ShareSquare

Optimize Critically for Mobile

ShareSquare is a platform for creating advanced mobile websites that can easily optimize existing website use on all smart mobile devices, like iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, iPad and many more.

How Critical Are Mobile-Optimized Websites Right Now?

If a mobile visitor to your existing website is unable to quickly and easily engage your most important business objectives (for example: connect on Facebook & Twitter, watch your videos, listen to streaming audio, contact you for more info, or make a purchase via mCommerce) then a rapidly growing percentage of traffic to your website is being wasted.

Depending on the industry, it's estimated that mobile web currently represents between one-third and one-half of new visits. What's more, Google Adsense now actively penalizes Quality Scores when landing pages are not mobile-optimized, costing your campaigns more money for fewer clicks.

If your existing website is meant to help you generate new business or new fans, and it's not mobile-optimized, you're losing money every day. The ShareSquare platform was designed to offer an immediate solution to this problem, no coding required.

What's HTML5 & Do I Need to Know How to Code?

HTML5 is a powerful new language that allows mobile web sites to feature richer media content and deeper interactivity within a mobile browser than ever before. Because many valuable parts of traditional desktop websites (like Flash video) are inoperable on much of the mobile web, HTML5 was developed as an open solution that works across all major operating systems and devices.

ShareSquare utilizes HTML5 in many platform features to allow you to craft the best mobile experience possible, and while advanced settings are available to those who desire greater control, no previous programming or coding expertise is necessary to create mobile sites with these capabilities.

Create Your Mobile Website

ShareSquare features the powerful combination of immediate desktop site URL conversion, dynamic mobile synchronization of content, and a self-serve CMS for deeper customization. Because all mobile sites include hosting on the platform's blazing fast cloud architecture, real-time performance analytics allow every creator to update and optimize on the fly.

Create your free mobile website and choose from a variety of modules that synchronize with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, SoundCloud, RSS and any other sources relevant to you. Your free ShareSquare-powered mobile site is able to engage and convert the growing mobile audience in all the ways a standard desktop website falls dreadfully short. Upgrade to premium modules and enable mobile Sweepstakes, email address capture, mCommerce purchases and more.

Home Module
A splash page proudly displaying the site-wide background image that best represents you and your brand.

Video Module
Let your entire mobile audience immediately experience your video content in HTML5 format and toggle the option to autoplay.

Bio Module
Tell mobile visitors your story and give them the info they need to know.

Share Module
Give your biggest fans the ability to easily post a status update to Facebook and Twitter.

Fans Module
Enable a mobilized social plugin for your Facebook fan page and get more Likes.

Comments Module
Let mobile visitors leave their two cents directly on your mobile site.

Events Module
Enter your Songkick Artist ID to show your fans a current feed of your upcoming gigs so they can buy tickets.

Downloads Module
Direct mobile visitors to head to your digital downloads in one-click.

Gallery Module
Display up to 5 high-resolution images in an attractive mobile slideshow.

Listen Module
Enter your SoundCloud username to activate an HTML5 widget that allows your mobile visitors to immediately hear your streaming audio.

Tweets Module
Show a custom mobilized feed of your most recent tweets and get more followers.

Email Me Module
Craft a proposition that encourages a new mobile visitors to submit their email address and define the autoresponse they'll immediately receive when they do. This can be a special offer, a contest entry, links to free downloads or anything else you think will be compelling. You can then download a CSV of submitted email addresses within Analytics.

Instant Win Module
Give your new mobile visitors the chance to instantly win a prize, which can be anything you want to give away. You'll receive each winner's contact info in a fulfillment CSV download.

Sweepstakes Module
Build a tantalizing mobile sweepstakes, set the period, and capture the exact info you need to deliver the goods after your drawing. Download the list of valid entries within analytics (US only).

Buy Module
Add any item's full Amazon URL to let your mobile visitors see a product summary and click to buy it now from their mobile device.

Redirects, QR Codes & More

Get the best results with features that drive the entire mobile audience to your new mobile site and give your marketing objectives a boost. Start with the single easiest and most effective thing you can do: set up a mobile redirect on your existing website.

Mobile Device Detection and Automatic Redirect

Follow simple instructions for injecting the one line of code provided with your new mobile site and add it to your existing website, right after the tag, or send the code to the person who manages your existing website. This code snippet instantaneously detects whether a visit to your existing website's URL is via a mobile device and automatically redirects the visitor to your new mobile site. Desktop visitors are unaffected and won't notice any change.

