Introduction
Welcome to the Winter 2024 Release Notes, we hope you had a great start to the new year! We’ve been busy wrapping up the new innovations and improvements to the Uberall platform that we are excited to share with you! This release is packed with a new AI Assistant, all-new reporting dashboards, usability enhancements and so much more! We encourage you to check them out below!
AI Innovations
AI Post Assistant
- Available on the Be Chosen package, Thrive Package or with standalone Social.
Continuing our AI innovation, we have a new assistant that is ready to help! The Post Assistant is here to help craft the perfect social post! In the Social Publisher, users can now click on the Post Assistant and use AI to adjust the tone of the post’s message. Simply enter what you want to say, activate the Post Assistant, and then pick a style that best suits your post; professional, inspirational, casual, fun, or helpful. The Post Assistant will show you how your post copy will look in each style! You can always modify the recommendation or choose to leave it as is.
Listing Innovations
Google Videos
- Available on all packages or with standalone Listings.
Publishing videos to Google Business Profiles (GBP) is now supported in the Uberall platform! Users can upload videos directly to Uberall which will be published to their respective GBP galleries. With Google becoming visual first in search, this is a great way to enhance your profiles to boost your search visibility, drive more consumer engagement and conversion for your locations. Upload a short 30 second maximum video in the Photos & Videos tab or use the Bulk Editor feature to publish a video to multiple locations!
Want to learn the impact of adding videos to your Google Business Profile? Hear more from our ProTips team HERE
Locator & Local Pages Innovations & Enhancements
Store Locator Analytics
- Available for Thrive Package or with standalone Locator + Pages .
In this release, we are introducing a new reporting dashboard to the Uberall platform that enables you to track the performance and ROI of your Store Locator! The new Store Locator Analytics offers users a simplified way to understand key metrics such as views, unique clicks, and conversion metrics without needing to use complex tools such as Google Analytics!
Data in the dashboard can be easily filtered by account and locations to find the right performance data and see the value that your local pages are driving.
Image Optimization
- Available for Thrive Package or with standalone Locator + Pages.
A small but mighty enhancement! Uberall will automatically optimize images on Local Pages to ensure that they are in a preferred format (webp, avif), responsive for varying screen sizes and smaller in file size. The optimized images will improve page load speed and have a significant impact on Web Core Vitals (Google’s metrics and grading system for your webpages) and overall search performance.
Reporting & Insights Innovations
Local SEO Report
- Available on all packages or with standalone Analytics .
New to the Analytics section of the platform is the Local SEO Report! As you manage your location profiles, respond to reviews, and publish new social content, you’ll want to understand the impact that is making on your search ranking. The new Local SEO Report helps you to evaluate the success of your local SEO journey!
The Local SEO Report shows a variety of metrics on the performance of your local listings. You can easily track what the average rating is across your location(s) and track the top and bottom keywords in search so that you can pivot your marketing strategy to increase your search visibility.
Generate Reviews, Menu Orders, or Web Lead Form
QR Code - Generate Reviews
- Available as an add-on to any package or standalone products.
We are introducing an easy way for you to generate review QR codes for all your locations! The QR codes make for an easy way to ask customers for reviews. The Uberall platform makes the process simple by allowing users to generate a downloadable zip file with all the QR codes for your selected locations.
Platform Innovations
Revamped Navigation
We have an exciting new enhancement to the way that you navigate the Uberall platform. We’re introducing a new ultra-sleek navigation bar that simplifies the platform experience and streamlines it across all user types! You’ll find new product naming conventions and feature grouping that we feel makes more sense to the user experience making it easier to find what you are looking for.
One of the bigger changes comes to those who are managing one location. Previously, all the navigation was at the top of the platform. The main navigation will now be on the left side of the platform consolidating the experience across all user types.
Improved Webhooks
- Available on all packages or with standalone Listings or Reviews.
In this update, users will now be able to manage webhooks directly within the platform! Webhooks are used to send real-time communications from the Uberall platform to any other application. Adding the capability to the platform makes it easy for users to make adjustments to the communication events that they subscribe to, whether it’s listing, location or business events. The option to add new webhooks will be available in the Settings section of the platform. Users can add, modify, delete, and see details regarding the webhooks they created.
Publish UI & Usability Enhancements
Instagram Stories
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive Packages or with standalone Social.
