Digital Marketing News: Location3 Partners With Google For Franchise Summit

Every week we’re collecting a host of links, videos, and assorted analysis on the ever-changing world of digital marketing. We invite you to skim, share, analyze, argue, and refute – just so long as you don’t get embarrassed at the water cooler again. Here are the latest digital marketing news and trends for the week of October 12, 2018.

Location3 Partners With Google for Franchise Growth Summit

Last week we had the opportunity to co-host the inaugural “Franchise & Multi-Location Growth Summit” with our great partners at Google, located at their newest PartnerPlex in Redwood City, CA.

Bringing together thought leaders from the digital industry, Google and Location3 marketing experts and executive marketing teams from some of the world’s most recognizable brands, the 2018 Franchise Growth Summit offered a unique opportunity for those in attendance to learn how they can better integrate enterprise and localized marketing strategies to drive increases in revenue for their businesses and store locations.

The two-day event was jumpstarted by opening keynotes from Google’s Bob Dillon (Managing Director, Americas Agency Development) and Location3’s Alex Porter (CEO & CFE), as they each discussed how the changing nature of the consumer journey requires marketers to continually evolve core strategies and tactics in an effort to engage with savvier customers.

Each keynote truly set the stage for what became an inspiring, informative event that included round-table sessions, panel discussions with brand marketers in attendance and other featured sessions on topics including marketing attribution.

Initial takeaways from attendees included comments like “the event was a great place to get franchise marketers together to network, talk shop, troubleshoot, and collaborate on ideas,” and “I found the Summit informative and thought-provoking. I wish I had more time to network!”

Stay tuned to our blog for a full recap of the Summit coming soon, complete with interviews and comments from attendees and hosts alike in addition to a sneak peek at Google’s newest campus location!

How Restaurants and QSRs Can Capitalize on Near Me Searches

Despite the e-commerce hype, brick-and-mortar businesses are still the most popular option among consumers.

Consumers are using mobile devices, however, to research and find the products they want to purchase. This is especially true for those looking for restaurants. These consumers often are intending to make purchases immediately or within 24 hours and finding their preferred option via “near me” searches.

So how can restaurants and QSRs capture these potential customers and ultimately increase revenue? Location3 Director of Marketing Josh Allen give us a few strategies to increase your restaurant’s online visibility in order to drive customers through your doors. Here’s an excerpt from the post:

“When mobile users search for local business information on Google Search or Maps, the results are often displayed in what is called the Google Knowledge Graph. This information can contain key business details such as address, phone number, hours of operation, business photos and much, much more. As Knowledge Graph features continue to evolve and expand, there becomes less of a need for consumers to visit your own brand or franchise website because customers can find all of the information they need to make a purchasing decision without ever leaving the Google interface.”

For more analysis and easy tips, the entire post can be read here via Franchising USA Magazine.

Google Announces Sunsetting of Google Plus

Google announced this week it’s sunsetting the Google+ social network for consumers over the coming months. This comes after disclosing that it found a security bug that allowed the 438 apps using the API to access personal profile information from nearly 500,000 users. Google claims that there’s no evidence of malicious use of this data, but its decision to not disclose the bug to the public has come under fire. The bug, increased scrutiny, and the failure of Google+ has forced Google to ditch the social network that was introduced in June 2011.

Google will still be investing in Google+ for enterprise customers, where Google says it is “seeing growth and our customers are seeing great value.” This continued investment appears to be focused on enhancing the internal communication experience for enterprise users.

What does this mean for brands with Google+ accounts?

  • Google+ pages will go away in the next 10 months. Check to see if your brand pages still exist and weren’t deleted for being orphaned.
  • Many Google+ Pages for businesses that are inactive may have been shuttered while others may have been automatically pulling data from Google My Business.
  • With all of the confusion over the years about Google+, Google+ Local, Google+ Business, Google+ shutting down should not affect anything in Google My Business.

We’ll be following up when Google announces how users can download their data and content in the coming months.

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