Facebook Deals in Closed Down

Facebook has decided to shut down Facebook Deals, its four-month-old Groupon competitor.
“After testing Deals for four months, we’ve decided to end our Deals product in the coming weeks,” Facebook told Reuters in a statement.  The product, which launched in late April, was an attempt to bring the popular daily deals phenomenon to Facebook’s 750+ million users. It launched in San Francisco, Austin, Dallas, Atlanta and San Diego, but quickly rolled out to other cities.

 The market for daily deals has become more competitive in recent months, however, and many are questioning the entire business model in light of Groupon’s questionable financials.
“We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses,” Facebook said in its statement. “We’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.” We have reached out to Facebook for more information.

Google Maps Local

Smartphones Will Represent About 54.5% Of The Mobile Phone Market By 2015

Smartphones will represent around 54.5 percent of the mobile phone market by 2015, according to a study from research firm, IHS (formerly iSuppli.) They are forecasting global smartphone shipments of 1.03 billion in 2015 vs 478 million smartphones shipped in 2011. At present, smartphones have about 32.5 percent share of the market.

 The big growth is obviously going to come from low end of the market, and that’s going to help companies like Samsung (which owns its own Bada OS) to become a larger player in the market. IHS notes that during the second quarter of 2011, Samsung’s smartphone sales grew 600 percent sequentially, thanks to its low-end products targeting China and Latin America. IDC, another research firm, estimates Samsung sold about 17 million smartphones during the second quarter of this year.

 5 Trends in Mobile Marketing

Consumers Are Increasing Purchases On Their Mobile Device

Consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to buy goods and services, with two-thirds of surveyed smartphone owners using their handsets to make purchases, according to a study by L.E.K. Additionally, the study found that of the consumers who owned smartphones and used them for buying, 80 percent of them had used their handsets for product research. L.E.K. surveyed 1,600 consumers in the study.

 The study found that 39 percent of smartphone owners make purchases with their handheld devices once a month. Additionally, 60 percent of mobile owners use their smartphones to help them shop every month.

 The study broke down results to split between smartphone owners and active mobile consumers – users who engage with their devices to help make purchasing decisions. According to the study, more than two-thirds of active mobile consumers are 16 to 24 years old. Additionally, 31 percent of active mobile consumers are Baby Boomers and are aged 45 to 64 years old.

 The study also points to the rise of social media as a factor in driving mobile purchases. As a whole, mobile shoppers were more likely to be influenced by recommendations from friends, family and customer reviews than traditional promotion channels, including store displays and store associates.

 One of consumers’ main reasons for using mobile is to save money and find the best deals, per the study. The study found that 37 percent of active mobile consumers are willing to have brands track them so that they can get the best deals and offers. Additionally, more than half of active mobile consumers had used a mobile coupon app in the past six months in the study. Also in the past six months, almost one-third of active mobile consumers engaged with a price comparison tool, and 29 percent used a mobile loyalty program.

Click here for more on marketing strategic plans and mobile trends

Facebook Places - Rest In Peace

Rest in peace, Facebook Places. At least that's what all 6% of the people who actually used it might be saying. It looks like Foursquare is going to win the location-based check-in service battle, as Facebook announced yesterday it would be killing the Facebook Places check-in feature within its mobile app.

 Facebook's Places feature, released a year ago, was thought by many to be a viable competitor to other popular check-in apps like Foursquare and Gowalla,given Facebook's large user base. However, by last October, only about 6% of Facebook users were touching the service.

 Facebook did reveal that, while it is killing Places, it will optionally add locations to users' status updates or pictures. How useful will it be? Only time will tell, but we think not that useful.

 Other check-in applications like Foursquare and Gowalla are likely doing the opposite of mourning Facebook Places' death. Foursquare, which now has over 10 million users and more than half a million businesses offering deals in conjunction with check-ins, has been especially active lately, recently adding the ability for users to check-in to specific events rather than just the venues associated with them. The company has also partnered with several daily deals sites (LivingSocial, Gilt City, Zozi, AT&T Interactive, and BuyWithMe), providing better deals to customers that check-in.

