The FTC Bans Fake Reviews in New Ruling

Fake reviews have plagued the digital marketplace for years, deceiving consumers and undermining honest businesses. After more than a year since its proposal, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved a new rule that aims to end these deceptive practices.

The FTC’s new rule, designed to combat fake reviews, targets several deceptive practices. 

1. Businesses can no longer create, buy, sell, or share false reviews, including AI-generated. 
2. Companies are prohibited from paying or rewarding individuals for leaving positive reviews. 
3. Any connections between the reviewer and the business must be disclosed. 
4. Businesses are barred from using legal threats to coerce individuals into removing negative reviews.
5. The new rule also outlaws buying or selling fake likes, followers, or views on social media platforms. 

The FTC’s ban on fake reviews is a significant step towards creating a more transparent and honest digital marketplace. 

Why This Matters 

For marketers, this regulation means a shift in focus towards building genuine customer relationships and fostering trust through authentic feedback. Businesses must audit their current review acquisition practices to ensure compliance. 

Additionally, businesses must develop strategies for handling negative feedback, such as deploying surveys to solicit feedback privately and responding to negative online reviews. Adapting to these regulations helps avoid fines, builds consumer trust, and enhances brand reputation.

Combating negative reviews also falls on tech companies and local directories. For instance, in 2023, Google removed 45% more fake reviews than the year before. In 2022, Tripadvisor found fake reviews represented 4.37% or 1.3 million of all submissions.

Google Rolls Out Gemini Live 

Gemini Live is Google’s latest innovation, designed to provide a seamless, conversational AI experience on mobile devices. Unlike traditional digital assistants, Gemini Live offers more natural, intuitive interactions, enabling users to conduct free-flowing conversations. 

One feature that differentiates Gemini Live is its hands-free operation. Users can interact with Gemini even when their phone is locked, or the app runs in the background, making it ideal for multitasking scenarios. This feature is particularly beneficial for marketers who often juggle multiple tasks and need quick, reliable answers without interrupting their workflow.

Courtesy of Search Engine Land

This will then create a menu based on the photos, which potential customers can find in Google Search and Maps. 

Good for you if your restaurant brand already has a menu on its GBP! If not, it’s worth checking whether this feature is available in your area. This experimental feature allows business owners and marketers to easily upload the restaurant’s menu without having to manually enter each menu item and price. 

Why This Matters 

As a marketer, finding ways to save time while attracting new customers to your brand is a top priority, and this new feature allows you to do so. Additionally, customers like to know what to expect when visiting a restaurant, and having an updated and accurate menu on your GBP can help build trust.

The post Local Memo: The FTC Bans Fake Reviews in New Ruling appeared first on SOCi.

The Speculated Fallout From the Google Monopoly DOJ Case

The News

Last week, we reported that a lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) resulted in a 277-page decision that Google is a monopolist and has acted to maintain its monopoly as the default search engine on multiple platforms. Plus, Google earned monopoly profits from paid search by inflating prices by paid advertisers and thus consumers.

No penalties have been issued, but there’s already speculation about the eventual outcome after hearings begin in early September. 

Most experts agree that Google will end its exclusivity deals and will no longer be the default search engine for Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and others.

However, some believe more should be done.

Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia and former Biden economic advisor, recommends in a New York Times opinion piece that the courts should force Google to divest from its web browser, Chrome, and mobile operating system, Android. This act would create a more competitive space for rivals and spur innovation.

Kevin Indig sees the possibility that Google gets broken up by Alphabet having to spin off certain assets to prevent it from further gaining and holding power in search and advertising. For instance, YouTube, Chrome, and Android could be divested from Alphabet.

Indig further argues that Google should share click-behavior data with the open market, letting others train search engines on it, and dampening Google’s monopoly hold on search engines.

