Social Media: Guides & Articles from BrightLocal

Facebook’s Gen Z Comeback? Why Local Businesses Should Care About the New Redesign

Jenny Bernarde — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 11:03:32 +0000

Facebook has just announced a ‘Gen-Z focused redesign’ in a bid to rival popular apps like TikTok.

The redesign will feature a ‘Local’ specific tab that will group together local community-specific features, such as Marketplace, Groups, and Events.

Image source: Tech Crunch

Local content will also begin to be featured in a user’s feed, showcasing posts and information from their local area.

Image source: Tech Crunch

Other features in this redesign include the addition of an Explore tab and changes to events and groups. The Explore tab will move towards showing entertaining and useful content to the user, much like Instagram’s Explore page or TikTok’s For You Page. Facebook events will allow visitors without an account to view and respond to events, while groups are integrating a new AI feature to help answer group questions.

So, let’s dive into the current state of Facebook and business discovery for a Gen-Z audience and consider what local businesses might need to know about the future.

What is the current state of Facebook?

According to data published by Digital Media Ninja, 87% of millennials use Facebook at least once per week.

We know that the platform boomed for this generation around 15 years ago, many of whom have long since abandoned the space in search of greener pastures. It was a space to connect with our friends, share albums of 600 digital camera photos from one night out, and wish someone we used to go to school a ‘happy birthday’ when their notification popped up.

The space is still used to share photos or life updates, but there’s also a cacophony of spam and engagement bait accounts that provide little to no value to our scrolling experience.

These days, we millennials use Facebook for its Marketplace feature (though it’s increasingly like avoiding a laser security system to get away from scammers) and its groups. Yes, we love our local neighborhood groups to find out where our missing parcels have ended up, make recommendations for local services and contractors, and get the best restaurant recommendations for the area, but that’s the extent of the involvement for many of us.

Older generations might still use the platform for human interaction with friends and family, whereas Millennials are using it for transactional and informational purposes. And we know that Gen Z audiences don’t really use the platform at all.

So, is Facebook’s update to introduce new local features targeted at Gen Z too little, too late?

In this year’s Local SEO for Good, we spoke to Steve Wiideman about the current trends in search. He told us that ”51% of Gen Alpha and Gen Z are using TikTok for search more than Google. They’re living and breathing TikTok, so why would they go anywhere else?”

How are Gen Zs using social media for business discovery?

As of last year, “only 33% of U.S. teens are now on Facebook”, an unsurprising statistic for those of us who have watched the decline of Facebook’s popularity in real-time.

Instead, “91% of Gen Z social media users are on Instagram and another 86% are on TikTok”.

Nowadays, Instagram and TikTok are not only used as social media platforms to connect with friends and communities; they also act as tools for product discovery, news and events, and customer care.

Image source: Sprout Social

These platforms keep their audiences scrolling through carefully crafted (see also: addictive) algorithms that engage, educate, and, ultimately, entertain.

Whether it’s an algorithm that is painfully accurate to one’s interests and current trends or it’s the hyper-relatable content creators who have overtaken the OG influencers, TikTok and Instagram have a unique hold on young audiences.

Plus, both platforms offer short-form video, which is now the most popular way of consuming content.

“People are short on time, but that doesn’t take away their desire for content. They want it — just faster.” Hubspot

Of course, other social media platforms have adopted short-form video, including Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and even LinkedIn. However, Instagram and TikTok are the most popular platforms for this age group.

Many people might wonder: should we care about Gen Z and how they use social media for business discovery? Why bother to focus on a group that doesn’t represent a huge portion of our current market and, generally speaking, isn’t making huge purchasing decisions? The answer is simple: Gen Z represents an entirely new generation. They are your business’ future customers.

“Even if you don’t care to be in the zeitgeist. They are our future consumers, so you need to have them in mind—even if you’re not trying to reach them today.” Casey Lewis, Social Media Consultant

Gen Z represents people born between 1997 and 2012. Those aged 24-27 are now coming into their own and have more spending power. Those aged 18-23 might represent college students descending on new towns, eager to explore and find little luxuries. And the 12-18-year-olds represent the next group of consumers we need to prepare to appeal to.

Gen Z consumers are some of the most conscious consumers, keen to support local businesses rather than national conglomerates. Whether it’s visiting a local coffee shop, shopping second-hand at a local thrift store, or supporting local community events.

Plus, we know younger generations are early adopters. Case in point: Facebook, which was once a millennial hangout, now plays host to older folk.

Where younger generations are, older audiences will follow. That’s why it’s important to understand where Gen Z is, how they discover businesses, and how they engage with content. Social media is a great way to raise your brand’s awareness and educate an audience enough to make an informed decision about purchase.

For what it’s worth, whilst Facebook is trying to capture a Gen Z audience, they’re bound to have already missed the mark. I don’t believe that these new features will bring a new audience, but I do think that they will provide some useful functionality for people already active on the platform.

If they’re pushing forward relevant, useful, local information to people, that’s got to be a good thing, right? And if this means more visibility for local businesses, then it could be a promising new update.

What do local businesses need to know, and what should they do?

Regardless of the uptake from Gen Z, Facebook’s new local features offer more visibility for local businesses. It’s key to remember how useful social media can be for local businesses and take advantage of the opportunities available.

