News and Analysis
Street Fight Daily: Social Declines in Search Visibility as Video Rises, Amazon Deal Boosts Kohl’s
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Social Sees Precipitous Decline in Google Search Visibility While Video Rises… Kohl’s Shares Could Pop 50 Percent as Amazon Partnership Ramps Up… With Facebook Emphasizing Community, Marketers Are Trying Out Facebook Groups…
5 Tech Companies Changing the Grocery Industry
The percentage of grocery purchases influenced by digital media nearly doubled last year, and by 2025 roughly one-fifth of U.S. grocery sales are expected to happen online. Now it’s time for technology vendors to step in with new innovations, so that the industry can continue to evolve. Here are five firms working to change the way we buy groceries right now.
Commentary
Check-Check-Check-Check-Check-Check in Everywhere
That terrible choice you had to make every time you wanted to check in (which service do I use?? Brightkite? Foursquare?) has been tackled by a few different players of late, including Footfeed and Check.in. No longer do you have to pick your favorite child – a nanny-app will log you into all at once. But Footfeed will help you get proper credit for those checkins – hey, become mayor/king/sultan/boss of your fave coffee shop all at once…
P-U! (That’s PatchU to You, Kid)
When we started our journalism career in the late 1980s we slugged it out with other hungry coeds for the few slots open at the local paper. A better time was never had – headlong into the Romantic World of Newspapering, we were. Assigned lightweight stories, we tried to turn into much more than they were in hopes of getting attention and even a Page 1 position. (We should also mention this was when we first used a modem to transmit text of the college paper to the print shop – a sort of magical event in those days). FF a couple decades and the print side of the news business is the same: filling holes around ever-fewer ads. And they are still looking for free(ish), energetic college kids to not only pick up the scraps but also learn to create a better future of journalism. Enter stage center in a puff of magic smoke: PatchU from Patch.com…
Latest Posts
5 Things SMBs Can Do to Optimize for Mobile Search
Recent data from Google found that 94% of smartphone users have searched for local information, 70% have called a business after searching, 66% visited in person, and 90% of these users acted within 24 hours. So what do SMBs need to do to ensure they’ll get calls from potential customers who are searching on mobile?
Case Study: Managing Online Reputation in a Healthcare Setting
As the healthcare industry evolves, it’s becoming increasingly common for physicians to utilize hyperlocal tools for both patient acquisition and retention. As the public relations director at Nova Medical Group, one of the largest integrative primary care practices in Northern Virginia, Melanie Schmidt is responsible for spearheading the group’s digital marketing initiatives. She works with hyperlocal vendors like Demandforce, CriticMania, and Binary Fountain on patient acquisition and retention efforts…
Street Fight Daily: PayPal Tracks You In-Store, Twitter Buys MoPub
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Now PayPal Aims To Track You In Real Life (AllThingsD)… Twitter Plans to Sell Ads for Other Companies With MoPub Acquisition (New York Times)… Foursquare Now Lets You Search for Individual Menu Items (Mashable)…
Placeable CEO: Local Directories May Die Off
Thanks to changing strategic incentives and evolving trends in the search market, Placeable’s CEO Ari Kaufman believes that Google may make changes to its local algorithm that work to push traffic directly to first parties, or keep traffic within its own ecosystem altogether. Street Fight caught up with Kaufman to talk about the state of the local search ecosystem, why Google might devalue directories, and what it means for large brands.
6 Ways Hyperlocal Publishers Can Take Advantage of Online Promotions
Local merchants are funneling an increasingly large share of their ad budgets toward online promotions, and hyperlocal publishers are well positioned to take advantage of this trend. Here are seven tips for how hyperlocal publishers and local media groups can best take advantage of the shift toward online promotions…
Street Fight Daily: Groupon Buys Booking App, Bing Adds Local Inventory
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Groupon Buys European Last-Minute Hotel Booking App Blink To Boost Its Travel Business (TheNextWeb)… Bing To Include Local Product Inventory In Search Results (SearchEngineLand)… Foursquare Touts 40M Users In Bid For Renewed Relevancy (CNet)…
Case Study: Boosting Customer Retention With a Card-Based Program
Local merchants need to keep their customer base in mind when deciding which hyperlocal loyalty platform to use. After experimenting with a mobile-only loyalty platform, Alex Su, the owner of Tpumps Tea Shop in San Mateo, Calif.,was surprised to learn that his customers weren’t as interested in earning rewards through their smartphones as he had previously thought. A different kind of loyalty program from FiveStars provided an alternative…
LBMA Podcast: Ubimo and Belly Funded, Foursquare’s Pro-active Recs
On the show: Foursquare’s proactive recommendations; McDonalds’ NFC Happy Table; JDS Uniphase launches Location Insight Services; 7Eleven invests in Belly with Andreessen Horowitz. Plus our featured app is CO Everywhere, our mobile minute with Chuck Martin looks at the biggest threat to your mobile strategy, and our special guest is journalist and author Nora Young…
Street Fight Daily: PayPal Redesigns App, Braintree’s on the Block
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… PayPal Refreshes Mobile App to Woo Shoppers and Fight Off Rivals (New York Times)… Braintree Is On The Block, Had Acquisition Talks With Square (TechCrunch)… Last-Minute Deal App HotelTonight Raises $45 Million (Wall Street Journal)…
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The Road Ahead: What Autonomous Cars Teach Us About Marketing Automation