Tag: Local Discovery

Microsoft Tests Chatbot Integration In Bing Search Results

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Microsoft is planning to add chatbots to the search results on Bing.com to drive conversations. The company has been testing this integration in Seattle. Local users near the Redmond, Washington Microsoft headquarters began to see a bot button in search results for local restaurants, prompting them to learn more about the restaurants via a chatbot.

What Brands Need To Do
Putting chatbots into local search results is a great way to allow customers to quickly connect with businesses for additional information or making reservations. This replaces the need to call the restaurants, thus relieving the workload in customer service for the local businesses. A recent study found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly with new messaging features, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide better customer service.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive knowledge about reaching consumers on mobile messaging apps and building branded chatbots. The NiroBot we build in collaboration with Ansible for Kia delivers comprehensive product information about the all-new Niro model via friendly chats. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

How Brands Can Benefit From “Yelp Knowledge” Social Analytics Program

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Yelp is launching a “Yelp Knowledge” program to help brands with multiple store locations get a more comprehensive idea of what their customers are saying online. Brands that join this program will gain access to Yelp’s dataset of “over 100 million reviews and 12 years of historical data for local analytics and insights.” The company is also expanding the group of third-party companies that can directly access its complete reviews data, adding Medallia, Reputology, and Revinate to the list.

What Brands Need To Do
According to a recent study by Google, 74% of local searches result in same-day store visits and 28% of those searchers made a purchase. As an integral part of the local search ecosystem, Yelp reviews have a strong impact on how local businesses are perceived by prospective customers. Therefore, this new program and extended third-party service access should come as welcome news for brands that manage multiple locations, particularly those in the QSR and retail verticals, to tap into Yelp’s vast dataset of customer feedback to identify and act on opportunities for improvements at each store.

Source: Marketing Land

Pinterest Goes Hyperlocal By Adding Location Data To Its Pins

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Tuesday, Pinterest introduced an update to its Place Pins feature, which automatically expanded location data to approximately 7 billion pins. When users save a Place Pin, its app now shows a map with other pins saved from the same location and nearby. Designed to increase its local discovery capability, the updated pins with geo-tags will also allow users to get directions through Google and Apple maps, call a local merchant, or check reviews from previous visitors.

What Brands Need To Do
Pinterest has long enjoyed its reputation among social networks as a “Sales Conversion Powerhouse,” beating all other social media sites in U.S. ecommerce conversion rate and accounted for 22 percent more sales than Facebook despite far fewer users, according to a 2014 study by Shopify. Therefore, local businesses should consider leveraging this new feature on Pinterest to organically reach new customers by correctly indexing the location information of their businesses and creating appealing Place Pins for their products and storefronts.

 

Source: The Next Web