Custom Mobile Domains

Customize your mobile website address with it's own URL, like m.yoursite.com.

Enhance Offline Marketing with QR Codes

QR codes are a conduit from your real world promotions to your new ShareSquare mobile website. Download QR codes in either PNG or vector PDF format and put them everywhere you'd like to connect with your offline mobile audience. You can use a single master QR code, but ShareSquare also gives you the unique ability to generate multiple distinct tracking QR codes. This allows you to intelligently differentiate between placements and even run A/B tests (i.e. magazines vs. billboards, corrugate vs. packaging, etc). Within the self-serve CMS you can freely update and optimize the destination mobile site; no need to ever distribute new QR codes just to update the mobile content.

Add a Bookmark to iPhone Home Screens

Allow your mobile visitors to quickly return to your site via an app-like icon placed on their mobile phone home screens. (IOS users only)

Create a Facebook Fan Gate Using Like Lock

If you enable Like Lock, your mobile visitors will be required to Like your Facebook fan page before being granted access to your site. You may define up to two separate Facebook fan pages. Additionally, if your Facebook fan page is configured to restrict Likes on the basis of age or location, these settings will be automatically migrated. Enabling Like Lock with such a Facebook fan page can thus serve to restrict access among mobile visitors that do not meet any age or location requirements.

Track Real-Time Metrics

Among the major issues continuing to plague even the largest mobile marketing campaigns is accurate measurement of key performance indicators. Especially when mobile traffic comes from a variety of sources, or many different campaign tools are involved, understanding true return-on-investment becomes time consuming and elusive.

The ShareSquare platform's real-time analytics are designed to specifically track deep mobile engagement and visualize the data corresponding to important marketing objectives. Not only does this approach illuminate the most meaningful results, but when combined with the self-serve content management system (CMS), it facilitates an actionable feedback loop for quick and easy mobile site optimization.

Upgrade to Premium

Your ShareSquare Account

Every ShareSquare account allows the creation of up to 10 free mobile websites and offers the ability to individually upgrade any number of mobile sites at any time. (However we may initially restrict new accounts to a single premium mobile site upgrade.) Upgrading to premium removes advertising placements that may appear on free mobile sites and also enables premium features like Sweepstakes, Instant Win, email address capture, mCommerce purchasing and more. Visit http://getsharesquare.com/plans/ for more information.

Sales & Refund Policy

For your convenience, if you do not cancel your premium ShareSquare mobile site subscription, ShareSquare will continue your plan by billing you at the beginning of every new term you choose to continue. You may cancel at any time to discontinue your premium ShareSquare mobile site subscription and stop recurring billing. If you are not 100% satisfied with any premium ShareSquare mobile site plan and downgrade within the first 30 days, you may receive a full refund. If you choose to cancel after 30 days ShareSquare is not obligated to refund any fees (though we may do so at our discretion). Your site will remain premium for the remainder of the paid term and will be revert to a free mobile site at the beginning of the next term. For all billing-related enquiries, please email payments@getsharesquare.com. You may also contact us via phone (866) 726-8119 or via snail mail at: Billing ShareSquare Inc., 541 S. Spring St. #212 Los Angeles, CA 90013

Partner Program

If you are interested in becoming a ShareSquare Authorized Partner for reseller privileges, white labeling, or Enterprise-level functionality please submit the contact form at http://getsharesquare.com/partner-enquiry/.

Keys to Success

QR codes and HTML5 mobile web apps are a powerful new way to enhance your marketing mix and connect offline audiences with your band or brands. Use the tips, lessons and best practices in this knowledge base to avoid the pitfalls, get the most out of your campaigns and learn how ShareSquare can help you achieve your marketing objectives.

ShareSquare's Golden Rule of QR Codes: every campaign is defined by the value that lies beyond the QR code, and if you reward and delight the person that has taken the time to scan your code, you're on the surest path to success.

Best Practices

Consumer-facing QR codes are reaching the social tipping point in America, and despite the rising tide, many well-intentioned marketers are crippling their campaigns with simple mistakes. Since we've spent the last 2 years optimizing thousands of QR code campaigns, we can offer up this nearly comprehensive guide of best practices and mistakes to avoid at all costs. While heeding all these rules won't make your QR code marketing great by itself, they will prepare you for success (and likely save you from some embarrassing, boneheaded missteps).