Having an active and up-to-date social media presence is highly beneficial. Make sure your online reputation is well managed, that Facebook reviews are responded to, and recommendations on local Facebook groups are followed up with. Even if it’s not certain that Gen Z will see what you do on Facebook, someone will.

Commit to posting on social media, informing local customers of your offerings, educating them, and helping them. If local content is going to be shown on user’s feeds, now’s your chance to impress them!

Work out where people are searching for you, and make sure you’re there.

If that means meeting a Gen Z audience on Gen Z platforms or navigating new Facebook features, there’s plenty of opportunity for business discovery.

[Poll] 49% of Local Marketers Use Twitter/X Less or Not At All Since Takeover

Sammy Paget — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 09:00:47 +0000

It may not be over yet, but I have a feeling that when we look back on the top marketing stories of 2023, X is going to be up there somewhere. Twitter user or not, you’d have done well to avoid headlines around brutal lay-offs, controversial changes, and, of course, that rebrand.

As dramatic as it may have been, we’ve been interested to know how things have really changed on the ground for local marketers. Personal feelings aside, does all this have any impact on how businesses and agencies reach their audience?

So, we polled 180 local marketers to find out how their usage of Twitter/X has changed since the takeover began in late 2022.

A brief timeline of Twitter’s takeover

Apr 2022

Elon Musk makes a bid to buy Twitter

Oct 2022

Musk formally takes over as CEO of Twitter

Nov 2022

More than half of Twitter’s employees are laid off in one day
Twitter verification is introduced for $7.99/month

Mar 2023

Twitter’s value is implied to have fallen drastically amid tumbling revenues and downturn in advertiser spend since start of takeover

Jul 2023

Meta releases Threads, a text-based challenger app to X, receiving 100 million sign-ups in one week
Twitter is publicly rebranded as X

Aug 2023

There is semi-serious talk of a cage fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg??

Source: The Street

How were local marketers using Twitter before the takeover in November 2022?

54% of local marketers were never using Twitter as a local marketing channel.
33% of local marketers used Twitter as a marketing channel at least monthly, prior to its takeover.

Quite astoundingly, more than half of local marketers said they never used Twitter for local marketing in the first place!

Or perhaps it’s not so surprising. Twitter was often seen as the go-to social platform for ‘microblogging’ and community building and, given the highly contextual nature of Twitter threads and discussions, it can be a tricky social media channel to ‘master’. Simply scheduling a few posts a week and spitting them into the ether won’t do. Business owners and marketers have to dedicate a lot of time into understanding how their audience engage.

So, that leaves us with 46% of local marketers using the platform as a marketing channel, and 33% that were using it pretty regularly—at least once a month.

How did Twitter usage change after the takeover?

26% of local marketers now do not use Twitter/X at all for marketing.
Twitter/X usage has not really changed for 30% of local marketers.

Of those local marketers that did use Twitter, 26% have said they now no longer use the platform at all since the 2022 takeover and subsequent rebrand. So that’s over a quarter that could have moved to an alternative platform, or ramped up their marketing activity on other social channels already used.

Shortly after the October 2022 takeover, a flurry of excitement grew around Mastodon. Although not new by any means, Mastodon offered former Twitter fans a familiar environment, while running as a decentralized, non-profit social channel. Over a million users flocked to join at the time and, despite numbers dipping again, as of July 2023 it appears to be on the rise once more.

And if they didn’t join Mastodon, there was also the boom in Threads users when that launched in July 2023. Meta’s challenger app, cleverly tied into Instagram, finally gave Instagrammers a place for text-based communication with an existing audience. Yet despite gaining 100 million users in less than a week, active users were said to have plummeted by August.

And so it follows that 30% of local marketers are using X just about the same amount as they used Twitter. Given the amount of us still calling it Twitter (I’m not sure I’ll ever comfortably say X without following up with “or Twitter or whatever”), and the challenger platforms maybe not quite giving the alternative people were hoping for, maybe not that much has really changed?

Bottom line: do local marketers see X as an effective marketing channel now?

Twitter/X averaged a 3.8/10 for effectiveness as a local marketing channel.
20% of local marketers said they do not think Twitter/X is effective as a marketing channel at all.
76% rated X’s effectiveness as a five or less out of ten.

Again, personal opinions aside, we wanted to measure what local marketers think of X now. So we asked them how they rated its effectiveness as a local marketing channel, from zero to ten. It averaged a not-so-great 3.8 out of ten.

A quarter of local marketers rated X’s effectiveness in the middle—not good, not bad—and a fifth said “nope, not at all”.

If we compare these results to the graph displaying how marketers use X now, you see a similar pattern. So it comes down to the the real question of: why are local marketers using X if they don’t think it’s particularly effective?

What social media channel do local marketers rate as most effective?

63% of local marketers rate Facebook as the most effective social channel for local marketing.
Just 2% of local marketers see X as the most effective social channel for local marketing.

Finally, we pitted X against other mainstream social platforms and asked local marketers simply which one they find to be the most effective. Facebook comes out on top by a mile, with 63% of local marketers rating it as most effective.

In our recent Local Business Discovery and Trust Report, consumers highlighted Facebook as the fourth most used and trusted platform for local business discovery, sitting next to Google, Google Maps and a business’s own website. When asked purely about social channels used for business discovery, 59% of consumers said they regularly used Facebook.

