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Demanding accountability in local advertising
The Business Insider report that local merchants can purchase a Google Adwords ad at 1/10 the price on Patch.com’s rate card, and still get Patch.com placement isn’t a revelation. It confirms the...
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The new local apps as lead gen machines
The typical online strategy for small business is to set up a website, a Facebook page and maybe a Twitter account to broadcast the day’s deal or menu item. The marketing method is essentially passive...
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Community Generated Acts of Kindness
“Smart mobs”, the title of Howard Rheingold’s 2002 tome, is a term first used to describe group activity coordinated by real time communication technologies; in 2002, it was cell phones. Fast forward a...
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How media is nurturing its own startups
With a few notable exceptions, major media companies have not been known for their innovation in the digital age. After first spending years with their heads under the sand pretending that online media...
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The Shared Economy needs Couriers
Up to now, the local retailers’ value proposition has been “if you need it now, come pick it up now”. With online commerce, consumers will trade off a lower price for the delayed gratification of days...
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Social Media Marketing and Vendor Fatigue
One of the main themes of Street Fight Summit West (SFSW) this week was the complex state of social media marketing for small business. This well-pinned chart explaining the social marketing landscape...
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How Content Tools Unleash Social Media
Rebelmouse, the creation of Paul Berry, ex-CTO of the Huffington Post, is a publishing platform that curates articles from the tweets, retweets and links from Twitter and Facebook accounts and displays...
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Twitter as Hyperlocal Media Utility
Communities need bulletin boards. You see them around town with thumbtacked flyers and business cards. Today, hyperlocal “shared economy” startups like NextDoor and Taskrabbit are proliferating with...
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Can Local Online Media Rid Itself of Bad Advertising?
“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera (h/t to Dalton Caldwell)...
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Startups Compete to Connect Neighbors — But Beware the ‘Empty Room
A number of new hyperlocal apps have popped up recently to facilitate neighbors’ conversations with one other. NextDoor just raised an additional $18.6 million for the purpose of getting neighbors...
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How Can Hyperlocal Companies Crack the Local Sales Code?
TechCrunch reported Sunday that Plum District, the daily deals site for moms, recently laid off many of their regional sales managers, pivoting away from local sales to instead focus on delivering more...
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Extending User Reviews to Places, Block by Block
We’ve become used to reviews of establishments on web services like Yelp, but there are also a number of hyperlocal services that have popped up to allow users to rate neighborhoods and create profiles...
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TurnHere Becomes Local Photo/Video Marketplace SmartShoot
Since the Yellow Pages first appeared in 1883, consumers have been conditioned to search for local service providers they need. Today’s online review tools and directories like YP.com, Angieslist and...
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Hyperlocal Retail Directories Go After ‘Shop Local’ Consumers
Online commerce not only competes on price with local retail these days, it’s also curating and recommending products like the department store buyer once did. Fab.com and Etsy have succeeded by...
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How SMBs Can Take Advantage of the Holiday Shopping Season
With the holiday shopping season starting this week, small businesses more than ever need to position themselves as go-to purchase destinations over big retailers like Walmart and Amazon. Here is a...
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SMB Social Media Is All About Branding, Not Conversions
Social media marketing has long been criticized by small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) for its inability to deliver a quantifiable return on investment. And as IBM’s Black Friday 2012 report...
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What Kinds of Mobile Ads Are Most Effective?
Mobile advertising has long been trumpeted as the next big thing, with analysts touting a new global channel of smartphones and tablets now ready to push more-relevant targeted ads to happy consumers....
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Social Media’s Strength is Brand Advocacy
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how social media was best used for brand marketing but not for driving transactions. Monday’s WSJ article “Now on Twitter: Holiday Shopping Deals” illustrates how some...
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Four Hyperlocal Trends to Watch in 2013
2012′s rush to capture the hyperlocal audience has begun to wane as the reality sets in that while the online SMB market is huge and untapped, it remains hard to get those mom and pop outfits to spend...
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Local Listings Spread — From One Site to Hundreds
One recurring theme at last week’s Street Fight Summit concerned the ongoing project of creating, organizing, and aggregating data and content associated with location. As more consumers find SMBs via...
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