  

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23555/Facebook-Kills-Places-Foursquare-and-Gowalla-Rejoice.aspx#ixzz1Vy15xYbE

Read more at local business listings

Why You Need A Local Search Strategy

Approximately four years ago, Google made a major change in their search engine results page by introducing a “Universal Search” system that blended listings with video, images and news results along with the sites it gathered from crawling web pages. Universal Search also accommodated the increase in searches for location-specific information. Instead of just searching “restaurants”, many people were searching “restaurants Louisville KY.” Search engines tested this new interest trend by placing a map and local listings at the top of the results page. Heat map reports showing how users absorb a search results page implied that users paid a good deal of attention to the map listings at the top of the page.

This research also indicates that users interact with map listings and organic search results more frequently than the paid ads. This change prompted Google to prioritize local search to the top of the search results page, and in time most engines followed suit.

Before the rise of local search, users had to enter a search term plus a geo-modifier (e.g., Louisville, Kentucky, 40299) in order to get location-specific search results. Today’s search algorithms take into account the IP address of the user, showing location-targeted results without the searcher requesting it. A search for just “dentists” from a computer in Louisville will pull up dental offices in the Louisville, KY area along with the general information pages.

Google experimented with how many local search listings to display in order to maximize user experience. Originally, only three local search listing results were displayed as flags next to the area map. Google tried increasing local map listings to a 10-pack, but found that searchers did not like how far down the page that moved organic search results. Research indicated that local searchers wanted a selection of map listings, but also valued the organic search listings. This led to the 7-pack format, which presented seven listings at the top of the search page.

The most recent iteration of Google’s local search display is called “Place Search.” This format combines the organic listings with local map listings and positions the map on the right panel. There is also an option to see only local listings by clicking the “Places” link in the left-hand panel. The latest iteration personalizes local search by allowing users to select their location to see local listings in any area, not just their current location. This change puts even more emphasis on local search results by showing more robust listings with pictures, meta descriptions and review quotes.

Bing and Yahoo have followed Google into local search marketing. However, all local search does not work the same and they have different algorithms to determine business rank. Obviously, you get more traffic if you are ranked on the first page of local search. To obtain a high ranking, you must build out your business listing using geotags, reviews, citations, product and service keywords and additional information.

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G3 Marketers is an internet marketing service that specializes in online marketing for local
businesses. G3 helps businesses get recognized through dynamic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Google Places Optimization (GPO) as well as Yahoo Local and Bing Local. In addition, G3 provides Social Media Marketing (SMM) services which includes strategically placing your product, service or brand in front of millions of web users that religiously participate in social networking.
This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com http://g3marketers.com

5 Trends in Mobile

Why your business needs to be thinking about mobile as an online marketing tool.

 http://g3marketers.com/2011/08/5-trends-in-mobile-marketing/

Local Marketers Can Use Facebook To Target Zip Codes

Now local marketers and small businesses can target specific zip codes with Facebook ads.  This will improve marketing to a specific target area (zip codes) to supplement local search marketings efforts.

http://g3marketers.com/2011/08/local-marketers-can-use-facebook-to-target-zip-codes/ 

Google Catalogs – A Free App for Tablet Devices

Google Catalogs offers a free digital catalog for consumers and businesses to showcase their company products online.

 http://g3marketers.com/2011/08/google-catalogs-a-free-app-for-tablet-devices/

Facebook Tips for Business

Facebook_Tips_for_Business.pdf Download this file

What does the new Places page say?

blumenthals.com-Places_By_Design__What_does_the_new_Places_page_say_about_Googles_intentions__Understanding_Google_Ma.pdf Download this file

How to Brand Your Business on Facebook

brandingonFB.pdf Download this file

Greg Pugh

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