Why This Matters

It’s likely that Google will no longer be the default search engine on Apple and other platforms. It’s too soon to see if this will impact search engine usage. Depending on future rulings and penalties, the DOJ’s rulings could reduce advertising costs.

If Alphabet divests YouTube, Chrome, Android, and other products, that could open a floodgate to improved innovation and services from competitors. 

It’s too early to tell; however, we’ll continue to monitor the case and give pertinent updates as they arise over the coming months.

AI Overviews Continue to Disappear 

The News 

A few weeks ago, we noted that Google is further enhancing its AI Overviews (AIOs) by allowing users to save an overview. 

New research from SE Ranking showcases and AIOs continue to drop in appearance. In July, AIOs only appeared in 7.47% of searches. The previous number in June was 8.71%. 

That said, certain categories show AIOs more prominently, such as relationships, business, self-care/wellness, and exercise/sports.

Courtesy of SE Ranking

Other key findings include:

• The average AIO word count is 397 words, a nearly 40% drop in text length.
   
• The relationships niche continues to dominate, with 40.64% of keywords triggering AIOs.
• Prompt-type queries with a search volume of fewer than 50 and CPC fewer than $0.50 continue to trigger most AIOs.
• The current dataset shows zero Reddit and Quora links in AIOs.

The poor press might not be the only reason AIOs appear less frequently. Tinuiti found that non-branded text ads on computers and phones dropped significantly for U.S. users in May. After dialing back AIOs, CTRs recovered, except for non-brand phone text ads.

This means that Google’s motivation to pull back AIOs might also be based on ad revenue.

Courtesy of Tinuiti

Why This Matters 

AIOs continue to drop in appearances, which is not surprising given the early debacles and poor press Google received when first launching AIOs in late May. It’ll be interesting to see if Google fixes AIO results and slowly begins to incorporate them more and more into search results. 

It’s also worth watching how AIOs affect Google search text ads. For instance, according to the Tinuiti report, “Spending on Google search text ads was up 13% Y/Y in Q2 2024, which was driven almost entirely by CPC growth.”

Meta Pulls Back On Celebrity AI Chatbots and Pushes Personalized AI Chatbots

The News 

Last September, Meta announced that celebrity chatbots would be coming to several of its products. Now, nearly a year later, The Information reported that Meta seems to have shut down the celebrity chatbots. 

According to the report, Meta was worried about the AI versions of celebrities saying problematic things on behalf of their human counterparts.

Instead, Meta is rolling out AI Studio, which allows U.S. creators to make AI chatbots of themselves called Creator AI. 

Meta is branding these AI creators as an extension of you, and the chatbot can answer questions or inquiries from followers on your behalf. Instagram users with a professional account can customize their AI and train it on their Instagram and Threads content and facts about them. Plus, you can select topics to avoid. 

Courtesy of Meta

There are also AI characters that you and others can interact with. These AI characters aren’t based on you, but rather on your interests or hobbies. These AI characters can be just for you to help teach you how to cook or write Instagram captions. Meta also allows you to share AI characters with followers, friends, or the public. 

Courtesy of Meta

Why This Matters 

The shift from celebrity chatbots to AI Studio and Creator AI by Meta holds promise for businesses and marketers if they’re allowed to create these types of AI chatbots.

However, individuals with professional Instagram accounts can create and use creator AI or AI characters to provide personalized responses and enhance follower engagement. It’ll be interesting to see if creator AI or AI character adoption increases, and whether Meta will make another AI chatbot pivot based on user feedback. 

The post Local Memo: The Speculated Fallout From the Google Monopoly DOJ Case appeared first on SOCi.

Google Ruled a Monopoly in DOJ Case

The News

A lawsuit filed against Google in 2020 by the Department of Justice and several state attorney generals has resulted in a decision from federal judge Amit Mehta that Google is a monopoly. In Mehta’s words: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”

The lawsuit targets Google’s position as the default search engine on multiple platforms, including Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla, for which privilege Google pays its partners a combined total of $26 billion per year. Though no penalties have yet been issued, it’s possible that these exclusive search partnerships will be disallowed in order to encourage competition. Also on the table is the possible divestiture of Google’s ad business. 

