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
LBMA Podcast: New LBMA Research, Foursquare & Tinder, Verve & Receptiv
On this week’s edition of the Location-Based Marketing Association podcast: iQiyi, Location Sciences, Foursquare + Tinder, Google Expeditions, Verve buys Receptiv, Kohl’s + Amazon returns, London goes iZettle, and new research from The LBMA.
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 30A’s Multiple Revenue Streams Elevate the Local Site to New Heights
Founder and CEO Mike Ragsdale explains why diversification is such an important element of 30A’s fast growth into what is now a multimillion-dollar operation. He also explains how community news sites that don’t have a tropical beachfront to boast about can create their own unique, revenue-generating brands.
Street Fight Daily: Yahoo and Verizon Near Cheaper Deal, Facebook Adds Job Postings for Brands
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yahoo and Verizon Are Said to Be Near a Cheaper Deal… Facebook Swipes at LinkedIn by Letting Brands Post Job Openings on Pages… Snap Sets Valuation at $19.5 to $22.5 Billion as IPO Approaches…
Where Home Phones Meet Voice-Assisted Search
Similar to the shift from desktop to mobile, local marketers need to consider how the shift to voice-activated devices will impact their strategy. The smart home hub offers a new device on which consumers will interact with local businesses.
As E-Commerce Looks for a Local Edge, In-Person Return Services Expand
This morning e-commerce fashion marketplace Tradesy is announcing an extended partnership with Happy Returns, a consumer returns startup that offers in-person returns for online retailers. Tradesy found that customers overwhelmingly preferred to return their online purchases in-person rather than by mail.
Street Fight Daily: Yelps Adds Feature to Drive User Engagement, VR’s Future Role for Consumers
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Yelp Launches New Feature for Asking and Answering Questions About Any Business… How VR Headsets Will Infiltrate the Market and Impact Advertising… Retailers Are Testing Price Increases Online…
Luxury Lingerie Maker Cosabella Drives Sales with Email, Social Media
With Valentine’s Day upon us, what better time for looking at how a lingerie company does its digital marketing? Street Fight recently sat down with Cosabella CEO Guido Campello and marketing director Courtney Connell to talk about how company gets the word out about its products.
Case Study: Georgia Cleaning Service Uses AI Assistant for Targeted Promotions
“We cannot afford for a campaign to be ineffective, which to us means that we need every campaign to bring in enough money to at least pay for itself,” says My Amazing Maid owner Royce Ard . “Almost all of our marketing expenses are for acquisition-type campaigns to attract new customers.”
Street Fight Daily: How Brands Fare on Snapchat, Facebook Reaches Out to Local Newsrooms
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… New Report from Snaplytics Breaks Down How Brands Fare on Snapchat… Facebook is Beginning to Reach Out to Local Newsrooms… Google Maps Adds Feature Allowing Users to Plan and Share Itineraries…
What Does It Mean to Practice Local SEO Ethically?
It can be all too easy to give the client the impression that search marketing is too hard from them to really understand — so they should just trust you. But that sets the stage for a relationship that is not based on ethical behavior.
Here’s How Marketers Can Capitalize on Valentine’s Day Foot Traffic Trends
According to a new analysis of Valentine’s Day foot traffic trends conducted by the location intelligence company Foursquare, movie theaters are the place to be on Valentine’s Day. Theaters see an incredible 255% lift in foot traffic, compared to the week before — and 64% of moviegoers opt to eat out before or after the show.
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AI Won’t Fix Advertising – It May Scale Its Chaotic Nature