Local listings management is table stakes for businesses big and small. But the way local data is processed by big platforms is complex and often results in inaccurate information, duplicates and other inconsistencies. The result is low visibility, bad location data or a generally less than optimal consumer experience. In a recent LSA webinar, David Turner…
Search results on Google have come a long way from a list of links. Today the SERPs enable all kinds of commerce activities like restaurant reservations, scheduling haircuts, click to call, shopping, and more. Earlier this week the company announced yet another action: reserving/booking unique experiences. From booking an urban kayaking experience, to signing up…
We’ve all read the headlines of the retail apocalypse and Amazon’s unstoppable disruption of the space. But according to Lastmile Retail and Yext, their work with a major telecom carrier paints a very different picture that highlights a key advantage that brick and mortar retailers can leverage online to fight back – their in store…
Machine learning and automation are changing the dynamics of delivering marketing services to both small businesses and enterprises alike. Do automated campaign creation and optimization represent “an existential threat”? How should agencies respond and what areas and tasks should they focus on to avoid being commoditized or replaced? During a recent webinar, Greg Sterling of…
Personalization has been a buzzword for several years, but one hears it even more these days. It can mean different things in different contexts. In the most sophisticated ad or marketing scenarios, personalization is driven by lots of data, including location history. In other words, my real-world behavior and visitation history informs the audience segment I’m bucketed in…
Multi-location brands are missing a major opportunity if they aren’t fully utilizing local Pages for each of their stores, restaurants or business locations. Data show brands will see more engagement and organic reach with a local strategy than with a single, corporate account. But the two strategies are complementary. During a recent webinar, SOCi‘s CMO Monica Ho…
It’s not clear how much small business (SMB) awareness or grass roots demand there is for listings and local data syndication to smart speakers. But DexYP is wisely getting ahead of the curve and utilizing Yext’s direct data feed to Alexa to get its customers in front of smart speaker users. Roughly two weeks ago…
The first Apple Store opened in 2001 in Northern Virginia. Apple’s physical retail locations have been a critical and undeniable part of the company’s subsequent success. Eight years later, in 2009, Microsoft opened its first retail store. Now Google is finally going to take the plunge and open a “flagship store” in Chicago’s Fulton Market district. According to the The Chicago Tribune,…
On August 1, Google confirmed the release of a broad core algorithm update. Since the announcement, the update is being dubbed the “Medic Update” because of its apparent emphasis on the health and medical spaces. However, according to Google liaison Danny Sullivan, this is a “global” change that doesn’t single out any specific vertical. Moz…
Smart speakers and virtual assistants are not an over-hyped “shiny new object” technology platform. They are gaining rapid adoption and also influencing behaviors on other media channels: motivating more voice search on smartphones for example. Various analyst projections and estimates put the number of smart speakers (and virtual assistants) in US homes at around 43 – 50 million…