So, it makes sense that local marketers will find a social media platform effective if their audience are actively using it.

What can we learn from these results?

As noted within the section on X’s effectiveness as a marketing channel, we can see a fair chunk of local marketers are using X more or less the same as they did Twitter. With such a significant amount of them saying they don’t feel it’s effective, why are they there?

Mastering social media as a business owner is tough. Even for social media specialists, it can feel like you have to ‘keep up’ with all of the platforms. If this is you, consider some of these tips for social media in local marketing.

Where does your audience spend time online?

Bring it back to basics and reconsider who your target audience is. Sprout Social is a great resource for up-to-date social demographics and user stats, and even provides tips on the most engaging content types per channel.

And if you’re feeling stuck, find out where your competitors are! It’s easy enough to find which social channels your competitors are using—they may even list them in their website footer or on their Google Business Profile.

Want to take it a step further? Check out this guide on monitoring your local business competitors on social media. We also have a handy list of some of the top social media tools.

Remember the core purpose of social media

Yes, social media can be utilized to drive revenue, but it’s always worth reminding yourself that this should not be your key goal. It could be that you’re present in some of the right places but not really considering what’s important to your audience.

Visibility, engagement and trust are vital elements of the awareness and consideration stages of the marketing funnel. Consider:

Visibility: Is your business or brand present on the right channels? Does your brand identity and core business information (Name! Address! Phone Number!) match up consistently so that you can be found?
Engagement: Can users see evidence that you’re actively engaging with your audience? Are you responding to customer queries and issues, not just the positive feedback and good reviews?
Trust: ‘Real’ content, behind-the-scenes stuff and even sharing your team members can help to build trust with your audience. Combined with the above elements of visibility and engagement, it shows authenticity and helps users verify that you are who you say who are.

Share your thoughts with us

Did these results surprise you? We’d love to hear your thoughts! You can reach us over on X, via our Facebook community, The Local Pack, or by emailing the research team.

Local Business Discovery & Trust Report 2023

Sammy Paget — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 09:50:30 +0000

It’s fair to say that, in 2023, a managed digital presence is an absolute must for businesses. Without this, a business is severely missing out on opportunities to build trust, boost visibility, and stay relevant in its audience’s mind.

Within the local SEO space, there’s plenty of discussion about the importance of business citations for local rankings. And, while this is a core local marketing tactic, it’s vital to consider the people that business information matters to the most: its customers.

In 2021, we released the Business Listings Trust Report, highlighting how consumers interact with business listings to discover and use local businesses.

While the Local Business Discovery and Trust Report 2023 is very much a continuation of this research, we felt that the way consumers discover businesses or look for information about them today has come on leaps and bounds, with social channels doubling as business listings, and the continued power of visuals such as video content or customer photos.

So, how are consumers looking for local businesses online today and how are they discovering new businesses? We asked over 1,000 people what they thought. Let’s get to it.

What do we mean by business listings and business information sites?

Business listings—or business citations as they’re more commonly known by local SEOs—are listings of a business’s information online, typically their name, address, and phone number (NAP) at the very least. These can be ‘structured’, as seen on directories like Yell or BBB, or ‘unstructured’, which you may come across via a local news publication or blog.

When we refer to ‘business information sites’, this is a more general term including any website, app, or platform that holds information about businesses consumers are searching for. These might be search engines, like Google and Bing, industry-specific review sites such as TrustPilot, directories, or business profiles on social media.

Where are consumers finding business information online?

In the 2021 Business Listings Trust Report, we asked consumers which platforms they used to find information about local businesses. This time around, we asked which platforms consumers trust to find information about local businesses.

The top three most trusted websites or platforms consumers use for researching local businesses are Google (66%), Google Maps (45%), and a business’s own website (36%).

It likely won’t surprise anyone that Google comes out on top as the most trusted platform or website that consumers use to research local businesses. As of July 2023, Google’s worldwide market share as a search engine was 83.49%.

A Note on Google Products and Device Preferences

Google Maps has come out as the second most trusted platform, with 45% of consumers saying they use it to find information about local businesses.

Although it makes sense that consumers would trust another prominent Google product, it’s significant to note that 49% of consumers told us they prefer to search for business information using Apple devices (37% iPhone and 12% MacOS laptops or desktops).

Of these users, 59% named Google Maps as their preferred maps app for business research and discovery.

A business’s own website is the third most trusted method of finding business information (36%), which suggests that consumers are more likely to trust what Google is telling them—which is interesting, as business information on things like Google Business Profile could well be provided by the business itself, perhaps unknown to the consumer.

However, clicking straight through to a business’s website also suggests that consumers have a high level of intent, in that they may be looking for more detail about specific products or services and trust that a website is the best place for that information.

Facebook sits as the joint fourth most trusted platform for finding information about businesses online, alongside Yelp. Interestingly, the social media platform is so high up the list for business research, considering this year’s Local Consumer Review Survey found that Facebook usage for business research had fallen year-on-year and that a significant percentage were also wary of fake reviews on the platform. In addition, we highlighted dwindling usage stats for Facebook among US adults.

That being said, Facebook listings are prevalent among both search giants Google and Bing, with Bing often pulling the platform’s reviews through to local pack-style cards that highlight key business information.

