News and Analysis
How Are Brands Preparing for Native Ratings in Apple Maps?
A foundational element of local marketing strategy could be changing. Rumors began circulating last week that Apple would be giving users the ability to add ratings and photos to local business listings on Apple Maps when iOS 14 releases this fall. That could mean big changes are in store for brand marketers who’ve grown accustomed to monitoring reviews and ratings on a core group of third-party platforms.
Apple’s move into the ratings and review space isn’t totally unexpected, but it’s still causing the local marketing community to question how the update will impact local search and discovery.
Meliá Hotels Uses Local Influencers to Drive Covid-19 Awareness
Brochures and signage are easy to overlook, but social media influencers are harder to miss. As they work to bring back guests during the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of hotel chains are relying on partnerships with social media influencers to educate guests on the new safety protocols they’ve put in place.
Street Fight’s September Theme: Mapping the Future
What does “Mapping the Future” entail? As a primary tool for consumer local search and discovery, mapping continues to undergo UX innovations and structural changes. We’ll examine these areas as well as mapping’s interplay with local search and SEO strategies.
Though mapping is more of a Street Fight staple than a trending topic, market signals indicate that the timing is right. In fact, we already got started last month with a look at Snapchat’s moves into local mapping — not just UX upgrades to Snap Map but also self-serve advertising for local businesses.
Commentary
How Peoria Journal Star Did a Lot More With Less After Deep Cuts Shrank the Newsroom
“We made it our mission, working with our publisher at the time, Ken Mauser, that we would reach out to the people of the South Side and make sure they had a place where they could tell us about the good things happening where they live,” Peoria Journal Star Executive Editor Dennis Anderon says of reaching out to neglected community members.
Most Local Merchants Unfazed by Facebook Controversies, Though Some Signs of Trouble
By now, consequences of the negative aura surrounding Facebook’s role in customer info abuse, fake news, and Russian political meddling should have started to take hold. Yet over half of local merchants we polled said they would continue to use Facebook as they had previously, and only one in five said they may use it less.
Latest Posts
How Turning Loyalty Campaigns Into a Data Play Transformed Empyr
Coaxing more customers to walk in and shop is what every merchant wants out of a loyalty program, but it is not always clear how effective these campaigns are. That’s why attribution — knowing for sure that new business resulted from an SMB’s marketing efforts — is such a holy grail in local.
Street Fight Daily: How Brands Leverage Snapchat Spectacles, Mobile App Installs Drop Sharply
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… How 5 Brands, Including GrubHub and Hyatt, Are Using Snapchat Spectacles… Mobile Boom Stalls, with Double-Digital Decline in App Installs… What Makes People Buy from a Brand They Follow on Social Media?…
Survey: Merchants Gain Social Media Sophistication, Rate it Most Effective Tactic
Over the past several years, Street Fight has seen these local merchants shift their marketing budgets away from traditional media like newspapers, print Yellow Pages, and local broadcast towards digital marketing and media. That trend continues in a new survey that we conducted earlier this year.
Zuckerberg Raises the Right Questions – Local News Should Answer Them
Mark Zuckerberg posted a remarkable manifesto on Feb. 16 about our fractured communities and how to heal them. But why was Facebook’s founder and CEO saying this first? Why aren’t America’s news publishers, especially local ones, defining the crisis and offering their blueprints for solving it? Zuckerberg’s manifesto was 5,735 words long, but its core was these 138 […]
Street Fight Daily: Retailers Sign Up for Texting Via Android, Dash Turns Cars into Data Troves
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Wants Businesses to Text with Android Messaging Service… Dash Aims to Turn Driving Machines into Data-Driven Machines… How Retailers Can Best Position Themselves to Thrive in an Age of Disruption…
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