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Big News!

Closely and the Perch app are now part of ThriveHive, a leading provider of digital marketing services for local businesses.

Read more about our exciting news.

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An exciting update to our Perch Learning Center!

We’re happy to announce a major overhaul of the Perch Learning Center. Now you can find more articles with tips and advice for your social marketing. Plus, it’s much easier to browse by what’s most important to your small business. 

Enjoy! The Perch Learning Center is free and accessible to all small businesses.

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Our new video is live!

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New Facebook for Business Look

You’ve likely noticed that Facebook for Business pages have a new look. Facebook has made the changes over the past months, so there is a good chance that your Facebook for Business page has made the switch, too! We have contacted Facebook regarding this update and asked whether the changes will be permanent. According to Facebook, changes are never permanent! Facebook for Business pages will continue to change, so it’s important to keep an eye on your page frequently.

These latest changes were not insignificant with major changes to your header image. We highly recommend you take a look to see whether you need to make updates.

See a list of all the changes. 

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Enjoy a completely new experience when using Perch 2.9 on Android!

If you’re using Perch on your Android phone, you now get to enjoy a redesigned version that is much quicker to use and offers some important stats. Perch 2.9 for Android completely changes the way you view the social activity for your business and your competitors in a couple of ways: 

Quickly access your watched businesses directly from the Perch Home Screen. 

Always get back to your Home Screen quickly with the new My Perch button. 

See social stats for your own business from up to 14 days ago and instantly compare the audience size, engagement and chatter of your own business to any competitor.

Filter the posts for any business by what’s most important to you - posts by the business, activity by customers, or reviews.  

This exciting update helps you save you even more time as you keep tabs on the social activity in your marketplace. Our team has worked very hard to improve Perch for Android, and we sure hope you’ll enjoy it! 

Your watched businesses are now right on your Home Screen.

Perch now compares audience size, engagement and chatter numbers when you pick a competitor from your Watchlist.

Now you can filter the activity for any business. View only reviews, posts by the business, posts by customers, or posts with the most engagement.

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Perch 2.9 is here!

We’ve given Perch a bit of a facelift and we’re excited to show it off! Perch 2.9 is all about doing more with the content you see. Now you can save and share any post or review.

Saving

Let’s say you come across a good idea for your own social marketing while looking at a competitor’s activity; now you can save that post and come back to it later. We’ll keep that post in your Favorites for as long as you want it there. Now you have one central place to keep all the good ideas you see online.

Sharing

Now you have the ability to share any post or review in a text message, email or across your social media right from Perch. This comes in handy for sharing ideas with your team or those who handle your marketing.

This update is available in the App Store now. 

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Reading your Perch Digest on your desktop just got a lot better!

We recently made a change to the Perch Activity Digest you’re receiving from us either daily or weekly. This digest email shows you the top three popular posts, reviews, or promotions for each of the businesses you’re watching in Perch.

On the phone, you’ve always been able to tap See All Activity to open the Perch app and see all activity for a business - which spans 14 days in Perch. Now you can also click through to see all activity when you’re on your desktop or laptop.

It works the same way as it does on your phone:

First, open your Weekly or Daily Activity Digest in your email

Click on See All Activity at the bottom of the Top Activity section for any business highlighted in your Digest  

You’ll see all social activity from the past 14 days on the Business Profile page (you must be logged in)

The Business Profile page in Perch displays all the social media activity for a single watched business in Perch. Here you can see Facebook, Twitter, Instagram posts and any recent reviews from Yelp and Google. Perch also shows Foursquare tips posted by customers at the business - and any promotions if they exist.

Let us know if you have any questions at support@perchapp.com.

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Perch Helps Kish Events & Décor Stay On Top Of Trends

35 years ago in Palm Beach county, Florida, Rose Kish started Kish Events & Décor out of her garage. Thanks to her natural talent and outstanding taste, the business became very successful. Today, she still handles the décor end of things, and her son Vincent runs the business operations, including marketing.  

Kish has an arrangement with about 20 different venues including the Marriott, Hilton, Embassy Suites, and local golf courses, which recommend Kish for many of their events. Kish’s other methods of public outreach are bridal trade shows and social media. That’s it.

“The first thing a bride does when she gets engaged is to go on social media and start looking at wedding designs and flowers and creations,” says Vincent. This is the first point at which Vincent can attract customers. When it comes to wedding planning, “Pinterest is probably number one, Instagram right behind it, then Facebook & Twitter. When a bride comes in and follows us on social media, she might not book right away. But when she sees something on one of our social feeds and loves it, she may call us and book.”