In what circumstances are consumers looking for businesses online?

When considering why consumers are looking for local business information online, we provided a new option this year to consider proximity.

The percentage of consumers using business information sites to discover new local businesses has decreased from 66% in 2021 to 61% in 2023.
The percentage of consumers using business information sites to find businesses they are aware of, but have never used, dropped from 66% in 2021 to 56% in 2023.
The percentage of consumers using business information sites to find information about known businesses has decreased from 48% in 2021 to 41% in 2023.

Of the three options presented to consumers in both 2021 and 2023, we can see that percentages have decreased across the board.

It’s interesting as there doesn’t appear to be a clear reason. It could be the case that consumers are considering more varied sources when researching businesses online, as opposed to what they might consider ‘typical’ business information sites—later on, we’ll discuss the prevalence of social media for business discovery in more detail, including channels focusing on user-generated content like YouTube.

The Consequences of Incorrect Business Information

When looking up business information like its address, opening hours, and product inventory, the availability of this information is vital to help consumers make a decision. So, what happens when this goes wrong?

62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online in 2023, compared to 63% in 2021.

You’ll see in the chart above that the percentages remain fairly static in 2023, which highlights the continued importance of maintaining correct business information across different listings.

A huge 62% of consumers would be turned away from using a business if they found incorrect information online, which means that only just over a third of consumers would be willing to give your business the benefit of the doubt if inaccuracies are found!

For something that could be as small as a typo in a business address, email address, or phone number, it risks losing prospective customers to competitors and potentially even damaging your business reputation.

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What actions do consumers take upon encountering incorrect information?

Although we know that incorrect business information is enough to stop 62% of consumers from using a business, we asked them what their first reaction would be to finding an incorrect address online.

36% of consumers would call the business to confirm the correct address, as opposed to 41% in 2021.
28% of consumers would seek an alternative business to meet their needs, a decrease from 33% in 2021.
7% of consumers would abandon their search there and then, compared to 3% in 2021.

The percentage of consumers willing to call a business has decreased from 41% in 2021 to 36% in 2023, but we can see that this has been distributed across the new options of messaging the business via their socials or sending an email. It may be that, as more and more local businesses have an active social media presence, consumers see it as an easier option to reach out this way.

On the whole, it appears that if a customer has already decided to visit your business address, they won’t abandon hope at the first hurdle. 65% of consumers said they would take action, either by contacting the business directly or researching elsewhere to confirm the details.

It’s reassuring to know that the majority of consumers are willing to give businesses another chance, but this should still be seen as a warning sign to check your company details and contact information anywhere that it is listed!

Incorrect Business Information Can Cause Consumers to Lose Trust

63% of consumers said seeing mostly negative written reviews would make them lose trust in a business.
The percentage of consumers who would lose trust in a business after seeing an incorrect address decreased from 60% in 2021 to 46% in 2023.
The percentage of consumers who would lose trust in a business after encountering an incorrect phone number decreased from 66% in 2021 to 45% in 2023.

It’s important to consider that many business information sites also double as review platforms, or pull in reviews from other sites. When asking consumers about the issues that would make them lose trust in a business, we added considerations around negative reviews, both in terms of written content and review ratings. “Mostly negative written reviews” was the top issue that consumers said would make them mistrustful of a local business, with 66% of consumers highlighting this.

This is a particularly interesting finding and comes hot off the back of some research Near Media has recently completed around searcher behavior. At our recent Local SEO For Good conference, Near Media’s David Mihm, Greg Sterling, and Mike Blumenthal presented some fascinating findings that showed only about 33% of users were actually reading reviews.

They found that users are taking the time to seek out review content and scrolling SERPs to find better-reviewed businesses. Perhaps this suggests that, although they might not be reading them properly, consumers are skim-reading reviews to look for red flags and common themes.

Meanwhile, our findings show that 44% of consumers would lose trust in a business if they saw what they would consider a “low” average review rating. But what’s considered “low”? Well, our Local Consumer Review Survey this year found that 87% of consumers would not consider a business with an average rating below 3 stars, so that feels like a good indicator.

Our findings and the findings from Near Media show that, even if there are platforms where you do not focus on your business’s reputation, the information consumers find can be powerful enough to turn them away.

The Importance of Monitoring Your Business Review Profiles

We’d always recommend trying to diversify your reputation management to cover multiple platforms. Find out how you can monitor your review performance and manage review campaigns all in one place with BrightLocal.

It’s interesting to see that consumers appear to be more lenient towards the issues we first presented in 2021. The percentage of consumers saying that they would lose trust in a business after spotting inaccurate information such as physical address, contact number, opening hours, and email address, has all decreased since the 2021 report.

The most significant difference is in the results for encountering incorrect phone numbers. In 2021, 66% of consumers said this would make them lose trust in a business, compared to 45% in 2023. Although this still takes a stop in the top three issues that cause consumers to lose trust, it reflects a shift in consumer behavior as to how they prefer to interact with businesses (as a self-confessed phone-avoiding millennial, I can relate).

What business information is most important to consumers?

Does the importance of different types of business information vary by industry?