With this release we have expanded the Instagram post types available in the Social Publisher! Users can now create Instagram Stories right from the Uberall platform. Instagram Stories are a great way to build awareness and increase engagement, Uberall’s Social Publisher streamlines the process of creating content for all of your Instagram accounts and now with more post types than ever! Start by choosing Instagram as your social channel in the publisher, choose your Instagram accounts and then select “Stories” as the post-type.
Social Template - UI and Usability Enhancements
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive Packages or with standalone Social.
Reviews Enhancements
Unified Inbox - Performance Upgrades
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive Packages or with standalone Reviews or Social
While this upgrade is happening in the background, it’s a vital upgrade that improves the performance and experience for those using the Unified Inbox. We’ve addressed the issues that impacted load times, delays in delivering content, as well as a few bugs to make for a huge quality of life upgrade. We hope you’ll notice the difference as you continue being an early adopter of the Unified Inbox.
Mobile App Innovations
Unified Inbox
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive Packages or with standalone Reviews or Messages
We have an all-new experience for managing engagements within the Mobile App! In this release, we introduce the new Unified Inbox which replaces the former Feedback section of the app. The Unified Inbox aggregates all of your customer engagements into one centralized place. Local operators will be able to quickly interact with their reviews and direct messages right within the Mobile App. Additionally, there is a new search and filter experience that makes it easy to find the content you are looking for.
Mission Control Innovations
Transaction URLs
- Available on all packages or with standalone Listings.
We are introducing a new dedicated section for managing transaction URLs for location profiles! Previously, these were all managed via the attributes section; however we are making changes necessary to stay up to date with Google and offer a simpler way of maintaining the information.
Transaction URLs are those found on your Google Business Profiles and vary depending on the category selected for your business.
- Restaurants will have ordering and reservation URLs.
- Services will have appointment bookings URLs.
- Retailers will have shopping URLs.
The new Transaction URL fields can be easily managed via the location profile, Bulk Editor, spreadsheet upload, and via API.
Important Note: The Google Business Profile experience for Food & Drink businesses will vary depending on the country. US, UK, DE, CA, AU, and JP will all have the button experience at the top of the profile. All other place action types and countries will display as a line in the merchant's Google Business Profile.
Media Management
- Available on all packages or with standalone Listings.
Photos on listings are important for success in search ranking and converting customers. To ensure that users have the capability to maximize their listings we are introducing new photo fields that will send unique photo types to specific networks. In this release, we are introducing a new Apple Cover photo field to upload a photo to Apple Maps listings, a portrait photo field for Doctor.com, and a Store Locator field which will enable users to publish a brand logo. These new fields can easily be managed on the individual location profile or using the Bulk Editor!
Custom Order Brands
- Available on Thrive package or with standalone Locator + Pages.
In this update, we are making it easier to manage the list order of brands sold at your locations. Adding brand names to local pages is a great way to drive more conversion and interest in the business. To help businesses promote the brands they offer, we are adding an option to modify the order in which brands are listed so that users can highlight particular brands first to get more customers in the door. The brand list can be modified via spreadsheet upload or API.
Messages Innovations & Enhancements
Web Contact Form
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive packages or with standalone Messages
We are expanding the capabilities of the Messages product. With this latest addition, users will be able to create a contact form that can be used to ingest contact requests. The new contact requests can easily be managed within the Uberall platform making it easy for users to view and adjust the status of the contact request.
The Contact Forms are easily built within the Uberall platform as well! The streamlined builder walks through decisions that are required for the contact form such as account selection, branding, form fields and more. Once the form is built, a code snippet becomes available for businesses to apply to their website pages wherever they would like the contact form to be available.
Live Agent Availability
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive packages or with standalone Messages
This new feature allows businesses to set the working hours when a live person is available to take on conversations with customers. The Live Agent Availability management will be available when select “customize” on your messages setup. In the new flow, users can define the working hours and customize automated messages that are delivered for when agents are offline!
Message Connectivity Issues UI Enhancements
- Available on the Be Chosen and Thrive packages or with standalone Messages
For this release, we have made it easier to distinguish connectivity issues with the channels used to setup Messages in the Uberall platform. This means that if there are any connection issues with Google or Facebook, you can easily identify what the problem is so you can troubleshoot it.