Google has argued that its dominance in search is due to its offering a superior product, a notion that was underlined in details from the lawsuit such as testimony from Apple’s Eddy Cue that no amount of money would make Apple replace Google with Bing. Google will fight the decision on appeal, and a separate trial will be required in order to determine what penalties the company may face. 

Why This Matters

It remains to be seen what actual impact the decision may have, but it’s being covered in the press as a historic step, and indeed not since Microsoft was declared a monopoly in 2000 has a big tech firm faced an antitrust action at this level. 

The most likely potential outcome is that platforms like Apple will be forced to offer other search engines to users as alternatives, rather than baking in Google by default. Users, of course, may continue to opt for Google regardless. 

It’s worth noting, however, that the decision against Google comes at a time when users are questioning the platform’s quality and its tendency toward self-preferencing, and when upstarts like Perplexity and OpenAI are presenting challenges on the innovation front. These moves as much as that of the government may serve to open the search marketplace to increased competition. 

Google’s Search Dominance Not Yet Impacted by AI Competitors

The News

Clickstream data from Datos, analyzed both by Sonata and by Rand Fishkin, shows that in the most recent 12-month period, May 2023 to May 2024, Google’s search traffic grew by about 1.4%, despite competition from multiple AI-powered platforms from Bing to ChatGPT. Though some upstart platforms had impressive growth in the same period, such as Perplexity which grew by 42%, Google still represented about 290 times the traffic of Perplexity, and Google’s users were far more active than Perplexity’s searchers as well, with the latter only seeing 7.5% the activity of the former.

Fishkin points out that AI platforms are growing, but do not yet represent a significant threat to Google, whereas slightly older competitors like DuckDuckGo are showing stronger traffic results and are perhaps under-hyped due to the attention paid to AI recently. 

Why This Matters

The study was published a few days before the antitrust ruling referenced above, and tends to reinforce the perception that Google is still the king of search — which, of course, we already knew. More interesting perhaps is the fact that Bing is no longer Google’s only viable competitor, with DuckDuckGo, Perplexity, and perhaps others poised to win increasing shares of consumer attention in the future. 

Google Shows Competitors with “See Also” Carousel

The News

Users are spotting a “See also” carousel in Google local results that points to competitors, as shared in X by Gagan Ghotra and on Search Engine Roundtable by Barry Schwartz. The carousel, which contains photos and links to multiple other businesses, appears toward the end of the business profile in mobile search results. 

Courtesy Gagan Ghotra

Why This Matters

Google has shown competitor listings within business profiles in the past, and unfortunately it’s something the business cannot control in any way. But it’s good to be aware that in some cases, as with this restaurant example, users who search for your business, even by name, may be exposed to listings for similar businesses nearby. 

The post Local Memo: Google Ruled a Monopoly in DOJ Case appeared first on SOCi.

The key to this challenge lies in understanding the intricate relationship between local search, social media, and online reputation management. This powerful trifecta can make or break a brand’s digital success.

Mastering these interconnected elements is crucial for multi-location brands. Let’s examine each of these marketing areas, assess how they work together, and explore strategies to leverage their synergy for maximum impact.

The Local Search Advantage

Local search optimization, sometimes called local SEO, is the cornerstone of digital visibility for multi-location brands. When potential customers search for products or services in their area, your business must appear at the top of the results.

This visibility directly translates to foot traffic and conversions.

Google’s local pack, also referred to as the Google 3-pack, is prime real estate. Ranking in this coveted spot can significantly boost your visibility and conversions.

Our research found that businesses in the local pack receive 126% more traffic and 93% more conversion-oriented actions than those ranked 4-10.