Although it appears consumers are now feeling a bit more forgiving of businesses when it comes to issues with business information, we did have to wonder how this would vary for businesses in different industries: would you be more forgiving of a retail outlet for a low average review rating, compared to a medical clinic, for example?

N.b. In this section, we’ve chosen to display the results in two separate charts, grouping industries based on the type of consumer need (first, entertainment and pleasure, then emergency and professional services).

Consumers view correct opening hours as most important for retail businesses (53%), food and drink businesses (51%), and entertainment businesses (47%).
Correct address information is the second most important factor for retail businesses (48%).
High average review ratings are seen as more important for hospitality-focused businesses: hotels (42%) and food and drink (41%).

For retail businesses, consumers need to know the most basic—yet most vital—business information: its opening hours (53%), where it is (48%), and how to get in touch (42%). It’s likely that, if a consumer is searching for a particular type of local retailer online, they already have a purchase in mind and are looking to get to that location soon.

Reputation elements appear to be less important to consumers here. This is likely because the quality of the product they’re looking to buy is often not connected to the quality of the service experience.

However, for businesses in which the service experience is the product, for example in hospitality and entertainment, review ratings and the number of positive written reviews are shown to be more important to consumers.

42% of consumers said that a high average review rating was important to them when considering hotels, followed by 41% for food and drink businesses. Similarly, 41% of consumers highlighted that a high number of positive written reviews was most important to them when looking for information about hotels.

While retailers should still view reputation management as important for building trust with potential customers, if a potential customer has a purchase in mind, then the likelihood of them visiting the store regardless of review ratings will remain fairly high.

49% of consumers said correct contact information is most important for tradespeople and service area businesses (SABs).
Knowing the correct physical address is more important to consumers when looking for automotive businesses (46%) and healthcare businesses (42%).

Arguably, the requirement for businesses in the industries listed above sits much more in the realm of necessity and, in some cases, even urgency, compared to those in hospitality, entertainment, and retail. Therefore, we can see that consumers are placing a high level of importance on fundamental business information, like accessing the correct contact information and the correct address.

Being able to find correct contact information is most important to consumers when looking for tradespeople (49%), financial and legal services (46%), and healthcare businesses (44%), suggesting that, when these types of businesses are required, that need is for now.

Out of these industries, consumers think it’s important that tradespeople and SABs are reputable, with two of the top most important factors being a high average review rating (44%) and a high number of positive reviews (43%).

Again, as these types of businesses are often required in a more immediate sense, it follows that consumers expect to see evidence of their reliability. Plus, if you’re inviting a professional into your home for something like a plumbing or electricity emergency, the customer wants to be assured that they are respectful, trustworthy individuals.

How often are consumers encountering issues with business information?

56% of consumers are encountering incorrect business information online at least once every few months.
23% of consumers are coming across fake business listings at least once a month.
28% of consumers are contacting businesses on social media and not receiving a response at least once a month.
8% of consumers are calling the incorrect number for a business at least once a week.

Just 13% of consumers say they have never encountered incorrect business information of some sort online, while 35% of consumers are encountering it on at least a monthly basis.

As we know from earlier, 35% of consumers would either find an alternative local business or abandon their search entirely as a result of incorrect information, so that’s a lot of business regularly lost.

And, for those businesses where customers have arrived to find them closed (or not even there!), this oversight in business information will likely be funneling their would-be customers directly to a nearby competitor.

26% of consumers are visiting businesses too early or late due to incorrect opening hours on at least a monthly basis, so you can imagine that if it was for something as convenient as coffee and groceries, or as urgent as car repair, they’re going to go elsewhere instead of waiting for you to open.

Worryingly, more than half of consumers are spotting fake business listings throughout the year—with 23% of consumers coming across them at least once a month! There are several reasons that fake business listings might exist online (such as spam or fraudulent intentions), but in some cases, legitimate businesses may be creating spammy listings in an attempt to outrank their competitors, causing confusion and turning customers off in the process.

The bottom line is that encountering spam or fake listings is incredibly frustrating for consumers in need of a particular product or service, and is also harmful to local businesses in that industry.

Combating Fake Business Listings

Google is particularly stringent when it comes to detecting and removing fake business listings, using a combination of machine learning and human verification teams to remove fake or spam listings, reviews photos, and videos.

You can report fake Google and Bing business profiles by clicking on ‘Suggest an edit’ on the listing itself. Other listing platforms tend to use similar processes, such as ‘Improve this listing’ on Tripadvisor and ‘File a complaint’ on Better Business Bureau (BBB).

Luckily, it seems consumers are also pretty switched on when it comes to suggesting edits to business information. We found that almost half of consumers have suggested edits to business profiles where information is incorrect.

How often are consumers searching for and using different types of local business information?

40% of consumers search for business opening hours several times a month.
36% of consumers are clicking through to websites from URLs found on business information sites several times a month.
39% of consumers are searching for business information, such as whether a business is child or dog-friendly, every month.

We also sought to understand the frequency of search behavior for particular business information. This can help to highlight where there may be gaps in your own business information.

For example, 39% of consumers said they are searching for business attributes such as being child or dog-friendly, or wheelchair accessible, on at least a monthly basis.

This means that if you aren’t calling out this information on your business listings, then you may well be losing out to competitors. Consider where you can make this information prominent across your listings: for example, Google Business Profile (GBP) allows you to add specific attributes to your listing that call out things like ‘dog-friendly’ and ‘LGBT-owned’, while you could also consider adding Q&As to your GBP to make it really clear.

