News and Analysis

New Hires at TripAdvisor, Rio SEO, Snap

Share this:

Every two or three weeks, guest columnist Geoff Michener rounds up some of the latest hires and openings in local and digital marketing. This week’s roundup also includes openings at Instagram, ThriveHive, and LoopMe.

GroupM Details the State of Digital Marketing’s Hottest Medium: Video

Share this:

For marketers looking to capitalize on the video boom, Street Fight has the latest from GroupM’s second annual State of Video report. The highlights include continued difficulties with measurement, emerging options to target effectively across channels, a look at Amazon and Facebook’s quest for domination, and social video’s fallibility and how brands can overcome it.

Standard Cognition Democratizes the Cashierless Model, Providing Solution for Traditional Stores

Share this:

Standard Cognition offers a product called Standard Checkout that retrofits cashier-based grocery stores into cashierless systems. Unlike the new cashierless Amazon Go, Standard Cognition is not a grocery chain itself, but instead a solution for chains that compete with Amazon Go, co-founder and COO Michael Suswal told Street Fight.

Commentary

The Privatization of Local Search

Share this:

Local search takes place across services that are proprietary and dedicated, even if indirectly, toward earning revenue for the companies that run them. But that doesn’t preclude us from thinking of local search as a kind of public utility whose objective is to provide accurate and consistent information. That means treating local listings primarily as a public good, not a business.

Forget DIY, DIWM, and DIFM: ‘Do Nothing’ is the Best Approach to Capturing the SMB Market

Share this:

The future of SMB marketing solutions isn’t do-it-yourself, do-it-for-me, or even do-it-with-me. Rather, it lies in a new go-to-market model called “do nothing” that combines context, content, software, and automation into solutions that are low-cost, have next to no barriers to entry, and require little in the way of learning or doing from customers.

DEBATE: The Marketing of SMB Marketing Solutions

Share this:

Speculation over the best model for providing and marketing SMB solutions — do-it-yourself (DIY), do-it-for-me (DIFM), or the middle-ground option, do-it-with-me (DIFM) — has been swirling for years. Columns from two Street Fight contributors indicate that while technology is part of the current problem, it’s undoubtedly part of the solution as well.

Latest Posts

Local Tech Businesses Diversify to Serve a Wider Range of SMB Needs — But Do They Really Know Their Customers?

Share this:

In the rush to diversify their offerings, single-product local tech companies either move horizontally (reaching out to all the markets that could remotely utilize their product) or, more often, vertically (seeking to cater to all the nuanced needs of a niche market).

Street Fight Daily: Facebook and Google Embrace ‘Buy’ Buttons

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Facebook Will Soon Add a ‘Buy’ Button So You Can Shop From Facebook (Business Insider)… Google Starts Testing Buy Button (Mashable)… 20 Years of Amazon: 20 Years of Major Disruptions (USA Today)…

Small Businesses Aren’t Afraid of Amazon — And You Shouldn’t Be Either

Share this:

Yes, Amazon is a giant. But as long as you continue to innovate and keep your hand on the pulse of independent business needs, it’s not going to kill your business. Here’s why.

10 Local Digital Agencies You Should Know About

Share this:

Although nearly half (49%) of franchise SMBs have been partnered with a digital agency for two or more years, independent merchants are just getting in on the action. Here are 10 digital agencies that businesses are using right now.

Street Fight Daily: Google’s iBeacon Competitor, Wi-Fi Proximity Program Launches

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Launches Eddystone, Its Platform-Agnostic iBeacon Competitor (The Next Web)… This New Wi-Fi Tech Uses Proximity To End Waiting In Long Lines (ReadWrite)… Like Google, Yahoo Wants to Reinvent Search Without the Search Bar (Ad Age)…

Courting SMBs, Facebook Integrates Its Ad Platform With Wix Email Marketing

Share this:

Facebook and Wix announced a new integration this morning that will allow businesses using Wix’s email marketing app to creating a Facebook ad within the platform, automatically taking the email’s content and images and translating them into Facebook’s format.

6 Strategies for Increasing Conversions in Mobile Food Searches

Share this:

Sixty-three percent of consumers use smartphones and tablets to find local businesses, and 23% of those local business searches involve restaurants. Here are six strategies that restaurants can use to help convert mobile search traffic.

Panel: Different Kinds of SMBs Require Different Kinds of Marketing

Share this:

At a panel discussion hosted by CoInvent last week in New York, SMB experts talked about a range of topics, including social media marketing, SEO strategy, and the importance of paying attention to online reviews.

Street Fight Daily: Google Tests Direct Hotel Booking, Yelp Sued By Delivery Drivers

Share this:

A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google Tests Direct Hotel Booking (Search Engine Land)… Drivers Sue Yelp Over Unpaid Tips for Food Delivery Service Eat24 (Fortune)… Deep-Fried Crystal Ball: Seamless’s Recent Missteps Pave the Way for Competitors (Digiday)…

Why All SMBs Need an Ecommerce Strategy

Share this:

While online research to offline purchase is the more common path-to-purchase, future-looking SMB retailers will holistically consider an ecommerce strategy as more and more consumers embrace online shopping.