To improve your local search rankings, focus on these critical factors:

1. Accurate and complete Google Business Profiles (GBPs)
2. Consistent NAP (name, address, and phone number) information across all platforms
3. Relevant primary and secondary business categories
4. High-quality and keyword-rich content

Remember, local search is not just about being found; it’s about being chosen. This is where your online reputation comes into play. For additional insight into building your brand’s online visibility, check out our SEO checklist blog.

The Power of Online Reputation

Your online reputation is the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. It’s what potential customers see when they research your brand, which can significantly influence their decision to choose your business over competitors.

Online reviews are a critical component of your reputation. They impact consumer decisions and play a role in local search rankings. 

Here’s why they matter:

1. Star Ratings: Businesses with higher star ratings tend to rank better in local search results. Aim for an average rating of 4.1 stars or higher on Google to remain competitive.
2. Review Volume: The number of reviews your business has can affect your rankings. Top-ranking businesses often have nearly 500 reviews on their GBP.
3. Review Content: Reviews containing relevant keywords can boost your local SEO rankings.
4. Review Responses: Responding to reviews shows engagement and can improve your reputation and search rankings inspiring others to leave reviews.

Investing in reputation management isn’t just about damage control; it’s about building a strong, positive online presence that attracts customers and boosts your visibility in local search results.

Our  guide to reputation management provides a more in-depth look at managing your online reputation across business locations.

Social Media: The Engagement Catalyst

While local search and online reputation are crucial, social media acts as the glue that binds them together. It’s a platform for engagement, brand building, and direct communication with your audience.

Here’s how social media impacts your overall digital presence:

1. Brand Awareness: Active social media profiles increase your brand’s visibility and reach.
2. Customer Engagement: Social platforms provide opportunities for direct customer interaction, building relationships and trust.
3. Content Distribution: Share valuable content that can improve your reputation and drive traffic to your website.
4. Local Relevance: Geo-targeted social posts can boost your local presence and support your local SEO efforts if they appear in GBPs.
5. Review Generation: Encourage customers to leave reviews through your social channels.

Maintaining an active and engaging social media presence creates multiple touchpoints for customers to interact with your brand, reinforcing your reputation and supporting your local search efforts.

The Synergy of the Trifecta

Understanding how local search, online reputation, and social media work together is essential for a solid digital strategy. 

First, local search helps your business get noticed by potential customers looking for your products or services. 

Once they find you, your online reputation — like reviews and ratings — plays a significant role in their decision-making. 

Social media is another key player. It allows you to engage with customers, address their concerns, and show off your brand personality, enhancing your reputation. 

Plus, an excellent online reputation can even improve your local search rankings. While social signals aren’t a direct ranking factor, they can still boost your SEO by driving traffic and engagement. Together, these elements create a cohesive online presence that builds trust and attracts more customers, making it crucial for long-term success.

Leveraging AI for Enhanced Performance

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is shaking up how businesses handle their online presence, bringing innovative solutions to make things run more efficiently. One of AI’s biggest perks is that it can automate responses to reviews. Imagine getting personalized replies that keep your customers engaged without adding extra stress to your team! 

And let’s not forget about sentiment analysis! AI can dive into customer feedback from various platforms to give you valuable insights into how people feel about your brand, helping you stay on top of public perception.

Plus, AI tools can help boost your local SEO by analyzing and suggesting the best keywords, making it easier for people to find you in local searches.

Are you managing social media? AI’s got your back there, too! With AI-powered tools, you can schedule posts, track engagement, and even develop creative content ideas, helping you keep your online presence buzzing without breaking a sweat.

By embracing these AI-driven solutions, businesses can level up their digital strategies and keep pace in this fast-changing landscape.