Meanwhile, if you aren’t consistently updating changes to your opening hours across listings, or checking the correct URL is being used for your site, that’s a huge amount of people potentially being turned away.

The Role of Social Media in Online Business Discovery

Social media plays a huge role in the discovery of, and interaction with, local businesses. With so many platforms available to create an official business profile, and of course, many consumers taking to the platforms as the first port of call to rave—or rant—about experiences with brands, it makes sense that this is the case.

What social platforms do consumers trust for business discovery?

Facebook and TikTok are the least trusted social media platforms, with 43% of consumers saying they either do not trust the information at all, or believe it to be somewhat untrustworthy, respectively.
42% of consumers believe that the information they see on YouTube is either somewhat or strongly trustworthy.
Consumers are most ambivalent towards Threads, the newest competitor within the social media environment (at the time of publication)—41% of consumers have no strong opinions about the trustworthiness of the information on the app.

So, at the beginning of the survey, consumers highlighted Facebook as their fourth-most-trusted method of looking for business information online across all websites and platforms. And yet 43% do not believe the information they see on the social media website is entirely trustworthy.

It’s a little bit of a head-scratcher, but as we determined in the Local Consumer Review Survey earlier this year, consumers are generally more wary of misinformation and things like fake reviews today than they have been in previous years. With the sheer quantity of businesses managing Facebook pages, and some using them in place of a website entirely, it does make sense that it remains the most used.

Meanwhile, 42% of consumers believe that the information they see on YouTube is either somewhat or completely trustworthy. While that subject could probably fill many debates, it does show us that it’s a valuable channel for local businesses to consider—particularly considering how YouTube results are integrated into Google search—whether that’s in creating a YouTube channel yourself or considering options such as paid advertising, and influencer reviews.

TikTok is perceived to be untrustworthy by 43% of consumers, the same figure as for Facebook. Despite its reliance on video content, like YouTube, TikTok is known for controversial trends and users going viral, so it’s perhaps not so much in the minds of consumers when it comes to thinking about local businesses.

Our research did not survey US adults under the age of 18, but it is worth noting how Gen Z is using the social platform as a search engine more than Google, so it will be interesting to come back to this topic over time and see how consumer trust in business information on TikTok changes.

How often are consumers using social media for business discovery?

30% of consumers use Facebook to find local business information on at least a weekly basis.
This is closely followed by YouTube, which 27% of consumers say they use to find local business information more than once a week.

Consumers can’t expect every local business to be a TikTok sensation, and even just keeping up with regular social posting can be tricky when you’re a small business. However, understanding how frequently consumers are looking at social media to find businesses shows us that it’s vital to ensure your business’s information is at least discoverable, correct, and consistent across these platforms.

The most obvious platforms that spring to mind for business information are Facebook, which is also considered a business citation site, and Instagram, which has refined the way it shows users business information via its maps functionality. But even TikTok and Snapchat, social platforms used largely by younger demographics, have map functionalities and business information built in, so you never know when user-generated content could even pop up featuring your local business!

Plus, while the Local Consumer Review Survey found that 20% of consumers were using TikTok for local business discovery as of January 2023, we can see here that 31% of consumers are now using it on at least a monthly basis. That’s a significant jump in less than a year.

The Importance of Photos for Business Discovery and Building Trust

Of course, photos aren’t limited to social platforms. Consumers had long been posting photos to the likes of Tripadvisor before many of today’s platforms came into their own! But in today’s ‘always online’ world, the sheer diversity of visual content creates more choices than ever when it comes to researching and discovering businesses.

Not only do we see the glossy, marketing-quality photos that businesses want you to see across their websites and business listings, but we also get the everyday and behind-the-scenes content they share on social, not forgetting the spontaneous snaps from customers.

The industries where business-supplied photos are seen as more important than customer photos are entertainment (24%), retail (21%), healthcare (16%), and financial and legal (15%).
Consumers care most about customer photos in the hotel (32%), food and drink (29%), and beauty and wellbeing (26%) industries.
Photos of staff and team members within the healthcare industry are seen as important by 17% of consumers.

For service- and experience-centered businesses, consumers want to see accurate reflections of exactly that: the experience. 32% of consumers rated ‘photos taken by customers’ as one of the most important factors affecting their decisions around hotels, followed by 29% for food and drink businesses, and 26% for the beauty and wellbeing industry.

Considering each of these industries can be known for glossy, staged, and over-saturated imagery, it’s not surprising that consumers are looking to each other’s experiences as evidence of what’s ‘real’.

Choosing a hotel is a particular investment of your trust because, for however many nights, a consumer is using this as an alternative to their home. For beauty and wellbeing experiences, a consumer places trust in its professionals, often related to very physical treatments, and therefore wants to be reassured by real customer results beforehand.

The top two industries where consumers rate business-provided photos as more important than those taken by customers were entertainment and retail. As we highlighted when discussing the importance of reflecting fundamental business information for industries such as retail, consumers are likely looking for similar here, including imagery of the business itself to confirm location. For entertainment businesses such as movie theaters or bowling alleys, this could be much more facility-led—namely, does the venue offer what the consumer wants?

