News and Analysis
Research Highlights Shifting Social Media Dynamics for Brands
Rachael Samuels, social media manager at Sprout Social, hopes that brand marketers who look at the research come away with a greater understanding that social cannot be approached with a one-size-fits-all mentality, and what works for one industry, or even one brand, may not work for another.
Street Culture: Techstars Co-CEO on Coaching Startups to Define Culture
“I think that culture is one of the few problems that you have to address before they’re problems,” says TechStars co-founder and co-CEO David Brown. “If you’re struggling to figure out how to grow sales, you can wait until sales are in trouble and still turn it around. But if you wait until you’re in trouble with culture, it’s really hard to turn that boat.”
Commentary
Everybody Is a Media Company, So Now What?
The explosive growth of personal media has disrupted everything it touches. The same inexpensive tools that consumers are now using are also available to any-sized businesses, which has the potential of entirely leveling the playing field in consumer goods and services by driving down the cost of marketing. The neighborhood doughnut shop can just as easily make and distribute media as the Kroger Bakery up the street or, by God, even Walmart. We may chuckle today but just wait…
How Facebook’s Rumored News Product Could Hurt Local Sites
News websites dodged a bullet when Facebook didn’t announce a rumored RSS or news-in-your-news-feed product yesterday. If Facebook actually got serious about these plans, news websites could expect an even larger portion of their site’s traffic to be directed through the social network — and their brands could be endangered…
Authenticity: The Force Behind the Local Snowball Effect
One of the new values that the Web demands is authenticity. For news, it means a commitment to truthfulness by bringing readers or viewers as close as possible to the source of information. In business, it also means being truthful in our behavior, attributions and even our intentions. It’s an underappreciated and underutilized value, and it strikes at the very heart of marketing — especially at the hyperlocal level…
Latest Posts
How Customer Retention Plays a Key Role in SMB Marketing
Approximately 60% of SMBs spend the majority of their annual marketing budgets on customer retention, because it delivers such a strong return on investment. Within customer retention, email marketing is considered the most effective digital marketing tactic, followed by social media and content marketing…
Street Fight Daily: Google’s Local Algorithm, Amazon’s Square Competitor
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Google “Pigeon” Updates Local Search Algorithm With Stronger Ties To Web Search Signal (SearchEngineLand)… Amazon Set to Launch Square-competitor in August as it Develops Biometric Payment Solutions (9to5Mac)… Car-Hailing Service, Lyft, Reaches Deal to Operate in New York City (New York Times)…
5 Ways to Increase Redemptions of Mobile Coupons
Mobile coupon usage is on the upswing, with 75% of mobile shoppers having redeemed a coupon from their smartphones last year, and 80% saying their perceptions of a retailer would improve if that retailer offered mobile deals. Despite the obvious consumer interest in mobile coupons, however, many retailers — and particularly, smaller merchants — are still struggling to get their footing in this new marketing world…
LBMA Podcast: Bonnaroo’s Beacons, Autograph’s Henry Lawson
Top stories of the week include: Heineken’s @wherenext twitter service; Clear Channel launches its “Connect” platform; Petpace tracks the health of your pet; AdNear teams up with Mindshare for location targeting in Asia; Samsung launches “CentreStage” in BestBuy; Marriott launches LocalPerks; and Birchbox opens up a real-life store in SoHo…
Street Fight Daily: Zillow Eyes Trulia, Facebook and Uber Discuss Partnership
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Zillow Seeking to Buy Rival Property Site Trulia (Bloomberg)… Facebook and Uber Discuss Integration of Car Service Into Messenger (Recode)… LivingSocial’s Losses Narrow in the Second Wuarter (Washington Post)…
WPP Mobile Exec: Location Already ‘Not Special’ in Ad Tech
In a conversation this week, Michael Lieberman, chief executive North America at WPP’s Joule, discussed the copy-cat syndrome among mobile-local ad tech, how brands have ditched geo-fencing, and why influencing consumers’ impulse purchases might be the next big growth market for digital marketing dollars…
How Community Involvement Can Pay Off for Local Publishers
Commuter traffic tie-ups and convenience store holdups can’t be the heart of a community news product. “Duty” coverage is still part of many sites’ content menu, but, by itself, it can’t build a solid relationship with community. The trick is to empower users “to take action to improve their communities”…
Street Fight Daily: The ‘New’ Foursquare, Apple Eyes Mobile Wallet
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Next Age of Foursquare Begins Today (Verge)… Apple’s Mobile Wallet Talks Heat Up (Information)… New Google Maps for Android and iOS Takes a Jab at Foursquare (Mashable)…
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