News and Analysis
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.
California Attorney General Targets “Low-Hanging Fruit” for CCPA Non-Compliance
The California Consumer Privacy Act enforcement period began July 1, and two months later, numerous firms have received letters from the attorney general’s office about noncompliance. Multiple major companies, including Walmart, Sephora, and Ring, have been hit with class-action lawsuits.
But there’s no great mystery or nefarious agenda tied to the companies that have been targeted as this point, says Dan Clarke, president at IntraEdge. To avoid meeting the same fate, companies need to adhere to the fundamentals of the nation’s first major statewide privacy law. Clarke spoke with Street Fight to explain.
Commentary
Local Merchants Highly Dependent on Social Media at Time of Uncertainty for Platforms
Well over half of the local merchants with larger budgets that we surveyed for a report last year indicated that paid Facebook ads constituted their top marketing tactic. That’s a pretty heavy dependence on a company that’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately.
What Google’s New Review Guidelines Mean for SMBs, Agencies, and Vendors
Given Google’s new anti-review gating guidelines, what’s important for businesses, Mike Blumenthal tells David Mihm in their biweekly column, is to “make giving direct feedback to the business extremely easy. Most unhappy consumers just want to express their dissatisfaction and given a choice will do so directly with the business rather than on a review site.”
LBMA Podcast: Postmates & DoorDash, Foursquare, Uber
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan & Aubriana Lopez. On the show this week: Mercedes Benz, Landmark + Sony Music, China’s BingoBox, Gordon’s Gin teams up with Weve, Foursquare’s new API, Uber expands bike sharing.
Latest Posts
Sponsored Post: 5 Digital Marketing Trends for the New Year
If 2016 was any indication of the fast-paced world of digital marketing, 2017 is sure to be another wild ride. To help businesses of all sizes keep up with the constantly changing technology, Vivial has put together our top five digital marketing trends and predictions for the new year.
inMarket Launches Ambient Intelligence Platform for Brands
Beacon proximity and location intelligence company inMarket announced this morning that it’s launching an ambient intelligence platform designed to change the way brands engage with consumers inside entertainment venues across the U.S.
Is There an SMB Analytics Market? And If So, What Should It Measure?
“I’m not convinced small businesses without a full-time in-house marketer really care about analytics,” David Mihm tells Mike Blumenthal in their bi-weekly chat. “They certainly don’t have the time or expertise to dive in each week and change their marketing or customer service behavior based on what a dashboard is telling them.”
Street Fight Daily: Retail Brands Deploy AI, Google Teams with Fiat Chrysler on Connected Car Tech
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… 5 Brands Infusing Retail with Artificial Intelligence… Google Teams with Fiat Chrysler to Turn Android Into Top Platform for Connected Cars… Wendy’s Taps Spotify Branded Moments to Catch You When You’re Hungry…
New AIs Offer Surprisingly Traditional Results for Local
At least for now, Alexa and Google are thinking of AI-powered local search in the traditional sense of providing the user with a range of relevant options — even when organic search is trending toward the single best answer.
Can Chat Apps Help Local Papers ‘Talk’ Their Way Out of Distress?
Messaging apps would be the ideal medium for U.S. dailies to capture committed readers in the emerging era of the “New Localism.” The big advantage of chat apps is that publishers can send questions and other “push” notifications to subscribers that promote high levels of engagement.
Street Fight Daily: Publishers’ Doubts About AMP, Snap Leverages Machine Learning for Ad Targeting
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Publishers Express Doubts About Google AMP… Snapchat Is Beginning to Use Machine Learning to Improve Advertising… Voice Search is Different, Not Better…
Street Fight’s 10 Most Popular Stories From 2016
In the local space, 2016 brought both consolidation and renewal. Major players were acquired, while other companies experimented with innovations in bots and AI, VR/AR and a new generation of voice search. Here’s a look back at the top Street Fight stories (at least in terms of traffic) this year.
Raise Report: New Funding for HelloFresh, Rent the Runway, Dynamic Yield
Every two weeks, we round up some of the biggest fundraises taking place in hyperlocal marketing, commerce, and tech. This week’s edition includes funding for Numetric, Byte Foods, Xplenty, and Never Eat Alone.
LBMA Podcast: The Annual Predictions Show
This Week in Location Based Marketing is a weekly video podcast from the Location Based Marketing Association with Asif Khan and Aubriana Lopez. This week’s show is the annual predictions episode, with a look at where location-based marketing is headed in 2017.
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Meta Is Automating Ads, But Brands Still Face a Bigger Problem