Vincent learned about Perch from a Facebook advertisement. “I always try everything once, so when I see something interesting I’ll download it and see if it works for me, and if it doesn’t I delete it quickly…but Perch was interesting. When I first downloaded it, I started watching some of my competitors, which was awesome. Then I developed it more and started watching the venues I work with and some people who are the leaders in our industry, so I can watch trends.”

He also uses Perch to assure the allegiance of the venues he has referral arrangements with. “Whenever a competitor in my industry takes a picture and posts it, they always tag the location. So I always see where they are. If they’re infringing on one of my venues, I know I have to call that venue and give them a friendly reminder.”

Vincent checks Perch on a daily basis. “It’s become a tool for me because I do have a lot to follow on social media, so it’s kind of hard to hone in on the people who you want to look at every day. It’s really hard to search each place and look for these people, see what my competitors are doing, what’s going on at my venues, and then what’s going on with the industry leaders. With Perch everything’s in one spot for me, and it helps out a lot. I check it every single day. I think the app is great.”

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Perch is featured in the Wall Street Journal

We’re excited to announce that Perch is included in the Wall Street Journal article as one of “The Best Apps to Run a Startup From Your Phone”.  Read more at http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-apps-to-run-a-startup-from-your-phone-1453690989

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Quickly Compare Your Social Media Stats to Your Competition

We just added another helpful and time-saving feature to Perch. When you’re using the web version of Perch, you can now quickly compare the size of your social audience, your social engagement for the past 14 days and the recent chatter about your business to any business you’re watching.  

This feature is available when you’re logged into my.perchapp.com and select one of the businesses you’re watching.    

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The Sugar Street Bakery stays informed with Perch

Not long ago, Matt and Jennifer Hogle both abandoned successful careers in finance. Jennifer left her job to stay home when the kids were born. Matt continued his job in energy trading until one day he realized he wanted to see his kids grow up rather than spend endless hours away from the family.  

Jennifer always loved baking, and this led to the two exploring the possibility of opening their own bakery. They crunched some numbers, figured it could work, and they found a space in historic downtown League City, Texas, near Houston.

They opened Sugar Street Bakery in July, 2015. After just six months in business, Sugar Street had gained over 4,400 followers on Facebook. Not a bad start.

Matt handles marketing for the bakery, and he did his homework. He arrived at the conclusion - as many small business owners do - that social media would be the most cost effective advertising medium for the business. Facebook comprises about 80% of their marketing budget. The bulk of the rest goes toward a spot on a digital billboard in a part of town that has incredibly congested traffic during rush hour.

From the beginning, Matt and Jennifer would spend a lot of time checking in on the social media feeds of the 18 identified competitive businesses in their area. Matt followed all of them on his personal Facebook page. Then he stumbled upon Perch. “What we were doing before was, each day we’d visit our competitors’ Facebook pages, see what are they posting about, check what their customers are saying. We’d look at their Yelp pages, check those reviews… after doing that every day for a while, we started searching for some sort of platform or app that aggregates all this data. And we found Perch. We were essentially doing what Perch does every day, only doing it ourselves, which takes a lot more time.”

Matt’s Facebook spend is comprised largely of targeted ads, with some post boosts as well. Thanks to the consistent supply of information from Perch, Matt has found a clever way to make use of his knowledge of reviews of competitive businesses. “If a person leaves a negative review for one of my competitors, we will target them through our Facebook marketing. If they are unhappy with one of our competitors, they will see our ad on their Facebook page for two weeks. We’ve had great success with that.”

He adds, “We might be a little bit more aggressive than most of our competitors in our marketing strategy, and I think that is driven by my having worked in energy trading, which is a very aggressive industry - whereas most bakery owners are more the artsy type. We want people to know that we’re the best place around.”

Perch is also helpful as a motivator for Sugar Street’s employees. Showing employees a steady stream of positive reviews and posts about Sugar Street helps them feel good about what they’re doing.”

By his own admission, Matt is “not a big Instagrammer”. But even without being on Instagram very often, Matt still sees all the action Sugar Street is getting via the Perch app. He also sees what his competitors have going on. Having seen the exposure other businesses are getting on Instagram, Matt intends to step up his own presence there.

Matt checks Perch four or five times a day, frequently prompted by the app’s alerts. He also appreciates the weekly email update that lets him know what’s been working with his social media approach.

