News and Analysis
The Future of Amazon as a Service
The concept of Amazon-as-a-service, or AaaS, didn’t begin in 2020. But as the year wore on, and people began relying on e-commerce platforms more than ever before in history, the concept took off. Reaching the first page of Amazon became paramount for brands hoping for digital success, particularly now, during the tumultuous holiday season.
Brands Embrace Live Video to Keep Shoppers Engaged
Live streaming, advertising, and e-commerce are all coming together in a new technology that could change the way brands interact with shoppers online.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has greatly increased the interest in shoppable video tech, on both the brand and consumer side,” says Clicktivated CEO Chris Roebuck.
Commentary
Newly Launched Block Club Chicago (Out of DNAinfo) Goes a ‘Bit Old School’
Last November, discount-stock-brokerage billionaire Joe Ricketts summarily shut down his DNAinfo operations in the Windy City and New York. But in a fast-paced reinvention, the DNAinfo/Chicago team has Kickstarted its way back onto the streets and into the neighborhoods with the June launch of Block Club Chicago.
A Probing Look at Local News Comes to Some Disturbing Conclusions
To accurately gauge the quality of digital local news and assess its impact on communities, you would have to do what no one has wanted, or dared, to do. You would have to look at enough websites, enough stories and videos, in enough communities until you were glassy-eyed. Researchers behind a new study did just that.
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Report: Social Media Continues to Be a Top Marketing Tactic for Local Merchants
The fourth edition of Street Fight’s Local Merchant Report shows a continued movement to social media as a preferred marketing tactic among local merchants. They deem it their most effective tactic, so they’re increasing their spending. Analysis of the survey suggests that would-be marketing suppliers can help them integrate social with their own site and email campaigns, as well as assisting them with reputation management and reviews.
Street Fight Rolls Out Analyst Hours with Local Merchant Report
The report—a key franchise for us—has regularly served as a guidepost for vendors seeking to expand their reach into this market. What’s been missing? A way to tie the data directly to a vendor’s business. So for the first time, we’re offering time with the report’s author, Street Fight director of research, David Card, to discuss the report’s findings directly.
Location Data for Brands: ‘Alternative Facts’ No Longer
As the proximity industry grows, it’s important for brands investing in location and proximity to understand the differences between the various data points and technologies on the market. These differentiators can greatly affect how the proximity and location data is applied towards a brand’s marketing goals.
Street Fight Daily: Facebook Will Train Local Journalists, Alphabet Records ‘Stunning’ Earnings
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Will Start Training Local Journalists and Newsrooms… Alphabet Made a Lot of Money on Google Advertising Despite Recent Controversy… Amazon’s Echo Look Could Snoop a Lot More Than Your Clothes…
Comcast Rolling Out a New Local Ad Service
For local businesses looking for advertising, there’ll be a new kid in town to help this summer. Better still, ad buyers will get the help for free. The service, called Stratasphere, is a new offering from Comcast-owned Strata, which already has three decades in the business of connecting ad sellers with ad buyers.
Case Study: Bake Shop Owner Finds Customers in Local Facebook Groups
What does it mean to run a local business without a local storefront? For Melissa Brogan, owner of The Bug & The Bear Bakeshoppe, it means having to use highly-targeted online marketing strategies to let people know she’s open for business, without getting the marketing benefits that come from having signage on the front of a physical storefront.
The In-Between Stage for Startups: Visions of Growth and the Value of Pivots
The stages of business growth may have no end point, but the opportunities that lie within them are more abstract than they seem. Moz CEO Sarah Bird says that Jeff Bezos’ well-known assertion that it will always be “day one” at Amazon resonates with her, but that financials can cloud the view of that goal.
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