Some people may never see your full website. If they find you on their mobile device - that may be it. That could be your only chance to catch their attention or sell to them. Why not have your catalog or featured catalog items right on your mobile site?

For example, if you own a stationary store, you will want to show off the products you offer. Including a catalog of your products on your mobile site is the best way to show off what you have and why someone should visit your location to make a purchase.

Restaurant Menus

Most people searching for a restaurant website online are concerned with a few factors: hours, location, prices and food. (What else do you need to know?) Your mobile site needs to offer all of this information and in a sleek, easy-to-use fashion. You may not need to include every single menu item (though there is nothing stopping you). But, people want to know how much things generally cost and what you offer. Be sure to show the range of your offerings to get interest from as many people as possible.

Also, do not forget about the Phone call buttons. Most mobile users are on phones and including buttons such as “Order Now” or “Call Us” can help encourage people to call your restaurant right then and there. Of course, be sure that someone is there to answer the phone and take the order.

Small Screen? Nobody Cares

It’s true. A few years back people could not get enough of bigger and bigger screens (TVs, Computer Monitors, etc.). But, now a mobile crazy culture has turned the tide a bit. People want devices to be quick and portable. Even with this desire for compactness, rich media is still very popular.

People love viewing photos and watching videos on phones and other mobile devices. The lack of screen space or high quality audio has not limited the desire for on-demand streaming content. So, when working on your mobile site consider this. Yes, text loads faster and people are often hunting down specific info on the mobile web. But, do not be afraid to jazz things up a bit.

Adding Rich Media to Your Mobile Site

YouTube Videos

YouTube is very mobile friendly, working across almost all platforms (thanks Google). Squareberry’s mobile management area offers a few ways to include YouTube videos. First, there is the YouTube video page type, which allows you to provide a URL to a YouTube video and it will be formatted and fit right onto your mobile site. Additionally, you can embed a YouTube video anywhere you are adding custom content (Home Page, Info Pages, or a Custom Content Page).

Photo Galleries

The Photo Gallery page type is a great way to provide visual content for your site viewers. You can upload and arrange any number of photos. You can add multiple galleries and optimize to your liking. Your galleries are optimized for mobile devices and offer thumbnail views as well as full screen versions of your images.

Graphics, Banners, Icons and More

Your menu can be customized with icons for each page to give your site even more pizzazz. You can also add a banner image to your header and customize your background. All of this enhances your mobile site visually to make is more appealing and striking. It is important to feed the visual appetite of mobile device users to get them engaged as soon as they reach your mobile website.

Determine How You Handle Your Business

First of all, if you have a multi-location business you need to determine how you handle and promote yourself. The main thing to consider is if you promote your brand as a whole entity or allow each location to have a more autonomous approach (while of course still remaining under the main brand).

A quick way to figure out which you are (or maybe want to be) is to look at how you do things on Facebook. Do you have one unified Facebook page for your brand (for all locations)? Or does each location of your business have its own Facebook page? Typically, you will only have on website, but on Facebook many businesses are more fragmented.

Best of Both Worlds

Squareberry offers the best of both worlds for multi-location businesses and franchises. A customizable solution from Squareberry allows organizations to push content down to corresponding accounts. This means every restaurant in a chain could have their own separate accounts for publishing to their own specific Twitter/Facebook pages. But, the top level (the brand) could still run company wide events and promotions, pushing them down to all the corresponding locations. Each individual location would then be scheduling their own events, messages and promotions that are specific to their location.

This gives a perfect balance of location specific events and marketing with brand wide promotions to create an ideal solution. Multi-location businesses can empower their brand and their individual locations with a balanced approach that helps drive traffic to the real world locations.

It’s New - Now What?

The Squareberry team recently added Campaigns & Reports features into the Squareberry marketing platform. This has a variety of capabilities and features. In this post we wanted to outline some of them and discuss best practices.

What is a Campaign?

A campaign is what you make it. Squareberry’s Campaign features are designed to be flexible and allow you to use them as you choose. When creating a Campaign in Squareberry, you simply provide a name and a start and end date.

For some, campaigns are simply done over a period of time. For example, a business may run its “Spring Campaign” or “March Madness”. Others may choose to do topical campaigns. Topical campaigns are centered around a series of promotions and messages about the same subject. A small food store may run a campaign about their produce and then get a report on how many views they got of produce promotions, etc.

In Squareberry, you can tag any event, message or promotion with any campaign you have created to include in that campaign.

PDF Exports

There are two places where PDF reports can be exported:

• Social Dashboard: You can export an “Overview Report” at anytime. This report includes social follower growth graphs, social stats, your most viewed happenings, social influence and Facebook Demographics. The Dashboard PDF Report offers a snapshot of your current social marketing efforts.
• Campaigns: You can export a PDF Report of your Campaigns at anytime. Stats reflect the time period of your campaign as well as the events, messages and promotions you tagged for that Campaign.

There are some things in Squareberry you may not know about. Tricks, tips or even features you do not use. Squareberry is an expansive platform covering Mobile, Social Media Publishing, Web Calendars, and more. Because of this, you may not be aware of or fully taking advantage of all the aspects of the platform. We wanted to share 3 things in Squareberry you may not know about. Hope you find them beneficial.

