Create a Starbucks-Style Activity Feed for Your Store in Per Diem

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Per Diem's weekly webinar. This week, we're going to be talking about how you can add a social feed to your app. This is our newest feature. It's going to be available in version 5.0 of the app. And so I'm Tomer Malovinski, CEO and co founder of Per Diem. So let's jump right in in terms of the agenda. We'll give an update on the Instagram API. So this is kind of replacing that in the app. And we'll bring you up to date on that. We'll talk about the inspiration for this feature, the Starbucks activity feed, and then the activity feed itself, and the different features and functionality that you, as an operator and as a marketer will be able to enjoy. Now, a lot of these things we've heard from you in the past, you know, you wanted to link out to your own Instagram or, you know, just link to your website for certain things. Maybe it's an event you're promoting or maybe like a meetup. So this is the feature that's going to enable that. So, yeah, unfortunately, we love this feature. Obviously, you know, you're putting a lot of your best content on Instagram, and so the ability to display your feed was really nice. But as you can see here, Instagram, unfortunately, they're not in it for you, they're in it for themselves. And so they didn't love that. People are using their. Their own feeds for their own promotional activities, I guess. So you can see here, on December 4th, they're going to be ending support for this on their API, which means that it's not going to be available for us anymore. And so as a result of that, we're building out our own feed to replace this. It'll have a little bit of a different visual look initially, but down the road, we can even replicate the Instagram look and feel that's really not an issue. I think the, you know, the thing we want to do is to make sure that this actually serves and serves a purpose for you, and you can use it in your business to promote certain things and to push, you know, whatever it is, items, promotions, you know, push the things that you want to push to your customers. And so, as I mentioned, we took inspiration. As for the entire app, we took inspiration from Starbucks. So you can see here, when you log in on the homepage, obviously you see your points there, which, sorry, Starbucks, but. But you see your points, and then right underneath there you have a feed. So they have, I think, about 10 stuff in there, 10 things in their feedback and for the most part you're going to like specific items. You can see they're really pushing their, their, you know, different new customizations with like non dairy milk and then they're also pushing like their pecans and their pumpkin stuff, all their fall flavors. So those are like the first things here. So this is really, we already have in per diem, the carousel where you can feature certain items, but this gives you a little bit more, you know, in terms of like describing introducing and all that stuff and is just another compliment to that. So how they use it to drive engagement, really like I said, specialty menu items showing different promotions around those items, spotlighting new releases. Like I mentioned that pecan, you know, thing that they're pushing right now and then events and promotions, I would say also partnerships in here. I noticed they were like linking out to their Uber Eats page or to the Uber Eats app. So they probably have a deal with Uber Eats there. But really like, hey, what's going on? We have something going on this Friday or whatever and love for you to be there. And then also different types of promotions that you're using that they're leveraging there obviously in combination with push notifications and banners and stuff like that. So that's how they're leveraging it today. And then you can see we're basically taking that same concept, but it's going to be built into your app and then you're going to be able to direct people to, to, you know, if you're running subscriptions with per diem, you'll be able to direct them to the subscriptions if you have new menu items, same deal. So, and we've made it just really as most features just plug and play, it's really easy to set up and to get going. The caveat here is again, this is going to be if today most apps are on version 4.70 or 4.80, which has been rolling out, then this is starting 4.8.1, which in the App Store will be 5.0. Instagram will be cut out and the activity feed will be replacing Instagram in the apps. So what can you do with it? Well, obviously you can direct users to any part of your app to drive desired action. So here, if you want to drive them to purchase gift cards, you know, it's around the holidays and you make that like your top post, you kind of feature it. You have a nice creative there, have a nice image. Maybe there's like some special deal you're doing or whatever, just like compelling creative there. So that's obviously one way to do it. And then, you know, boost followers. You know, you can, you can add external links here, whether it's to, you know, different social media. So your Instagram, your TikTok, if you have certain events that you either have information on on your