Weekly News: Insights from Amazon, What SMB Customers Want, Average Time Spent with Mobile

Here is this week’s roundup of the top news items related to local marketing and advertising, local media, technology, local commerce, consumer behavior and more.

Insight & Commentary

Hey, Alexa! 4 Insights from Amazon’s Chief Evangelist for Alexa and Echo (June 4, 2019) LSA Insider: “With over one-hundred million Alexa enabled devices, it’s not breaking news that Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant has opened a new world for both brands and consumers. But… how does Alexa work? And, how can brands survive and thrive in the voice-search revolution? I recently sat down with Amazon’s Chief Evangelist for Alexa and Echo, Dave Isbitski, as part of our LEADERS podcast to get answers to these questions and more.” Assistance from Assistants — Local Business Get Ready to Accept Calls from Google Assistant (May 31, 2019) LSA Insider: “In May of 2018, Google announced a new voice technology that helps consumers call a business called Google Duplex. I have been an enthusiast of Google devices and an ardent fan of Google Fi (Google’s MVNO — cell phone service) and my Google Pixel phone.” Behind the Rise of Data Transparency (June 4, 2019) Street Fight: “Brands’ appetite for actionable insights has turned consumer data into a hot commodity. This year alone, marketers will spend $15 billion on data — nearly $50 per American. But with an endless supply of consumer information, companies should remember to use it wisely. In an era of security breaches and growing customer distrust, data transparency is just as important as the data’s purpose.”

Strategy & Tactics

LOCALOGY ENGAGE 19: SMBs — Our Time Is the New ROI (June 6, 2019) LSA Insider: “LSA just wrapped LOCALOGY ENGAGE in Washington DC. Day one of the 2-day event brought together local SaaS technology providers with the SMBs they serve, in order to facilitate a direct conversation between them. One of highlights of the event was a small business roundtable at the end of the first day.” IAB releases Augmented Reality for Marketing playbook (June 5, 2019) Marketing Land: “Augmented reality (AR) is becoming increasingly popular among consumers — and increasingly more available to marketers as a creative channel for reaching them. The technology is applied in a wide variety across marketing channels and is widely available to consumers — all they need is a mobile device with a camera and your application.” A marketer’s guide to the California Consumer Privacy Act (June 3, 2019) MarTech Today: “Marketers should focus on the toughest privacy frameworks and try to work toward multi-jurisdictional compliance to demonstrate goodwill toward becoming compliant.”

Stats & Studies

LOCALOGY ENGAGE 19: What Do Your Small-Business Customers Want? (June 6, 2019) LSA Insider: “At this week’s LOCALOGY ENGAGE: SaaS/SMB event, I unveiled our new Modern Commerce Monitor™ (formerly Tech Adoption Index) SMB survey data using this three-part framework to explain what we’ve learned about small business consumption of cloud software over four waves of data since 2017.” 80% of Voice Search Answers Are From Top 3 Organic Results  (June 6, 2019) Search Engine Journal: “A recent study on voice search indicates that content is more likely to be returned for a query if it ranks in the top 3 web search positions. SEMRush conducted an in-depth analysis of over 50,000 queries to find out which are the most essential ranking factors behind voice search.” Average US Time Spent with Mobile in 2019 Has Increased (June 4, 2019) eMarketer: “For the first time ever, US consumers will spend more time using their mobile devices than watching TV, with smartphone use dominating that time spent.”

Industry News

Foursquare Buys Placed, Paving Way for More Consolidation (May 31, 2019) LSA Insider: “Last night the news broke that Foursquare was buying a major competitor, Placed. Placed had been owned by social network Snap, which acquired it in 2017 for roughly $125 million. Snap either couldn’t figure out how to fully benefit from the acquisition or decided it no longer needed Placed.” Replay: The Future of Search and Why Local is So Important (May 31, 2019) LSA Insider: “During the LSA’s most recent webinar, Duane Forrester of Yext discussed the future of search and the four major trends that are driven by platform change. He explained what the search engines are most focused on, as well as how businesses can prepare themselves to succeed in this evolving environment.” Facebook Makes it Easier to Create Video Ads Out of Static Images (June 4, 2019) Search Engine Journal: “Facebook is adding new features to its Video Creation Kit which simplify the process of creating mobile video ads. Introduced last year, Facebook’s Video Creation Kit is a tool that allows businesses to take static images and convert them into a video ad.”

Member News

Moz Expands Partner Ecosystem, Delivers Best-of-Breed Local Presence Management & SEO (June 4, 2019) Business Wire: “Moz, Inc. today announced the expansion of its Partner Ecosystem. Uberall, Web.com, and SinglePlatform join the ecosystem to offer customers an expansion of best-in-class resources.” Google to buy unified data platform Looker for $2.6 billion to strengthen Cloud analytics (June 6, 2019) MarTech Today: “Earlier today, Google announced plans to acquire unified data and analytics platform Looker for $2.6 billion in an all-cash transaction. Once the deal is complete later this year, Looker will join Google Cloud.”

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