News and Analysis
Street Fight’s November Theme: Google’s World
Google’s World is shorthand for the fully fleshed-out concept: “It’s Google’s world… we’re all just living in it.” The main thrust is that Google’s search dominance gives it enormous control in impacting the fate of businesses everywhere who rely on search for traffic and customer acquisition.
Google’s ongoing updates to the search algorithm, ranking factors, and SERPs continue to have ripple effects on marketers everywhere. It’s becoming more challenging to follow the moving target of SEO effectiveness. This game has its own set of rules when it comes to local search.
What’s Snapchat’s Local Play?
Snap continues to make moves in local commerce. Historic steps include geo-filters, while more recent activity includes Local Lenses and business listings in Snap Map. These features are notable on their own, but they get more interesting when you view them together and extrapolate to Snap’s local road map.
For example, Snap has more 13-34-year-olds active than any other channel, including Facebook and Instagram. This essentially means Snap can offer SMBs incremental and non-duplicated reach to an attractive audience.
Retailers Embrace Mobile As Pandemic Holiday Shopping Ramps Up
While this holiday season will be unlike any other, retailers have reason to be optimistic. Holiday sales are set to rise 1% to 1.5%, with e-commerce growing as much as 35%. Consumers are expected to spend between $1.147 trillion and $1.152 trillion between November and January. Much of that spending will happen with large retail chains that have omni-channel experiences already set up, and that has smaller retailers rushing to put their own mobile strategies in place.
Commentary
Gauging the Opportunity to Replace Local Merchants’ Websites
We asked respondents what they used their sites for, and, considering the functions they deemed most important, whether they could replace them with a list of suggested companies and platforms. Facebook’s company pages and Google’s enriched listings topped the list.
LBMA Podcast: Walmart, Target, LinkedIN
Featured on this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: LEGO + Grand Visual, LinkedIN, Vyking shoes, Walmart, Target, HERE + Decawave, LBMA D/A/CH.
Why Google Decided Phone Calls Are the Key to Google Assistant’s Future Success
Among all the new AI-driven capabilities Google could’ve bestowed on its powerful Assistant, the company decided to focus on one capability in particular: a phone call.
Latest Posts
Investment Firms Come to the Forefront Among Owners of Local Newspapers
Today seven investment entities control 349 daily newspapers, well ahead of either the 196 belonging to long-established private publishers that include companies like Hearst and Advance Publications or the 161 public publishers that include legacy chains like Gannett and McClatchy.
Marriage of Listings, Data, and Social Drive Better Results, Says SweetIQ CEO
A long-brewing change is transforming the way local business listings get used, says SweetIQ’s Mohannad El-Barachi. In a recent interview with he tells Street Fight that the integration of more features, such as chat or connections to social media, opens up new ways for businesses to bring in customers.
Street Fight Daily: Viber Launches In-App Shopping, Small-Ball Retailers and Google Shopping
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Chat App Viber to Launch In-app Shopping with Brands Including Macy’s… 7 Ways Small Retailers Can Compete with Retail Giants Using Google Shopping… SocialRank Realtime Helps Marketers Get More Proactive on Social Media…
A New Era for Street Fight
After nearly six years as a bootstrapped independent business, Street Fight has been acquired by Brandify — and we couldn’t be more excited. The pairing will provide resources to significantly expand Street Fight’s content, events, and research, and will allow us to launch new offerings to create greater value for the industry.
Urban Outfitters Increases Conversions With Contextualized In-App Messaging
Urban Outfitters has long used its brand-owned app to deliver messages to customers in the hope of driving conversions. What PlaceIQ and Appboy were able to do was heighten the value being delivered by in-app messaging, using a combination of location and customer activity data.
Street Fight: Amazon Responds to Walmart’s Shipping Challenge, Mobile Engagement Drops in Q4
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon Strikes Back at Walmart’s Free 2-Day Shipping Offer… Mobile Engagement Sees Unprecedented Drop in Q4 2016… Why Facebook and Snapchat Are Spinning Off Mobile Incubators…
How Does Google Determine the Authority of Local Entities?
“Each of these sites that Google trusts might calculate authority in a different way, but if Google can verify the relationship to the local entity, they can apply that authority to the ranking of the local listing,” writes Mike Blumenthal to David Mihm.
6 Ways Merchants Can Prepare For the Rise in Voice Search
Forty-two percent of U.S. consumers already say they’ve used voice assistants in the last three months, and industry forecasters are predicting that 20% of all user interactions with smartphones will take place through these assistants within the next three years. Here are six ways that local businesses can start preparing.
Street Fight Daily: Retailers Emphasize Mobile Web Over Apps, Verizon and Yahoo Close Revised Deal
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Mobile Web is Quietly Killing Off Retail Apps… Why Verizon Decided to Still Buy Yahoo After Big Data Breaches… ‘More Options and Misunderstandings’: Media Buying on Snapchat Confuses Advertisers…
Openings and New Hires at Lyft, DAC Group and Placed
Every two weeks, Geoff Michener covers some of the latest job changes taking place in this dynamic industry. This week’s edition includes moves and new openings at Navads, Brandify and Foursquare.
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