website or maybe you have like a meetup page or some other third party, you can basically link out to all those things. Again, keep in mind that the app is your money maker more than any other channel that you have. And so generally speaking, best practices and apps is you want to minimize the linking out that you do because like once people are in your app, then obviously there, there's a much higher likelihood of them ordering from you. And then once you're outside, they're outside your app, then, okay, great, they liked your Instagram post, but now they're not gonna give you money. So. So you gotta make that trade off when you're making these decisions. But obviously, you know, that's for you to decide. But just keep that kind of the back of your mind. So how does it even work? So you'll be logging into the merchant dashboard. Right now it's in the main section, it's under the posts area. So you'll just hit create a post. I think we will be moving it to the marketing section of the merchant dashboard, but you'll just hit create a post and then you're going to go into this kind of workflow where you'll add the title, you'll add the description and the button text. So whether it's like learn more, follow us or if it's, you know, a new menu, item order now, something like that. So that's number one. And then you're going to be able to link to, you'll be able to select where you want it to link to. So as I mentioned, an external URL, it'll open up in whatever the default browser is. So that'll be Chrome or Safari, usually on an iPhone. Or you can link to a specific item that's on your menu. You can link to your store, credit plans, to subscription plans or really any app page. There's, you know, you can just select what page you want, you want to take someone, you really want people to add their birthdays in the app. Okay, cool. So now you can create a post about that and then you'll be able to direct people to the personal information page in the app, just as easy as that. So once you go through that, let's say you're adding an external URL, then with that you're going to be posting an image so or adding an image. So for this, you know, I think you want, you know, best practices would be kind of like a consistent look and feel or maybe you should think it out and hey, what, what are the different types of things? You know, but maybe you can either use Canva or some tool like that or just take all your imagery and put it together and like, hey, what are the types of images that I want, what I would want to use in the activity feed for specific promotions and stuff like that. And you know, again, today it's not that hard. You can do things within Canva and export them and then you can have a nice looking image and it's worth it because then you know, once your app's looking good and, and you really want to like sell and promote things and that imagery really comes through, you know, we've mentioned a million times here, but I think this will be another case where having nice captivating images will help. So, so that's how it would work for like an external URL. And then once you add an image you'll be able to crop it and just make sure it looks nice. And as well you'll be setting an expiration date or just say hey, this never expires. So but if it is something that's, you know, more of a part time thing, like a menu item that's seasonal, then you can send an expiration for, you know, the end of the fall or whenever you're stopping to sell it in terms of items. So you're going to use the link to, and then you'll link to an item and so all your items will be displayed there and you'll be able to search for your items. So again we're going to demo all these things and show you how it works. But nonetheless, and then the same deal, you can select to just use the default image that you already have in or that you've uploaded into Square and that we're capturing in per diem or you can upload a new custom image. Let's say you want to do for your activity feed, you know, you do want to have like a subtle background there or something like that. Then you can easily do that. Again you can customize that in Canva or if, if you're like a pro, you can go into like Figma or Adobe. I just use Canva for most of those things just because all their templates are like really easy and so you can easily export whatever image you want and just upload that into there. Same for store credit. So you've set up some different store credit plans. You want to promote that. Obviously you can do a banner today and the store credit is apparent on the homepage, but nonetheless you want to create a post about it, then you can create a post. You can then link to the individual plans. You know, if you have multiple plans, multiple plans set up with the store credit. Um, and so that's another thing you can link to. And then you can see here just all the different pages you can link to. So, hey, let's link to the rewards page, store credit account page. Buy a gift card. Like, you know, the holidays are coming up, you want to push those gift cards, subscriptions, redeeming any gift card. So literally you can, you can create a post for all these things. I think, you know, using Starbucks as a guide, I think, you know, they