Street Fight Daily: Instagram Fuels Communication with Brands, Mobile’s Domination of Search

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

80% of Instagram Users Voluntarily Connect with a Brand on the Platform (AdWeek)
“Shrinking the distance between businesses and customers and bringing you closer to the things that matter to you is really something that we’re focused on,” said Instagram’s COO Marne Levine on Wednesday. “With respect to businesses, we’ve really only just begun.”

Street Culture: Hooch Expansion Reveals Value in Multi-Function Employees (Street Fight)
Hooch isn’t hiring right now, but they expect to ramp up technology and data positions in fall 2017. Dai says his secret to hiring is to be brutally honest about the challenges and struggles of working at startup.

Mobile to Account for 80% of Search Budgets by 2021 (MediaPost)
Overall, 71.5% of the U.S. population — or 85% of internet users — will run an online search query at least once per month in 2017, with eMarketer estimating marketers will spend about 13% more for a total of nearly $37 billion to reach them.

How a New Active Wear Brand Takes on the Big Guys (Street Fight)
California-based Vuori Clothing started as a brand focused on yoga wear for men, and was (and still is) heavily reliant on using hyper-local marketing efforts to build brand awareness. Street Fight recently caught up with marketing VP Nikki Sakelliou to talk about the company’s local efforts.

Google is Building a Competitor to Amazon’s Echo Show (TechCrunch)
The device could help Google keep up in the race for the smart home market after Amazon just revealed a slew of new Echos and as Facebook continues to work on its codename “Aloha” video calling screen.

Instacart Is Expanding to Canada as It Battles with Amazon (WSJ)
Grocery-delivery startup Instacart Inc. has refrained from rushing expansion beyond the U.S., unlike many other startups valued at more than $1 billion. But Amazon.com Inc.’s surprising acquisition of Whole Foods has changed those plans.

AI Can Look Past Demographics to Achieve Accuracy in Customer Targeting (VentureBeat)
Robin Boytos: The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning processes are set to lift marketing limitations by redefining the sheer volume of intricate data that today’s machines can process.

Facebook Loses Attention as Publishers Shift to Other Platforms (Digiday)
In interviews, several publishers revealed they’re either spending less time on Facebook either in absolute terms or relative to time they’re spending on other platforms.

Why Social Media Is Swallowing Up News and Sports (eMarketer)
In the latest episode of “Behind the Numbers,” eMarketer analysts Paul Verna and Debra Aho Williamson discuss sports and news and their place in traditional TV and digital video.

LBMA Podcast: Amazon, Google, Target (Street Fight)
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. On the show: Zello app, MappedIn, Neiman Marcus, Coca-Cola.

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