Perch has become an essential part of Matt’s business success. “The most important info Perch gives is insight into what competitors are doing. It does what I was already trying to do myself, but it does it much better. It saves me time and it’s convenient.”

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New Activity Filter on Perch for Web

Check out the latest update on Perch for web (my.perchapp.com). When looking at the activity for a business, you can use filters to quickly see what’s most important to you - such as reviews, posts by the business, and posts by customers. All filters show activity for 14 days.

The filter is available on the Business Profile page for every business. Just tap the arrow next to All Recent Activity and select the filter of your choice, which are:

All Recent Activity

Recent Reviews

Highlights

Posted by the Business

Posted by the Customer

When you filter by Recent Reviews, you’ll see all recent reviews for the business from Yelp and Google as well as Foursquare tips.

Highlights show the most popular posts and reviews - the same content you receive in your Email Digest from up to 14 days ago.  

If you’re interested in seeing how a business promotes itself, you can filter by the Business. You’ll see Facebook posts, Twitter posts, Instagram photos, Yelp deals, and Foursquare promotions.

If you want to quickly see customer sentiment, just filter by the Customer. You’ll see recent reviews from Yelp and Google, tips from Foursquare, and Instagram photos tagged to the business location by customers.

These new filters make it even easier to track what’s happening with your business and the competition.

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Apple Maps Now Uses Foursquare Business Data - It’s Official!

Apple maps now uses Foursquare for its business listing data! As of October, Foursquare is now listed in the acknowledgements page, which lists the various contributors of the data used for Apple’s mapping service and apps.

If you didn’t already know, Foursquare is a trendy location-based social network that can help your business get found. Customers continually check-in on Foursquare and share their comments, reviews and favorite local spots with their social networks - giving your business another useful tool to reach new audiences.

Now is a great time to check the Foursquare listing for your business! You want to make sure customers are seeing the correct info on the maps.

Whether you’re listed on Foursquare or not, run a quick search to see what comes up. Add your business if you need to. 

Make sure your name and address is correct and consistent with your listing on Google and Facebook. Dot all the necessary ‘i’s’ and cross all those important ‘t’s’. Inconsistencies hurt your SEO. 

Anyone can submit changes to Foursquare, but it may take some time to get the information changed. We recommend claiming your business on Foursquare, so you - and only you - control this information. Plus, you’ll be able to use Foursquare advertising and more. You can learn more and start here.

If you are a Perch user, simply follow the link to Foursquare from your Business Details Page in Perch to check your listing. 

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Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets streamlines their social media efforts with Perch

Brett Hemphill has built a very successful business in a high-end residential neighborhood near the water in Southern California. He founded Hemphill’s Rugs & Carpets twenty years ago. Brett runs the store, manages his installers, updates the website, and handles all social media himself.

Hemphill’s relies on two things to bring in business: word of mouth and social media. There are no print ads bought, no late-night TV commercials, no billboards, no coupons sitting in the local pizza shop. Hemphill’s needs only its reputation and some effective communication to bring people through the doors.

About a year ago Brett ran across a mention of the Perch app in a blog and decided to give it a try. He immediately recognized the usefulness of the app, and began following a handful of local competitors, along with his own business and his friend’s furniture business.

When watching the competition, Brett started to notice that his competitors’ social media posts tended to be impersonal – more like advertisements written by the brands they carry than something that came from the company itself. Brett realized that he could stand out by crafting more personal and casual messages – that are less “canned” than the competition.

Brett considers Facebook to be by far his most valuable social media outlet in terms of gaining business. Most of Hemphill’s Facebook followers are designers, so posting new products or recently completed jobs can inspire ideas for their work. Also, customers (and potential customers) often post their questions on the Facebook page. Because he receives Perch’s daily alerts, Brett doesn’t miss an opportunity to reply to these posts quickly.

Perch notifications help inspire and notify Brett’s team when a customer posts a review or tags the business in a photo. He uses those moments to share positive reviews and repost customer photos to Hemphill’s Facebook page. Just another way that he keeps content engaging and authentic.

Perch has helped Brett streamline his social media efforts and save him precious time, and most importantly, engage customers. Seems like a small thing, but really, it’s everything.

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Perch helps Hwy 55 Listen to Their Customers

Hwy 55 is a classic American 1950’s themed casual burger chain that started with humble beginnings at a single location in small-town North Carolina in 1991. It has since franchised to over 100 locations across eight US states and multiple countries.

At Hwy 55, Area Operators oversee the individual store locations. Preston Davis is an Area Operator of two locations in Texas. Making sure a restaurant is running smoothly and meeting customer expectations can be like performing a juggling act. Try doing this for two restaurants!