1. Drag and Drop Your Location Pin

Locations help drive digital views to your real world business/organization. Your location can be attached to any event or promotion you create. In the Locations area of Squareberry you simply add a location and provide the needed details. A small map is displayed on your events and with your promotions.

When editing your location you can drag and drop the marker pin on the map to set it exactly where you want it. This allows you to mark your location exactly, or mark what entrance is the best to use. Often times Google Maps may not mark your place exactly where you want it to be.

2. Social Media Inbox

Squareberry allows you to plan, schedule and publish your messages and special happenings. But what next? Social media is all about conversation with real people. Squareberry’s Social Conversation Area is built to allow you to keep the conversation going, find leads and answer your social followers.

The Social Inbox allows you to track and manage your social conversations. Anyone who replies, comments or mentions you shows up in your Social Inbox. You can then easily reply to them and track your conversation back and forth. People you reply to are automatically moved to the “Answered” section and you can remove conversations, mark as replied and keep the talk going from right within the Inbox.

3. Advertising on Your Calendars + Events

You can add Advertising to your calendars and events. In the Ad Management area you can unlock Ad Groups to add customized banner ads and text & image ads. These ads display on your calendars and can link to any URL you choose. You can use these to promote specials, things on your website or big events coming up.

The advertising feature is also a great tool in fundraising efforts. Ad Spots can be sold to local organizations looking to promote themselves on your online calendar and events. Learn more now >

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.”

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.

Facebook just launched Timeline for brand pages. Marketers and brands are looking forward on how the Timeline will enhance user engagement and CRM. Big brands like Starbucks and Coke have launch their revamped brand pages and more brands will follow suit as Facebook reminds that the Timeline change will be mandatory. If you’re a page admin, you can check how your page will appear in Timeline format by previewing it. It’ll help you plan and assess what you need to add on the page aside from a cover photo. The cover photo is one of the visual enticements that the Timeline has. It’s proof that Facebook wants to enable brands to connect with customers using a more visual approach. But is this change favorable for brands? Will user engagement still be the same without the feed? I’ve rounded up a few ideas why the Timeline can make or break a brand’s Facebook page. Read on.

1.) Leveraging UGC

Content is asset. It’s the very lifeforce that fuels the Internet. In the Social Web, content isn’t limited to text or a couple of sentences. We live in a world of instant where users will share content using mobile devices. Photos, videos, location-sharing pins, and site links are the most shared content on Facebook. For brands, it’s an opportunity to utilize Timeline as a powerful syndication tool to spread content. But wait, brands should ascertain what content drives the most engagement. Dunkin’ Donuts is doing it well with their…donuts, and they’re also putting a premium on user-generated content. Their page is very customer-centric which is why it has 5 million fans. With the Timeline format enhancing pages visually, it’s time for brands to drive their fans in sharing content. After all, a brand’s page is really the customer’s page.

2.) No Tabs. No Problem.

The landing page has been a great help to brands and page admins. Facebook’s Timeline is changind the landscape of brand pages. The tabs were options to control an impression a user will encounter. Now that the Timeline format has arrrived, there’s no default page anymore. This means reduced fan-gating and instant likes. It’s either a good thing or a bad thing. The Timeline is designed for users to get “lost” within their page and explore so they can learn more about the brand. The bad? No CTAs like “Like Us to View More” which can add instant fans to the page. It’s up to brands how they’ll customize their facade to make it more interactive for users to share the page.

3.) Connecting More Through History

Sure, the News Feed will be missed. But this is an opportunity for brands and marketers to focus on new functions of the Timeline that will increase user engagement not only with user-generated content but with brand-generated content as well. The Timeline format for brands is no different from an ordinary user’s personal Timeline. It tells us that Facebook is enabling brands to open up itself including every brand’s rich history. Every accolade and milestone that a brand achieves is documented in their timeline and this acts as a wikipedia of sorts. The Timeline format is a pseudo time machine where people can learn about a brand’s through out the years. People are educated about the brand through being open which prevents the idea of alienating users and dismissing them as mere customers.

4.) Humanizing Brands

Facebook is a great community management tool if you know how to use it. Seasoned community managers and page admins are always monitoring and replying to customer queries and rants on their pages. Usually, a thread turns ugly and forms flash mobs even if the complaint of one person doesn’t really concern them. Not all brands are able to put up a social monitoring command center like Dell’s or Gatorade’s, a Facebook page is a practical and easy tool for better CRM. With the launch of Timeline for brands, customers will now be able to exchanged private messages with a company. It makes the conversation more personal and every customer appreciates that.

5.) Real-Time Social Analytics is Imminent

Google launch Real-Time Analytics last year. Facebook didn’t have an answer until Timeline for brands was released. Facebook now plans to gear community managers and page admins with real-time tools for better social monitoring. Page managers will be able to view and analyze real-time date for metrics such as Engaged Users, People Talking About, and Page post metrics. Brands and marketers can also instantly omit what isn’t workin and replace content or ads with better copies and CTAs. Real-time tools will be a game-changer, but with the recent EdgeRank issues it remains to be seen if Facebook’s real-time analytics is actually feasible or just hype.

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.

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.