Kelsey Local Media Blog
In the diverse yet confusing local advertising ecosystem, the new mandate calls for media companies to engage local business clients with holistic solutions that engage their customers in new ways. Deals and mobile optimization have received the lion’s share of…
Mobile is playing an increasingly large role for deal a day, with some companies seeing it accounting for 20 percent to 25 percent of their traffic. But making transactions from mobile devices remains a work in progress. There is apparently…
LivingSocial stepped up to the plate Thursday with the ultimate daily deal. On the blog this week, Peter tells us that for every $5 donated for Japan Relief to the U.S. Red Cross, LivingSocial will match it.
Social dominated much of the news this week. I looked at how Google slowly continues to reveal its social search strategy, while Jed summarized Google’s Marissa Mayer’s keynote at South By Southwest (SXSE), the focus on Hotpot.
Jed wrapped up our continuous coverage of SXSW from the check-ins to the daily deals and how Twitter continues to save broadcast TV. (What a week.) Wait, there’s more. Mike told us about the mobile and social scene at ILM East, and Peter dealt us the details on Yellowbook’s Pat Marshall.
Here’s what we uncovered this week out there in the socialsphere:
Nobody Ever Gets Fired for Hiring Gilbert Gottfried
What happens when word come across on Twitter or Facebook as “tasteless, inappropriate and insensitive”? Aflac and Chrysler Group struggled to answer that question this week, according to Stuart Elliott. He tells us one expert calls it the “amplified effect” of social media and provides insight on what to do if it happens to you.
Eventbrite Director of Marketing Tamara Mendelsohn told us at SxSW Interactive that because "events are inherently social," the online events organizer and ticketing exchange in uniquely positioned to leverage social media to allow literally anyone to post and share events. But Mendelsohn's…
Here's a good deal: Donate $5 for Japan Relief to the U.S. Red Cross, and LivingSocial will match it (up to $1 million). If you are already registered with LivingSocial, it's as easy as 1-2-3. "Due to Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake,…
Jordan Muela pointed out a new Google Social Search feature showing up in the SERPs. As you can see from the screenshot Google appears to be asking searchers to link their Twitter profile to their Google profile by encouraging discovery…
It's hard work distilling 20,000 people, hundreds of sessions, droves of start-ups, seemingly endless parties and even a Mike Tyson cameo into a cliffs notes recap of SxSW Interactive. Not that anyone is shedding any tears for me. America loves lists…
With 300,000 delivery and takeout restaurants in the U.S., the online food ordering space is definitely heating up, with New York Magazine’s MenuPages launching in many markets, and allmenus.com still playing (although with leadership changes). Now coming on strong is…
In the first of many possible partnerships with local media companies, Centro has teamed up with Morris Digital Works to create a network that allows advertisers to place geo- and vertical- based ads across a broad spectrum of local and…
SCVNGR “chief ninja” Seth Priebatsch and Gowalla CEO Josh Williams both employ game mechanics to elevate their location-based services, and both believe that gaming’s inherent fun factor can motivate more important behaviors, including social good. But that’s where the similarities…
The Internet Yellow Pages business model has largely refocused on hosting small-business websites, and upselling from that position. At least, it has for Yellowbook. Yellowbook Chief New Media Officer Pat Marshall, speaking at the recent Borrell conference in New York,…
Last year, a deal-a-day panel at SxSW Interactive might have been relegated to a satellite campus (read: off-the-beaten-path Austin hotel). Two years ago, it may not have existed at all. But in 2011, group buying is a $1.2 billion market…
On the blog this week, Mike B. covered the big news about Foursquare’s new app and introduced us to Lolay. Jed shared some thoughts about the deal between Bing and The Dealmap to aggregate deals while AT&T announced its own group buying platform as did The NY Times. Jed also answered some questions about social media data from last week’s webinar and I previewed DemandForce’s new Facebook product.
And we shouldn’t pass up pointing to Charles’ post on the survey from Suffolk University that suggests the most overlooked element of small-business marketing is the uniform. The survey found 80% of general building contractors believe their uniform was more effective than Internet advertising. Really, no fooling.
Here’s what we uncovered this week out there in the socialsphere:
What the $%@! Did Your Agency Just Tweet?
Chrysler had to fire its social media agency for tweeting smack about Detroit. No bail out for that tweeter.
Citibank Goes Long on Social
Citibank’s CEO spent a fair amount of his company’s annual report talking about how it needs to embrace social media (and make money), not necessarily in that order of course.
SCVNGR Combines Groupon and Foursquare
LevelUp, a new service from SCVNGR, teaches marketers how to combine game dynamics, social media and location-based services to turn customers into regulars, according to Erica Naone. SCVNGR, financed in part by Google Ventures, makes location-based services a game.
The deal-a-day space has gotten more interesting, as major media companies are diving in for their share of the action. Today The New York Times, Comcast’s Daily Candy, Thrillist and Meredith Corp. announced they’d use the deal-a-day platform provided by…
The Scandinavian directory and local search player Eniro has unveiled a pay-per-click advertising network, which it calls Scandinavian Ad Networks. The product leverages traffic from Eniro's own properties (including eniro.se, gulesider.no, krak.dk, and kvasir.no) as well as third-party partner sites…
I first came across DemandForce because it was popping up in Google Maps a couple of years ago. DemandForce was started in 2003 by Rick Berry and Sam Osman to help dentists and auto shops market themselves online. Today, with more than 7,000 clients across a variety of local service verticals, it is a fast-growing local SMB software service company located in the Bay Area. I caught up with Bonnie Wang, DF’s manager of professional services, at SMX West today to get an idea of DemandForce Connect For Facebook, its recently launched social media service.
DF has three apps that help customers generate more demand from Facebook. People can request an appointment via the SMB’s Facebook page with DF’s Easy Scheduler app. Once a customer makes an appointment, it shows up in the SMB’s DemandForce dashboard and will show the source of the lead. Currently more than 1,000 DF clients are using this app. According to Wang, those businesses that are active on Facebook are seeing the greatest use of the app by customers.
Speaking at the Credit Suisse Global Media & Communications Convergence Conference held in Miami, Florida, this week, Ted Cohen (Tag Strategic), Harry DeMott (Raptor Capital Management) and Eyal Goldwerger (TargetSpot) all agreed with Cohen's assertion that localization, personalization and recommendation…
Telmetrics announced today that it has been chosen by Yelp to run the site's call measurement. This includes reporting to advertisers the volume of calls they received through the site (involving unique tracking numbers). According to the press release: Telmetrics’…
Last week, the latest spree of entrants forayed into the deal-a-day arena, with AT&T and The New York Times announcing group buying platforms that appear to be almost identical to those popularized by Groupon and LivingSocial. The most interesting of the…
Social media? Overrated. Search marketing? Yesterday's news. Yellow Pages? Seriously? The real small-business marketing silver bullet is, apparently, the uniform. Yes, we're talking blue-work-shirt-with-a- logo-and-a-name tag uniform. According to a recent survey, conducted at Suffolk University's Sawyer Business School, the…