Although photos of business team members seem to be lower down on the scale of important decision-making factors, there is a notable percentage of consumers choosing healthcare (17%) and financial and legal businesses (15%) based on the availability of staff photos.

For healthcare, which can involve very personal and sometimes invasive treatments, consumers want an idea of exactly who they will be trusting with their physical or mental health. In financial or legal environments, it’s the same sentiment: consumers are placing trust around sensitive topics in an individual as opposed to a brand, so it’s important that they’re able to see who they will be dealing with.

Essentially, these findings show that being able to display a breadth of photos across your business listings will ultimately provide potential customers with more information up-front to help them make a decision. As well as the high-quality marketing imagery, it’s important to show customers what’s real, so keep this in mind when adding photos to your listings.

Summary

It’s clear that the consequences of inaccurate business information can be vast, ranging from causing confusion and frustration to potentially damaging a business’s reputation or losing out on customers completely.

At the very least, local marketers and business owners should use the insights gathered in this report to get on top of their business listings and check the accuracy of information across various platforms, including social media.

Of course, it can be a big job to source everywhere your business is listed, and setting reminders to review and update information may not always ensure the work gets done—but there are easier ways to manage it! Check out the available services through BrightLocal’s Listings Management tools, which cover everything from building your citations to ensuring your business updates are pushed out to all relevant listings.

Methodology

A representative sample of 1,138 US-based consumers was used to conduct the Local Business Discovery and Trust Survey in September 2023. The survey was distributed to an independent consumer panel via SurveyMonkey, in which age group breakdowns and gender are balanced.

However, SurveyMonkey’s consumer panels only consider participants who identify as male or female and therefore do not consider where participants may identify outside of binary genders. Additionally, no consumers under the age of 18 participated in this survey.

Using Our Data

You are welcome to use the survey findings, charts, and data, provided BrightLocal is credited and linked to via this page’s URL. If you have any questions about this research, please contact the research team.

on Building an Engaging and Supportive Brand Community

Claire Carlile — Tue, 26 Nov 2024 08:00:22 +0000

“If you build it, they will come,” right? Haha, no chance. Fostering a truly respectful, supportive, and helpful community full of brand advocates and topic experts is no mean feat—and even harder when you’re entering a competitive arena or starting from scratch… but the results, both emotional and statistical, speak for themselves when you get it right.

We spoke to Women in Tech SEO’s Areej AbuAli about her experience building her global community of passionate and supportive women, what drove her to get started, what lessons she’s learned in the process, and what she’s still learning today. This is a must-listen for anyone trying to build a community of any kind—Areej really is one of the foremost voices on the topic.

What you will learn in this episode:

The many and varied benefits of building a community for a brand
How to establish rules and guidelines—and the importance of doing so
How to make a niche community appealing to all
Which brands are doing a great job with their communities
How to celebrate exceptional members of the community—and deal with problematic ones
How best to approach community monetization, if at all
And much more!

Watch the Video:

About Claire Carlile (Host)

Claire Carlile is a Chartered Marketer (MCIM) and is BrightLocal’s Local Search Expert. Her work at Claire Carlile Marketing, where she helps businesses of all sizes make the most of the local search opportunity, allows her to provide real-world skills and expertise to what BrightLocal does.

Where to find Claire

About Areej AbuAli (Guest)

Areej AbuAli is the founder of Women in Tech SEO, a global digital marketing community. Founded in 2019, Women in Tech SEO has over 10,000 global members and 60,000 followers who connect through online groups and in-person conferences in the UK, Europe, and the USA. Areej is an international speaker, a Google Women Techmaker ambassador, and a UN Women UK delegate.

Where to find Areej

Want more from Adventures in Local Marketing? We highly recommend checking out these episodes:

Resources from this episode:

Women in Tech SEO Community: https://www.womenintechseo.com/
“Community Building for Marketers” by Areej AbuAli – coming March 3rd, 2025: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Community-Building-Marketers-Connect-Engage/dp/1398616931/
Buffer Community: https://buffer.com/community
HubSpot Community: https://community.hubspot.com/
Sanity.io Developer Community: https://www.sanity.io/exchange/community
BrightLocal Local Pack: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thelocalpack/
AD – Local Marketing Industry Survey: Agency Edition: https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-marketing-industry-survey-agencies/

About Adventures in Local Marketing

Adventures in Local Marketing is *the* podcast for local marketers, hosted by industry expert and popular speaker, Claire Carlile*.

Claire chats to a smorgasbord of marketers from various different backgrounds, who each bring their unique insight into facets of the local marketing landscape.

*Sadly, this is the last episode of Adventures in Local Marketing hosted by Claire Carlile. We thank Claire for all her hard work picking the brains of experts in the industry, and wish her the best for the future. The BrightLocal Podcast will be back in the new year—watch this space!

on Navigating Big Brand Local SEO

Claire Carlile — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:13:22 +0000

In response to BrightLocal’s Brand Beacon Report 2024 findings, this episode sees us speak to enterprise expert Steve Wiideman about all things multi-location SEO.

In this wide-ranging and tactical nugget-filled conversation, Steve covers the challenges and opportunities available to multi-location SEOs today, and shares his proven processes for working with brands.

