Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Loci 2012- Justin Sanger
Justin is the Founder and CEO of SupportLocal. He is recognized as a long-time innovator and leader in local search and social. In 2003, he founded LocalLaunch, a leading search engine marketing platform and products company. LocalLaunch was acquired by RH Donnelley/Dex One in 2006. Speaking around the world on the topics of local search and social, Justin has over 15 years of local search marketing leadership experience.
Justin is one of the smartest guys around and he thinks a lot about the big picture in local. His ideas are worth listening to.
***********
TOP TRENDS IN LOCAL SEARCH 2012
GOOGLE AUTHORSHIP AS A STANDARD
Authorship must be part of the social search convergence dialogue as validated authoritative content mixes with our friend’s preferences in a dual for the best answer to user queries.
THE CONVERGENCE OF SEARCH AND SOCIAL
Today, the marketing funnel opens right back up post transaction (an hour glass) as the business has an opportunity to move the customer into a connection and potentially into an advocate – in turn, informing discovery.
SOCIAL SIGNALS BECOME CRITICAL COMPONENTS TO RANK AND PERSUASION
Increasingly social signals will affect discoverability and buying decisions, as one’s social network will provide us with a necessary qualitative checks and balances on the best answer. What was a sufficient product approach to local search discovery over the last decade is no longer sufficient.
THE BIRTH OF G+ LOCAL
As G+ Local converges with G Places pages, we are witnessing a new publishing format that seeks to solve both directional intent and social engagement functions. Combining discovery (pre-transactional activity) with engagement (post-transactional) activity, we have given birth to new forms of business profile structures and responsibilities for businesses and vendors alike.
SELF-PROVISIONING BECOMES A REALITY FOR SMBS WITH FACEBOOK PAGES
Hockey stick adoption of Facebook business pages amongst SMBs demonstrates willingness to self-provision but yields a non-qualitative data by-product and an “okay now what” demand for social marketing services.
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT IS NOT TREATED EQUAL
We have come to understand that for businesses “social engagement” is a highly variant and for most, a discretionary condition. Tremendous use case differences lie in customer transaction types amongst verticals (ex. Repeat vs. recurring) that has a profound impact on the form and nature of social engagement strategies.
AND THEN THERE WERE THREE: GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, and APPLE
The rise of mobile usage in local search, the introduction of Apple maps and the meteoric rise of social for SMBs sets the battleground for years to come in local search.
THE DEATH OF DAILY DEALS
Need I say more.
THE RISE OF CONSUMER PREFERENCE FRAGMENTATION
Consumer preference as expressed by Likes, +1s, Check-ins, Reviews, Recommendations and more continue to splinter by type, medium, and site. Products of tomorrow will attempt to consolidate local preference of consumers and in turn will give the majors what they seek – a scalable local social layer to search.
2012 – ONE WORD – TRUST
Local search is no longer just about answers – it is about trusted answers.
© Copyright 2024 - MIKE BLUMENTHAL, ALL RIGHT RESERVED.
Comments
2 Comments
Justin:
I enjoy following your insights and comments. I’d enjoy them more if you wrote more simply.
though when you get down to your summary….”One Word – Trust”
aint it the truth.
Interesting thoughts but I disagree that social is the future. I know popular media wants everyone to believe that our future hinges on social and that Facebook, Google+, and Twitter are the end all be all of online existence but in reality I just do not see it from a local marketing standpoint nor from a long term FB/ G corporate plan (even though they think it is right now).
Social marketing is uniquely different from standard directory marketing in that the two are completely different methodologies.
Push vs Pull:
Standard directories being a “pull” type of marketing where you put the information out there in a way that allows buyers to find you. On the opposite end you have social which is more of a “push” type of marketing where you are actively convincing/ selling a product or service.
It is more expensive to push than it is to pull because you are throwing more money (time and effort) to reach the individuals who are potential leads versus pull where you simply cast a net and let the fish come to you.
So what?
Facebook and Google are public companies that need these crazy multiples of growth. As companies find that push marketing via the social channels is more expensive and time consuming they will probably scale back and adjust their strategies. They might find that their advertising dollars are better spent on other mediums that operate in a pull manner. In the end this change in advertising (ie loss of revenue) will force management to adjust the Social push.
What does this mean for LSEO?
This is a dying industry folks. You can not market a service that you can not control. With the rapid and erratic changes being implemented by the big boys we all face a real threat to our services. You have probably already started offering a broader range of services above and beyond the LSEO. How many of you are starting to market yourselves as “Social Experts”? And how many of you that are “Social Experts” have found it to be more expedient to simply advise rather than actually do the social work?
Social is hard to do and much harder to do right. Once businesses go through the social test and realize this you will see advertising dollars moving away from the medium into other channels. From there FB, G, and others will be on to the next new thing.
Comments for this post are closed.