have gajillions of users, so, you know, they have about 10 and their most important ones are at the top. So just think of it like that, like, but, but yeah, if you want to push your referral program, you can push people towards there. What, whatever it is that you want to do, you'll be able to link to those pages and then obviously subscription, same deal, an image as well. So all that's good. And then, yeah, that, that's it. That's pretty simple. So I think what we'll do right now is first I will, in this screen share and then do a new screen share and I'm going to share my entire screen here and then I'll show you how it looks in the app. Let me open up the app. Are you able to see that? Yes. Awesome. So we're going to be opening up our demo app. So, so today, for context, going into Think Coffee, this is what we have today. So it's kind of like, you know, this is the Instagram again. It's cool. It's your own feed live from Instagram. But again, unfortunately, Instagram is doing away with this. So, you know, before they go ahead and do that, we've gone ahead and added this feed. So again, this will be in all the latest versions of the app. But you can see as I go down, it's going to be in my brand colors. So my brand color is this kind of peach. And then, you know, the images are good size. So again, you'll want to think about how you want to promote here. We're just using these kind of illustrations that we got from like chat GPT kind of thing. But here, 15 off when you purchase store credit. Build A box. So I want people. We have this really cool build a box feature in. In per diem. So now I can just link directly to that feature and then. Awesome. You know, and that gives me also the ability there to, to promote certain items. Certain, you know, like, I want to push this. I want to explain it too because maybe people don't understand what a build a box feature is. So this gives you a little area to explain it as well. I'd keep those summaries kind of short. We let you go on. But look, you don't want to write a novel. You want to keep it. You know, I think one or two sentences at the most. But you don't want to write too much here, otherwise people just won't read it. You know, same deal. You just want to, you know, push people towards certain drinks or whatever it is. And there you go. And then as I mentioned, you can, you can link to some external stuff. So we want to link to our Instagram feed. We have this case study here. So I'm just gonna open that up and then that's just gonna go straight through our Google Chrome. That's gonna go to Instagram and that's gonna go to that post where they. And I can just go and check it out. Same. This is another. This is going to like an ebook that we created. So same idea. Maybe you have a blog post or maybe there's like, like I said an event page. So we're just going to. But again, now I'm not in the app, so so keep that in mind. And then as I mentioned, you'll be able to go to like specific pages. So I want people to, you know, I want to push people towards store credit. Then. Awesome. We push them towards a store credit page just like that. And so that's the feed. That's how it's going to look and feel if we open up the Starbucks app. You can see here, you can see how they put these backgrounds here, these images too. They look a little chat GPT esque, but they do look like somewhat like Starbucks images nonetheless. But then I can just click order. And then it's taking me to that category, you know, to that drink, whatever it is. And so you can see they're really just pushing it to, to push their, their, you know, beverages to, to their seasonal beverages, their new menu items. But like I said, they have some special thing going on with Uber Eats down here. So. Okay, what's going on there? Some promotion. So you go and download the Uber Eats app. You know, maybe, maybe you have a deal with some. Something local like, you know, a charity or something like that. So this would be a great place to put that as well. Cool. So now that we're done with that part of the demo, let's go back and why don't we show everyone how to set things up. So we're going to open up our dashboard here. Just give it a second. All right, so now that we're in the dashboard, you know, everything here we've talked about and seen before. So here you'll see. We'll have this post page. I'm going to go ahead and click on it. And now you can see all my active posts. So you see the order that I was in, 15 off, box of delicious cookies, all that. You can see the type that it is. So this is a store credit post. I'm pushing in different items here. And these are external URLs. And then just to create a new post, I'm just going to go in here, right? Let's do like, you know, buy a gift card and, you know, you know, order a gift card or, you know, your loved ones order now. So now I'm going to go, I'm going to link to an app page, and then that page I'm going to go to buy an E gift card. I don't know that I have an image on hand. I'll say, you know what, I'll push this till the end of the year. So let's say we'll push this until, you know, January 1st kind of thing. At that point, people aren't really gifting anymore. And then, let me see, do I have any files that I can. Let's just