Six Steps to Integrate Your Strategy 

Now that you understand how these three areas of marketing work together and how AI can help, it’s time to start implementing AI. To effectively leverage the power of local search, online reputation, and social media, follow these steps:

1. Audit Your Current Presence: Evaluate your performance across all three areas to identify strengths and weaknesses.
2. Set Clear Goals: Establish specific, measurable objectives for each component of your digital presence.
3. Develop a Cohesive Plan: Create a strategy that aligns your efforts across all platforms and locations.
4. Invest in the Right Tools: Consider AI-powered solutions to streamline your efforts and improve efficiency.
5. Monitor and Adjust: Regularly review your performance and be prepared to adapt your strategy as needed.
6. Train Your Team: Ensure your staff understands the importance of each component and how they work together.

Following these steps will ensure your brand has an organized strategy that spans all key marketing areas. 

Embracing the Digital Ecosystem

As you can see, success for multi-location brands depends on mastering local search, online reputation, and social media. 

By understanding how these elements work together and leveraging AI to enhance your efforts, you can create a powerful digital presence that drives visibility, engagement, and conversions.

Remember, this is not a one-time effort, but an ongoing process of optimization and adaptation. As a multi-location brand, managing these efforts at each location can seem daunting, but SOCi is here to help!

SOCi is the CoMarketing Cloud for multi-location businesses. We’ve tailored our innovative platform for intelligent omnichannel automation at the local level. SOCi Genius is the AI brain and engine behind our CoMarketing Cloud. It’s an AI automation layer on top of our platform that our products use to automate human action.

For instance, Genius Reviews allows you to generate on-brand and personalized responses to local reviews across all major local directories.

Similarly, Genius Social allows you to create on-brand and location-specific content that resonates with local audiences and boosts brand loyalty. Plus, you can generate locally-branded responses to engagements in seconds!

And lastly, we recently released Genius Search, which is designed to transform how your business tackles local search optimization with the help of AI. It gives real-time local data and makes thousands of monthly recommendations that you can implement with a single click.

Maximizing your digital marketing strategies with the help of AI is no longer a stretch goal. It’s easily accessible throughSOCi’s Genius AI

Request a demo today to learn more about how SOCi Genius can take your brand’s marketing strategy to new heights!

The post The Trifecta of Digital Success: How Local Search, Social, and Reputation Work Together appeared first on SOCi.

In this week’s update, we discuss Google paying attention to popular times; Apple Maps is finally available on desktop; and AI-powered search makes a resurgence. 

Google Paying Attention to GBP Popular Times

The News 

Last month, Claudia Tomina at ReputationArm published a blog post that, among other things, provided compelling evidence that popular times could be a GBP ranking factor. While that theory needs more vetting, we can now assume with some certainty that Google is at least paying attention to it. 

Our team spotted a new short wait nearby feature this week. It appears primarily for food and beverage-related mobile searches.

The feature appears as a carousel with up to a dozen knowledge cards from businesses that typically have low or no wait times at the time of the search. 

Surprisingly, live busyness signals don’t seem to influence this feature, despite many businesses appearing as “Busier than usual.” This new feature could have potentially driven new traffic to those businesses.

Users who select a knowledge card from the feature will see the business’s full GBP profile. However, if a user selects see more, a new search launches for “restaurants nearby with short wait times near x” regardless of the previous search query.

Why This Matters

This provides evidence that Google is paying attention to popular times and provides businesses with an additional opportunity to be discovered when it matters most — when customer traffic is low. 

Though we’ve only seen this feature appear for food and beverage searches so far, we could see it rolling out wider to other businesses where busyness might be a deciding factor, like salons, gyms, car washes, and grocery stores. 

Apple Maps Finally Available on Desktop

The News 

If you haven’t seen how your business appears in search on Apple Maps, now is your chance. Last week, Apple made available to the public a beta version of Apple Maps that users could access directly from their browser at beta.maps.apple.com.

Per Apple: “Now, users can get driving and walking directions; find great places and useful information including photos, hours, ratings, and reviews; take actions like ordering food directly from the Maps place card; and browse curated Guides to discover places to eat, shop, and explore in cities around the world. Additional features, including Look Around, will be available in the coming months.”