Preston first learned about Perch while on Facebook. He quickly downloaded the app because he, “thought it was cool that you can keep track of businesses in your area.” He didn’t have a plan for how he would use it, but he started following his two locations as well as a handful of  other local businesses. He soon realized the goldmine he’d stumbled upon.

It is clear that more and more consumers are using social media and review sites to praise or complain about their experiences. Gone are the days where you would get a call or an email about an issue. Because public complaints are now highly visible, it is critical for a business to not only be aware of these posts, but also address them as quickly as possible. For Preston, this is by far the most useful benefit Perch offers. In addition to social posts, he also appreciates the ability to track and respond to reviews.

Of course, responding to positive reviews & posts is important as well. Part of Hwy 55’s appeal is its personal touch. Connect with customers, make them part of the family, and you have a healthy business.

Preston gets Perch notifications and checks in at random times during the day as well. Perch also allows Preston to be notified of reviews from both Yelp and Google and all in one place. “Perch helps me keep track of what’s going on as far as the reviews that the stores are getting,” he said, “and the fact that I can do it on my phone makes it even better. I can just click on my phone at any point in the day, and if I see, for example, a new review on Yelp or Google for our North Richland Hills location, if it’s a good review, great, but if it’s a bad review I can send it to the store manager and let him know that we need to try to get in touch with this person and make it right. Let’s do what we can to fix it.”

Perch not only helps keep the customer happy, it helps keep the boss happy as well. “Perch keeps me on top of things, and I’m not blindsided if corporate contacts me about a complaint. I already know about it and have taken care of it.”

Hwy 55 is expanding, and soon Preston will have several additional locations to oversee. “It’ll be nice to keep on top of all these stores around here as they open up,” he said. “It’s awesome. I love using Perch.”

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Small Business Saturday Tips

Small Business Saturday is on November 28th this year. At Perch, we work with small businesses year-round and whole-heartedly support the idea of promoting small businesses during the holiday craze. 

Here are some ideas on how your small business can stand out during Small Business Saturday:

If you have not done so already, definitely take advantage of the marketing materials and ideas provided by American Express for Small Business Saturday.  Download the free promotional tools, such as email templates, ideas for social posts, logos and signage. Members can also get on the map and take advantage of other free advertising.  

Do something special. This is a once a year opportunity to stand out and promote your business as part of a highly publicized and well-received national campaign. Some things to consider:

Open early – stay open later than usual to show it’s a special day and make sure your customers can reach you. Offer candy, water, donuts other treats. Free refreshments always draw in visitors and don’t have to be expensive. 

Run promotions for the day – discounts, BOGO, etc.

Offer merchandise that’s not typically available. Perhaps you can launch a new product or product line by a local artist or supplier.   Create a fun, celebratory atmosphere – even hire a musician, DJ or band. After all, the day is about celebrating small businesses.

Be creative! There are countless ways to do something special.

Collaborate with your friendly business neighbors. Talk to your business neighbors and see if they are interested in working together. Even something simple as entertainment or treats for the kids (think balloon animals, ice cream) get families excited for some local shopping.

Spread the word. Let your customers know what’s planned for Small Business Saturday and even help them get the word out. Communicate with email, on social media (use #SmallBizSat on Twitter), on your website and in the store. Be sure to include information of your special offers, hours, event, etc. Boost some posts on Facebook and target the audience in your neighborhood to spread the message to a wider audience.

Grow your prospect list. Last but not least, use the event to grow your contact list. Capture email addresses and invite visitors to your store (local or online) to follow you on your social networks. You can even print cards with your social info and hand them out.

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Perch - Now on the Web!

Great news! Perch is now available on the web! You can easily access Perch on any device - whether it’s your phone, desktop or tablet - to track the social activity for your business and/or competitors. Our new web version comes packed with the same features as our award-winning app.   

Highlights are:

With our new grid format, you can scan for new posts and activity even faster.

Your watchlist is up front and easy to find in our new My Perch area.

With My Perch, view your business right next to your competition. Compare your engagement, audience and chatter stats to your competitors’ and see how you stack up!  

Click on posts for details, such as comments, likes and shares. Each conveniently links to their source so you can interact and respond!

If you’re not on your phone, you can now view important activity you see in your weekly digest emails on your laptop or tablet.

Plus, take advantage of more learning articles and social media tips.

Stay tuned for lots more to come!

Check it out!

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