Hyperlocal Retail Directories Go After ‘Shop Local’ Consumers

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Two key reasons why consumers shop local is immediacy of purchase and physical confirmation of product, (i.e. making sure a shoe fits). Fab and Etsy can’t ship their products to you for delivery this afternoon — and it’s tedious for a consumer to filter product offerings based on retail location. That leaves room for hyperlocal retail directories like GatherLA.com , which curates designers in Los Angeles for discovery by local consumers…

TurnHere Becomes Local Photo/Video Marketplace SmartShoot

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Turnhere, founded in 2005, leveraged the video marketing wave by working with resale partners like Yelp and Citysearch to help SMBs create one-minute video sales pieces. According to the company’s CEO, Turnhere could boast a compelling capture rate, over 80% of inquiries for this short SMB video would result in a transaction. So with high close rates embedded in the business model, why pivot?

Extending User Reviews to Places, Block by Block

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Block Avenue launched last week with an offering that gives locals the opportunity to grade their neighborhoods, blocks and businesses down to the building level. Users assign grades from A to F on specific blocks and for businesses, which are displayed on maps to show the destination spots (A’s) as well as danger zones (F’s)…

How Can Hyperlocal Companies Crack the Local Sales Code?

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Plum District, the daily deals site for moms, is just the latest to find that building a national sales force to woo small business marketing dollars is no easy task. In fact, the difficulty remains a barrier to profitability for all kinds of SMB-focused businesses — from Angie’s List to Groupon to Patch…

Startups Compete to Connect Neighbors — But Beware the ‘Empty Room’

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A number of new hyperlocal apps have popped up recently to facilitate neighbors’ conversations with one other, but I see three major hurdles to the adoption of these localized services. Local networks require critical mass, they require ringleaders, and they require neighbors who are willing to share online with people near enough to stalk them…

Can Local Online Media Rid Itself of Bad Advertising?

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The future of local advertising will likely be the gradual discontinuation of blatant or intrusive media ads, replaced by social media and business generated content marketing. The argument about what constitutes bad advertising will slowly become moot…

Using Twitter as a Hyperlocal Media Utility

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Although often associated with breaking news distribution, Twitter is more than a broadcast channel; it can facilitate the local B2B, B2C and C2C communication required for a truly active online bulletin board. The shared economy will work most efficiently with a communal media infrastructure that facilitates the messaging required to match transactional participants…

Using Content Management Tools to Unleash Local Media

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Rebelmouse, the creation of Paul Berry, ex-CTO of the Huffington Post, is a publishing platform that curates articles from the tweets, retweets and links from Twitter and Facebook accounts and displays them in the now popular Pinterest-tile format. The new platform validates how easy it is to leverage social media for publishing…

Helping SMBs Understand the Importance of Social Marketing

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Most small businesses are still stuck in the Golden Age of Advertising, and don’t understand the concepts behind this marketing sea change. They see a brand new industry full of hundreds of startup companies babbling about seemingly identical solutions to a marketing methodology they can’t quite grasp. Here are three simple concepts SMBs need to understand about social marketing…

The New Local Delivery Systems

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The consumer decision now becomes: do I spend my precious hour driving and dickering at the store, or do I spend $20 for somebody else to do this for me? As crowdsourced delivery services gain acceptance, it’s not hard to imagine big brands like Apple Store, Home Depot or any restaurant chain leveraging delivery as a competitive advantage…

Should SMBs Get Into Content Marketing?

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Small businesses need to think like the brands they are. They should follow the same protocol now being established by content marketers: create a portfolio of content; use the new distribution channels and social media to get the word out; and learn how to curate….

As More Users Consume Local Video, SMBs Need to Stay Ahead of the Curve

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Over time, the torrent of user-generated and user-organized visual media will cascade into greater consumption and adoption of video over text as the preferred way to receive information. As that evolves, small businesses will need to create more original video content, giving consumers an easier, more descriptive way to assess their business…

Social Curation Tools Like Pinterest Are a Great Fit for Local

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Curation services are coming of age because people are increasingly using their smartphones to upload pictures and videos on the fly. As user-generated media continues to flourish, its local manifestations (and curated collections of contributed content) will paint a far more diverse and detailed picture of a community than coverage by paid media…

Media Companies Embrace Innovation by Nurturing Startups

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Does anyone believe that a traditional media company could have created a digital product that would grow to be as quickly valuable as Instagram or Pinterest? The answer is no, but a few organizations are hoping to change that perception by bringing digital media entrepreneurs into the fold…

Hyperlocal Publishers Need to Up Ad Accountability

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Google Adwords, Twitter’s new Promoted Tweets product for SMBs, Facebook ads, and even Groupon, all deliver relevant geo-targeted consumers on a pay-per-performance basis. These social media ad networks will pressure traditional local publishers to match their offerings on price and accountability…

Using Social Media to Mobilize a Local Community

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“Cash mobs” are the first evidence of community-coordinated mob activity organized by traditional civic and business groups. In a cash mob, a local store or restaurant is designated as the recipient of a one day promotion where customers spend at least $20, using Twitter and other local media to broadcast the event…

Local Marketing Shifts From Ads to Interactions to Requests

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There’s a huge opportunity to aggregate potential leads across these siloed services in real time, and notify or proxy respond on behalf of local businesses so they can service leads immediately. In this online new paradigm, small business no longer needs to wait for their customers, they cherry-pick on demand…

Hyperlocal Media and Collaborative Consumption Services

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The “shared economy” being ushered in by startups like Airbnb, Getaround and Toolspinner is creating new marketplaces where locals can rent their homes, cars, and tools to neighbors. This new trend enables the efficient sharing of resources and goods that are used on occasion as an alternative to outright ownership…

As Photography Evolves, Quality Imagery Remains Vital for Local

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The elevation of standards in local marketing imagery is creating new opportunities for local professional photographers, above and beyond events like weddings and school pictures…

Will Microlocal Work for Community Bulletin Board Sites?

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Everyblock and Nextdoor may need to go where the local conversational action is, Facebook. For example, microlocals could partner with Facebook and allow their subscribers to create a Facebook group for their neighborhood with all the bells and whistles (classifieds, recommendations, events listings) associated with their web application…