Online Reviews Providing Insights That Help Brands Compete
The evidence is in. Reviews on social media have a material impact on the capital investments made by nationwide brands. The key is strength in numbers: A national brand will be more likely to have the critical mass of reviews required in order to move beyond anecdotal evidence and glean statistically significant results.
Closely Raises $3M to Turn Its Social Analytics App Into a Business
Closely, the maker of Perch, a social analytics app for small businesses, has raised $3 million in a series A round of funding led by Grotech ventures. Amid a chaotic local marketing industry, the company has quietly built out a novel business model which draws on learnings from the consumer world to solve one of the most dire problems in the business technology industry: selling to small businesses…
Street Fight Daily: Yodle Plans IPO, Uber Tests Courier Service
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Online Advertising Company Yodle Planning IPO This Year (Wall Street Journal)… Uber Expands Into Courier Service With Manhattan-Only Pilot (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Facebook Wants to Turn 25 Million Small Businesses Into Advertisers (AdAge)…
Street Fight Daily: Uber’s Street Fight, The Decline of Alt- Weeklies
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology.… Uber, Taxis Engage in French Street Fight (Wall Street Journal)… How the Village Voice and Other Alt-Weeklies Lost Their Voice in 2013 (Al Jazeera America)… Foursquare Quietly Unlocks Its Own “Local Data Aggregator” Badge (Moz Blog)…
Is Content King in Local Too?
In the pantheon of buzzwords overtaking pitch decks and CMO-speak, “content marketing” is the new darling. The term has legitimate grounding to be fair, but like “long tail” and “web 2.0” in days past, its overuse precedes it. Content marketing also isn’t anything new — it’s been done for years, albeit under the ethically challenged “advertorial” rubric among other flavors. Now it’s new, improved, and hitched to en vogue terms like “native.”
Openings & New Hires at Yelp, Groupon, Local.com, Viddy and more
It is indeed hiring season! Who are the eager employers? Nokia, DexOne, Yelp, Hibu, CityGrid, Local.com and Street Fight among them (us). On the move this week include executives at Local Market Launch, Groupon, Acquisio and Viddy, where the son of Michael Ovitz has faced some controversy over his company’s distribution techniques. Plus, find out who’s looking to make the leap. Read on…
SMBs on Mobile: Questions of Analytics and Performance
The proliferation of mobile apps for local continues, with all major local search players maintaining their own apps, and Apple’s App Store currently returning 347 results for the phrase “local search.” With all of this attention, the time is not far away when businesses will begin to get concerned about the presence, accuracy, and effectiveness of their listings on mobile apps. I’d love to see a service that aims at comprehensive analysis of SMB presence across the “app space” for Android and Apple…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Buys Qype, SMBs Warm to Facebook
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp Buys Website Qype for $50 Million to Grow in Europe (Bloomberg Businessweek)… Local Businesses Start Warming Up To Facebook Ads: 300K Tried Promoted Posts, 75K Were New Advertisers (TechCrunch)… Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Preparing for an Online Christmas (AllThingsD)…
Five 360-Degree Marketing Platforms for SMBs
One way that SMBs can cut down on the time they spend creating and managing their hyperlocal marketing campaigns is by signing up for a 360-degree platform that brings many of the most popular digital marketing tools under one roof. Here are five comprehensive platforms that small businesses can use to streamline their online marketing efforts…
Closely Launches Business Intelligence App for Local Merchants
Closely, a Denver-based startup that has created an online marketing dashboard for small businesses, has launched a mobile business intelligence app that aggregates nearby competitors’ deal and social media activity in a live stream. The new product, Perch, which is currently in a closed beta, is intended to give local merchants a snapshot update of their competitors’ marketing activities…
Street Fight Brings Popular Summit to San Francisco!
On June 5, hyperlocal’s brightest minds will converge on the Bently Reserve in downtown San Francisco for Street Fight Summit West, the first West Coast conference produced by Street Fight. Confirmed speakers and attendees include some of the top thinkers in hyperlocal. Early bird tickets are available at a 50% discount for a limited time…
Yext’s IPO Could Raise All Boats in Local — And Herald Consolidation
While the company’s long-anticipated announcement yesterday didn’t come as a huge surprise for those following local, the news that it was imminent still packed a punch. So we asked several luminaries to weigh in on what the offering might portend for the broader industry.