Required Reading: Matthias Galica's guest post on Mashable: 5 Big Mistakes to Avoid in Your QR Code Marketing

Tying a Call-to-Action to Value Beyond the Code

This is arguably the most subjective best practice, yet easily the most important. It will also depend on what exactly you're promoting (whether it's a brand, artist, movie, etc.) But in broad strokes, the best approach is setting expectations for the fan who may scan your code and then rewarding them when they do.

Things to avoid: redundancy (e.g. "here's a digital copy of our flyer!"), irrelevance, or being just plain boring.

When coupled with a clearly articulated call-to-action near the QR code, we've found the most compelling campaigns tend to offer one or more of the following:

• exclusive rich media, videos, photos
• exclusive or time-sensitive access
• free downloads or swag
• "Instant Win" contests
• special offers, coupons, or gifts
• "secret" information
• deep integration with social media to activate viral loops

Simply put yourself in the shoes of your target fan or consumer. For example, would you bother filling out a tedious questionnaire for nothing in return? Almost certainly not. But if you were treated to a never-before-seen video you might Like it on Facebook, poke around a bit, and maybe even submit your email address for a chance to win a prize.

Choosing a Code Format and Your Audience

There are a variety of different types of 2D barcodes in addition to the QR code proper (like Microsoft Tag, AT&T Barcodes and Mobile Tag) but we don't recommend using anything except true QR codes for offline-to-online marketing. Employing non-standard formats (or even making a QR code "indirect") risks confusing your fan, and worse, makes your code incompatible with the growing number of generic scanning apps that millions of people in the US already have installed.

If you follow the best practice and use a direct QR code, simply instructing your audience to "Scan this QR code..." or "Use any mobile scanning app to scan this QR code..." is sufficient training. (All QR codes generated by ShareSquare always follow this best practice.)

Additionally, you'll notice that a short URL appears beneath each ShareSquare QR Code. This best practice allows people that are still unfamiliar with QR codes to access the content by just manually typing the short URL into their mobile browser. (Even though it's a lot less fun than scanning.) Learn more here.

Sizing the QR Code

QR codes are not required to be a certain size, and can be scaled larger or smaller for ease of scanning. The key factor is how far you expect a given person's mobile device to be away from your code. You can scale your QR code according to this rule of thumb: half an inch larger for every foot of scanning distance.

For example: if you expect that your audience will typically be doing so from 20 feet away from the placement, a good size for your QR code is about 10 inches square. The default ShareSquare QR code output is suited for placements where the fan's mobile device will be less than 5 feet away, use the vector PDF download option if you're scaling larger to avoid pixellation. Learn more here.

If you are using a ShareSquare QR code (which is optimized for the widest range), we recommend no smaller than 0.5" square. QR codes generated elsewhere are often too complex to scan successfully when scaled this small, so we recommend a 1" minimum for all non-ShareSquare QR codes. There is no maximum size.

Placements, Orientation & Materials

A QR code will work on any material where there is sufficient contrast (see below). Paper, fabric, painted surfaces, tv screens, the options are nearly endless. The QR code is also scannable in any spatial orientation: sideways, upside down, etc. Here's a list of placement tips as well as things to avoid:

DO

• Always print and perform test scans with a variety of mobile devices and scanning apps before mass deployment.
• Leave a whitespace "quiet area" equal to 4 cells around the code. (The best scanning apps, like ShopSavvy, still work without a "quiet area" but some won't be able to scan.)
• Place in well lit, stationary, areas that should have access to the mobile internet.
• If displaying on a television or digital screen, show the code for at least 60 seconds to give your fan ample scanning time.
• Consider the height and angle of someone trying to scan. (Not ideal: QR codes at the very bottom of a bus stop placement.)
• Put it on everything! Posters, flyers, stickers, tags, clothes, packaging - get creative!

AVOID

• Placements where part of the code may be obscured, like by a frame.
• Glossy or reflective materials; glare may make the code difficult to scan.
• Surfaces that may have wrinkles or extreme curves, like certain areas on a t-shirt.
• Areas without mobile internet access (e.g. the subway).
• Moving targets, like placing a QR code on moving vehicle, or only briefly displaying it on a digital screen.