Why This Matters

Because Apple Maps has been purely app-based up to this point, we’ve never known how much of the local search market Apple Maps actually claims vs. Google. 

Just two days in, Andrew Shotland at Localogy reported Apple’s beta Maps saw nearly a quarter million visitors — an impressive number, considering there’s been no obvious demand for it.

Courtesy of Apple

If you haven’t already, make sure your Apple listing has been delegated (Apple confirmed this is a ranking factor) and you are utilizing features like Apple Showcases to highlight any offer or events you are currently offering.

Courtesy of OpenAI

Meanwhile, Microsoft has introduced Bing generative search, which is similar to Google’s AI-organized search results. 

This new experience combines Bing’s traditional search results with large language models (LLMs) to understand queries, review millions of sources, and generate AI-organized search results that better fulfill user intent. 

An example for the query “what is a spaghetti western?” shows an AI summary and a table of contents for navigation, with traditional search results still prominently featured on the right side. Microsoft claims this approach maintains the number of website clicks and supports a healthy web ecosystem, even increasing clickable links.

Courtesy of Bing

Why This Matters

While we’re not convinced that SearchGPT, Bing generative search, or any other new AI search engines vying to be the next big thing will dent Google’s search engine market dominance, these moves could prompt Google to accelerate plans to integrate more generative AI into search results.

The post Local Memo: Google Paying Attention to GBP Popular Times appeared first on SOCi.

Together, we’re transforming conventional norms by providing a solution for marketers to leverage location intelligence and emerging digital conversations centered around your brand and competitors.

SOCi and Digimind Come Together 

At SOCi, our mission is to provide AI that does the marketing for you at every location. Our Genius AI-backed products, developed with top-notch generative AI and processes, execute highly local marketing tasks with unparalleled efficiency and personalization. 

From curating genuine review responses to creating captivating social posts, our goal is to automate and enhance local marketing.

However, engagement also extends beyond a physical location. To develop content that resonates with their audience, brands must listen to external conversations — gaining insights from consumer sentiments about brands, products, and services beyond their geographical area. 

That’s where Digimind comes in. 

Digimind’s best-in-class social listening and market intelligence technology transforms social and web data into actionable insights, helping brands and agencies make informed decisions that drive their strategies.

The Blend of Local and Monitoring Insights

Our partnership with Digimind enables marketers to activate social media monitoring insights for more effective and impactful local marketing efforts when paired with SOCi’s search, reputation, and social tools. By dissecting keywords and trends from external conversations, marketers can use this information to make more informed marketing decisions.  

This method ensures that all local marketing efforts, from search queries to social posts to reputation management, align with the brand, are optimized for local, and resonate with consumers’ discussions. 

“Using SOCi and Digimind, marketers can tailor their local marketing to each community’s unique characteristics by tapping into a broad view of what consumers are talking about.” — Josh Galecki, Senior Business Development Director at SOCi.

Soar to New Heights in Local Marketing

This partnership is more than just an alliance between two industry leaders; it’s a step towards developing an ecosystem that local marketers can leverage to amplify their strategies. 

With SOCi’s multi-location marketing proficiency and Digimind’s social listening expertise, we’re equipping marketers with the tools needed to develop a comprehensive local marketing strategy. 

Jerome Maisch, North American Vice President from Digimind, said it best:

“SOCi and Digimind look forward to redefining what’s achievable in local marketing with cutting-edge AI technology. Together, we’re not just conforming to the evolving landscape — we’re revolutionizing it, providing an advanced platform for brands to engage with their communities on a truly local level.”

Ready to take the next step in your marketing journey? Request a personalized demo to learn more about SOCi’s partnership with Digimind! 

The post SOCi & Digimind Join as Partners, Creating a New Era for Local Marketing appeared first on SOCi.