Street Fight Daily: Publishers Grapple with Google’s Algorithm, Facebook Builds Up SMB Marketing

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…

Publishers Renew Focus on Search Optimization — and Find New Tricks (Digiday)
Publishers are putting renewed effort into Google search, and with it, SEO tricks. Tactics like stuffing headlines with keywords and passing off old stories as new may have lost favor with Google. But that leaves publishers to try to figure out what Google wants today and optimize to those preferences.

Understanding Facebook’s Place as a Small Business Marketing Vehicle (Street Fight)
Mihm and Blumenthal: “While [Facebook is] not yet anywhere near Google’s ability to generate leads, I have, over the past 6 months, started to see them surpassing Yelp in driving local key performance indicators on the pre-sale side,” Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm. AdWeek: Why Facebook struggles to get users to buy from brands.

Hotels, Feeling the Pinch of AirBnB, Promote Local Experiences (NYT)
“Tourist” has become a dirty word in the hospitality business. The preferred word? Local. Travelers can now sign up through hotels and tour operators for experiences arranged by locals.

Foursquare Extends Industry Reach With New Reddit Partnership (Street Fight)
Foursquare is announcing a new partnership with Reddit this morning, as the location technology firm looks to expand its reach within the social technology space. With Foursquare on board, Reddit users will now have the option of adding their real-time location to any mobile post.

Instagram CEO on Stories: Don’t Call It a Copycat (WSJ)
Among the widespread opinions in Silicon Valley, one particularly irks Kevin Systrom: Facebook copies Snap.

Where Are the All the Other Tech IPOs? (TechCrunch)
When Snap went public in early March, it opened up the floodgates after what had been a stagnant period for tech IPOs. But then in May we only had Appian. And June isn’t expected to be a strong month either.

It Always Makes Sense for Apps to Send Personalized Messages — Except When It Doesn’t (AdExchanger)
It’s hard to get the level of granularity required to do personalized messages well right, which is why a lot of brands aren’t taking advantage of context, location, weather and other environmental signals as real-time targeting triggers.

Consumers Need Choices to Stop Them from Using Ad Blockers (eMarketer)
eMarketer’s Bill Fisher spoke with Brian Kane, co-founder and COO at content compensation platform Sourcepoint, about how increased communication between users and publishers could help the advertising industry buck the ad blocking trend.

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