Confession of a Local Guide, Google’s push for privacy, SMB Platforms for marketing & ops automation

Send us Fan MailMike discusses his journey down the gamified rabbithole of the wildly successful Google Local Guides program, how the program promotes quantity over quality and why every business needs to not let their brand be controlled by the likes of the Local Guides.   SMBS have traditionally relied on best of breed SAAS point solutions to solve their pre-sale, in house and post-sale needs. Now the major SMB platforms are now converging on high quality capabilities across all three areas PLUS integrating with the likes of Google.  This allows the SMB to use one piece of software and achieve the gains of automation across the whole of their search, operations and customer experience needs. Google held its annual Google Marketing Live event this week. There were many ads related announcements involving automation, simplification and reach. Google's "open" commerce strategy is aimed squarely at Amazon, utilizing Google's various properties for product visibility. Throughout Google was constantly (and perhaps hypocritically) beating on the privacy drum. The Near Memo is a weekly conversation about Search, Social, and Commerce: What happened, why it matters, and the implications for local businesses and national brands.    Subscribe to our newsletters and other content at https://www.nearmedia.co/subscribe/