Customizing the QR code Design

Due to an up to 30% error correction rate, a QR code's colors and design can be customized. However, overdoing it may diminish your fan's ability to scan it. We strongly recommend that you use the standard ShareSquare QR Code, but if you'd like to make customizations, keep the following items in mind:

General FAQ

Offline-to-online mobile marketing is a fast-developing space. Since many new technologies are emerging to serve different purposes but are often mentioned alongside QR codes, here's some more info that will hopefully help you better understand QR codes, their role in this growing consumer scanning behavior, and how they relate to other pertinent formats and standards.

QR Codes Have Been Around for a While, Why are They Just Now Taking Off in America?

Pre-requisite factors like smartphone adoption in the USA have lagged countries like Japan where QR code scanning has been popular for many years. However it appears that America is quickly approaching a "social tipping point" this summer. Learn more here.

What Scanning App Do You Recommend?

There's lots of good ones out there, and because it's a best practice ShareSquare QR codes will always be application-agnostic, but we recommend ShopSavvy as our favorite.

Are Formats Like Microsoft Tag, AT&T and Mobile Tag Also "QR Codes"?

No. Even though the term "QR code" is often used as a catch-all (like some folks call all SUVs "Jeeps") these competing standards should not be confused with QR codes proper. Learn more here.

QR Codes vs. NFC

Following a spate of recent announcements involving sizable companies like Google devoting resources to the development of future NFC offerings, some bombastic tech bloggers have pronounced the death of the QR code. As you may be guessing, "The Reports of the QR Code's Death are Greatly Exaggerated."

NFC stands for "Near field communication" and appears poised to enable your smartphone to become a mobile wallet. However, some marketers are experimenting with NFC for offline-to-online mobile marketing similar to how a QR code might be used. While novel, there are many immediate practical shortcomings, like the current lack of mainstream mobile devices supporting NFC. Learn more here.

What's HTML5 and Why is It Important?

In short, HTML5 is a new standard that now allows mobile websites to feature functionality and behavior previously limited to native mobile apps. Because HTML5 mobile web apps can be accessed immediately (unlike native apps they don't need to be downloaded or installed) they're ideal for serving as the experience behind a QR code.

Brand Advertising

Build Awareness

Play in the new SoLoMo space: Social, Local and Mobile. QR codes and mobile web apps enable you to increase the likelihood of discovery and activation from an offline world where consumers increasingly turn to their mobile device as the first entry point when conducting a search about a product, brand, or service.

Increase Purchase Intent

QR codes on offline brand advertising, including in-store packaging, are now a new touchpoint for interacting with your consumer. Providing them a way to engage with a product or brand for more information, rich content, social medial or special offers can serve to strengthen the purchasing decision.

Cross Promote

The persistence of QR codes as a gateway from the real world to the mobile web means that they often outlive the initial campaign. However, when using a self-serve CMS, this gives marketers the opportunity to update and change the experience beyond the code, driving promotions for a related or upcoming campaign.

Amplify the Message with Social/Viral Sharing

The ShareSquare CMS and platform's social sharing features (like Facebook Like, Share, Twitter follow, etc) are continually optimized for the social sharing of your message, via automatic data-driven interface improvements and incentives. This means that your ShareSquare QR code is now poised to transform the 1-to-1 nature of traditional offline marketing into a 1-to-many experience.

Entertainment Marketing

Easily Enhance Static Ads with Rich & Interactive Media

Show trailers (ideally exclusive), sneak peek images, provide up-to-date screening and venue information, pre-populate status updates and tweets and more.

Entice New Fans with Incentives to Get Engagement, Retention and Loyalty

Deleted scene downloads in exchange for Facebook Like or email submit capture a connection with the consumer, Instant Win prizes and giveaways can drive redemption foot traffic to nearest theater or retail.

Music & Event Promotions

Must-Haves

Offer immediate music discovery via your music videos on Youtube. Allow new fans to “Like” on Facebook, follow on Twitter or submit their email for your mailing list.

Extra Credit

Offer free downloads or prizes in exchange for e-mail submissions; show details and sell tickets to your upcoming events by syncing with Songkick.

Where to Place Them at Events?

Put your QR code on every single piece of promotional material you have. Posters, flyers, stickers, merchandise tags, press kits, temporary tattoos; The more unusual the better. Any promotion without one is a missed opportunity at major events, especially if the audience is full of early adopters, like at SXSW.

Learn more by reading Matthias Galica's guest post on Mashable: HOW TO: Use QR Codes for Event Marketing