upload something. Beautiful design. There we go. There we can see. I can crop this. And now that's cropped. Cool. I'll just go ahead and save this. And we're going to have to. Oh, I not allowed. We'll have to figure that one out. Why that's doing that. Let's just do this. Never expire. All right, so we got a little issue here that we're going to figure out in our, in our staging area. But I think you guys get the idea in terms of how you would, how you would set it up. So that would be, for instance, an E gift card. I think, as I mentioned before, if we go through and we wanted to link to an item, for instance. So then I would go in here and say, hey, I want to, I want to push my, you know, chai lattes. Oops. And then why don't we go ahead. We'll use default item and then same deal. You know, get our chai. Obviously, you know, think through what you want your messaging to be, but then this is going to be. This is where I said like the body, like one or two sentences. Let's see if this thing saves now. We're still getting that same error. I wonder if I. Let's do. Let's start fresh here. So we'll create a new one. Get a chai. We'll just order now. Item. Select an item. Let's do the chai. Use the post. Okay. Wow, this thing's being cranky today. I think you guys get the idea, though. And then. Yeah. So you can. You can literally just link to any one of these. There's an. I think it goes up to 50 is the total that your amount is that you're able to do. So you can do up to 50 posts. I don't recommend doing up to 50. I would probably like, you know, again, keep them seasonal and. And what have you. And then once something's live, then you can edit it, obviously, and, and do whatever you want to. But right now, this is kind of version one. Everything's kind of in chronological order here. But then we're going to be adding the ability for you to, you know, sort it in different. In different ways. And, and so you'll be able to just, like the categories and the items. You'll be able to sort this feed and feature them and do all that stuff. And then obviously, if there are things that, you know, you think would be cool and you have ideas, then please let us know. Again, a lot of. A lot of the features that we do come up with are just direct feedback from all of you and just like, hey, this is a problem that I have. Or, you know, I need. I really need this to happen. And so just understanding that and understanding how you guys would use this, I think would be super helpful. So again, to recap this, Instagram is still live in everyone's app. Our next version of the app, which is 481, which will then be 5.0. So 4.8,04, 8.0 and below are still going to have Instagram. Anything above 4.8 is no longer going to have Instagram. So when we make that change, and really you're going to want to update this as soon as possible. But when you go. So I would just go in, create a few posts, and then once 481 is live and we Push that app out in a week or so for you. You'll already have a few posts there and stuff like that. And you know, that's it. So today, again, you can just go in, create this, go to, go to posts and just create a few of your own posts, link to certain items and stuff like that. Link to your store credit, think what you would want to push and. And that's it. Again, you know, I think this is a really cool feature. We'll get feedback from you. Unfortunate that Instagram is, is killing that feature, but yeah, we're going to make it up with this. And again, it's, I think, nice that you're going to be able to link to certain things and just have a lot more control over what you want to market. The next step for us in terms of all this is down the road as you, we're going to be building out workflows around this. So let's say when you add a coupon or you're going to add some sort of rewards element, we'll create a workflow so that, you know, whatever makes sense. Hey, you just created a coupon. Do you want to write a post about this? Yes. Okay, so it'll take you into the post. Cool. Do you want us to summarize this in a push notification and schedule a push notification? Yes. Awesome. So we'll build that out so it's more of like again, a workflow of, for everything that you're doing in terms of marketing. Then we'll just like direct you in a, in a more like accurate way in the merchant dashboard here, how to set up all the different components. Because we know today, like, if you're doing a coupon for whatever 50 off, you set up the coupon and then you gotta like go and create the, the banner or the post and then you go and you schedule the push notification. So the idea is we just make that one kind of, you know, workflow for you to just to streamline things and then if you don't want to send a push notification, you would just skip that step. So that'll be next in the whole evolution of this, of this feature. But as I mentioned, keep the, keep the feedback coming back to us. We'd love to hear from you and just to see how you'd like to use it. And yeah, so that's this week in terms of our weekly webinar, but we're looking forward to next week and we'll, we'll see you again then. And I'm sure we'll have some good, exciting stuff for everyone. So until next time, have a good week, everyone. Bye. Bye.