UpChannels
Local Vibes
Every plan

Your city’s news,
sorted for your store.

Local Vibes gathers recent local news and event coverage for your city from Google News, in panels set by your Business Type: local business, your industry, the local economy, and festivals, sports, music and women’s events. Each card is a headline; a click opens the article.

The last 30 days, up to 30 articles a panel, newest firstStarts on your store’s city; look up any otherEvents are news coverage, dated when the article came out
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Growth → Local Vibes

What is in the news where you sell

Two tabs, seven panels, one city at a time. Every panel is a Google News search; nothing is written by UpChannels.

Your Business Type
Every plan

Your city, plus three words
for each panel.

Every panel is your city followed by a keyword, searched on Google News. Which keywords depends on the Business Type the owner picked, so the industry panel follows what your store sells. Where a Business Type has none for a panel, the general local keywords fill in.

Local Relevant News: Local Business, Industry Specific and Economic Context
Each panel uses the first three keywords your Business Type lists for it
A panel with no keywords uses UpChannels’ general local keywords
The owner picks the Business Type in Settings → Business Type
Events
Every plan

Event coverage,
not an event calendar.

The Events tab finds recent coverage of festivals, games, concerts and women’s events in your city. An article about a coming festival can give you time to plan a promotion or a sponsorship. The page does not know the event date itself; the article does.

Four panels: Fairs and Festivals, Sports Events, Music Events and Women Events
The tab says at the top that these are articles, not a calendar
Each card reads “Published” and the article’s date
Open the article to find when the event happens
Another city
Every plan

The next town over,
in the same panels.

Look at the next town over before you open a second location, or at the city a big customer is in. The location bar takes any city; add the state when the name is common. A strip above it tells you when the general keywords are in use, and why.

Type any city and press Search; Reset to your city brings you back
A searched city is not saved: a reload opens on your store’s city
Results are kept in your browser for 4 hours, per city and tab
Refresh on a panel, or Refresh All, fetches new results now

From a headline to something you do.

Local Vibes only reads the news. What you do about it happens on the other growth pages.

What Local Vibes does not do

  • The Events tab is news coverage, not a calendar: no event dates, RSVPs, tickets or calendar sync. The date on a card is when the article was published.
  • Cards show a date, a publisher and a headline. There are no summaries; a click opens the article on the publisher’s site.
  • Stores cannot write their own keywords. They come from the Business Type the owner picks, or the general keywords.
  • Google News for the US, in English. Small towns can return little; cities outside the US may return few or US-centric results.
  • It sends no alerts. Open the page to read the latest coverage.
  • Nothing on the page changes your store’s data. Results are kept in your browser for 4 hours and are not shared with other people or devices.
Common questions

Local Vibes questions, answered

Where do the articles come from?
Google News, for the US in English. For each panel, Local Vibes searches your city followed by each of up to three keywords — for example “Houston local business” — keeps articles from the last 30 days, removes repeats and shows up to 30, newest first. Click a card to read the article on the publisher’s site in a new tab.
Is the Events tab an event calendar?
No. It shows recent news articles about local fairs and festivals, sports, music and women’s events, and says so at the top of the tab. The date on each card is prefixed “Published” because it is the date the article came out, not the date of the event. Open the article to find when the event happens.
Which city does it show?
The city from your store’s business address, which the owner enters in Onboarding. Nothing is detected from your location. You can type any other city and press Search; it is not saved, so a reload goes back to your store’s city, and Reset to your city takes you back at any time. For a common city name, add the state, such as “Springfield IL”.
How does it pick news that fits my store?
From your Business Type, which the owner picks in Settings → Business Type. Each panel searches with the first three keywords your Business Type lists for it; a panel your Business Type has no keywords for uses UpChannels’ general local keywords, so the page always has something to show. With no Business Type set, a yellow strip says so and every panel uses the general keywords.
Can I change the keywords it searches?
Not from the store. The keywords belong to the Business Type, so the owner can pick a different Business Type, or contact support if yours has none. What anyone can change on the page is the city.
How often does it update?
Results are kept in your browser for 4 hours, separately for each city and tab, and the bottom of each tab says how long is left: “Cached data (refreshes in …)”. Refresh on a panel, or Refresh All News and Refresh All Events, fetches new results straight away. Coverage older than 30 days drops off, so checking weekly is enough for most stores.
Which plan is it on, and is there a demo?
Every plan, Basic included. The Demo button on the page opens a sample version set in Houston, with a guided tour of 10 steps. The owner can hide Local Vibes from a team member’s menu in Settings → Team.

Local Vibes is one part of UpChannels

Local Vibes, in the Growth section of UpChannels, shows small retailers and service businesses recent local news and event coverage for their city from Google News. Its two tabs hold seven panels — Local Business, Industry Specific and Economic Context news, and Fairs and Festivals, Sports, Music and Women’s events — each searching the city plus the first three keywords of the store’s Business Type, or general local keywords. It keeps the last 30 days, up to 30 articles a panel, newest first. The Events tab is news coverage, not a calendar: the date on a card is the article’s. Any other city can be looked up. Included in every plan.

UpChannels is an all-in-one platform for small retailers and service businesses — sales, inventory, customers, scheduling, delivery, payments and finance in one system — and a real team that builds your website, runs your ads, and automates the busywork. The parts below share one set of records, so there is no integration to wire up between them; the pricing page shows which plan includes each one.

See plans and pricingEverything the software doesSetups by business type

Works with

The product moves faster than this page. UpChannels ships updates most weeks, so a description here can lag what is already in the software. Where the two disagree, the running product is the current version — tell us if you find one and we will correct the page.

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