Listen to Learn

Steve’s expert take on the findings of the Brand Beacon Report 2024
Why social media isn’t the quick fix for multi-location brands that some think it is
How agencies can develop a one-pager that sets out everything the HQ of a brand needs to know about local SEO
Why some brands struggle to get on board with local SEO
Preventing roadblocks and getting buy-in when working with enterprise brands
The multitude of ways brands can use AI, and what to avoid when generating content with AI
The data-backed secrets of success for a brand location page
Advice for SEOs uncertain about the future of search in a world with AI

As you can see from the list above, it’s a long one, but absolutely worth getting stuck into if you’re working with big brands or looking to do so.

Watch the Video

Resources

BrightLocal’s Brand Beacon Report 2024: https://www.brightlocal.com/research/brand-beacon-report/
Wiideman Consulting Group: https://www.wiideman.com/
A Data-Driven Strategy for Optimizing Location Pages to Rank in Google: https://www.wiideman.com/location-pages-for-seo
Wiideman Search Engine Marketing Tutorials and Checklists: https://www.wiideman.com/learn
Steve on X: https://twitter.com/seosteve
Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seoexpert/
Steve on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@seosteve
Steve on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seosteve/

How to Add or Claim Your Facebook Business Page

Rada Daktina — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 13:51:00 +0000

A Facebook Business Page is an essential local SEO resource. Like your Google Business Profile, it acts as a structured citation that provides essential business information to prospective customers, while creating an official space for you to update and engage with your audience.

According to Meta, 1 billion users use Facebook’s platforms to message a business every week—so, while that also includes apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, there’s no denying the significance of a stat like that!

With all the developments that have taken place in recent years, including the switch from Facebook Business Manager to Meta Business Suite, new page designs, and changes to the ways you can manage your locations, you’d be forgiven if you’re not sure where to start!

We’ve broken down the steps for:

Creating a new Facebook Business Page as a single business.
Creating and managing multiple Facebook Business Pages.
Requesting access to claimed pages.

Creating a New Facebook Business Page (Single Business)

Step 1. Log on and create a page

Log in to your Facebook account and then go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/creation.
The center of the page will show you the preview of the page you are about to create—this preview updates in real time as you move through the steps and add the required information. You can switch between desktop and mobile view by clicking on the relevant icons in the top right corner.

Step 2. Begin adding your business information

On the left side of the page, you will see the fields with required and optional business information. To proceed further, you must add at least the required information. However, the more content you add, the better.
The first step is to add a page name (your official business/brand name), business category (you must select an option from the suggested drop-down menu), and business description (this is optional and can be added later).

Step 3. Add your business logo

After entering this information, click the “Create Page” button.
You will see a couple of new fields appear on the left menu, allowing you to add the logo and a profile picture (again, this is optional and can be added later), as well as toggles to switch notifications and promotional emails on or off. Once you’re done, click “Save.”

Step 4. Connecting to WhatsApp

You will be given the option to connect your page to WhatsApp by adding your mobile number. This is optional: if you do not want to do this, simply close the pop-up.

Step 5. Editing your page information

You will now be redirected to your newly created page, where you can add additional information about your business.
You can either go through the “Set your page up for success” section on the main page screen. It will show you the remaining sections you can update. Or, you can click on “Edit Page Info” on the menu on the left:

Selecting “Edit Page Info” will open a new page where you can add all your business information in one go. The information you add will be saved automatically—this will be indicated by the pop-up that will appear on the screen briefly to say that your changes have been saved.

Note: the system may not record your choice if you switch between options too quickly. Make your selection or add your information and wait until the data is saved.

Creating Multiple Business Pages (Brands and Multi-Location Businesses)

You must own at least one Facebook Business Page before you can manage multiple pages under one account/dashboard. This is important because you must have created a main page first so that other pages can be linked to it.

Step 1. Log in and locate your page

Log in to your Facebook account.
From the menu on the left, select “Pages” from the available options:

Open your page.
Copy the string of numbers at the end of your page URL—this is the page ID:

Step 2. Linking your page

Go to https://business.facebook.com/business_locations/.
Paste the number you copied into the search bar at the top right corner of the page and select your page when it appears as a suggestion:

If the page is relatively new, you will see this message (below). In this case, you will need to come back after two days to proceed further.

One thing worth noting is that the main page should not have an address. Therefore, you will need to remove it or select a check box if you will see this message when you will try to proceed next time:

Step 3. Ensuring your main page is set up correctly

After two days, if the page is ready, it will display the “Get Started” button on the main page screen:

Check the box to confirm that you wish to make the current page the main page of your business/brand.

This will create the required structure where all location pages will be hosted under the main page umbrella. Now, you will have access to the main dashboard where you can manage your stores. The first thing to do is to add your remaining locations.

Step 4. Adding location/store pages

Click on the “Add stores” button.

Select how you wish to add a new page. There are several options available:
- Add manually
- Add multiple stores
- Connect via API
- Connect a Page

If you only have a handful of pages to add, then the first option (Add manually) is the best. It will ask you to add basic information about the business:
- The business name will be pre-filled as Facebook assumes all locations share the same name as the main page.
- The default name will be the existing page name with a location descriptor. The location descriptor is “(City)” or “(Address, City)” if there are multiple locations in the same city. The name can be changed later in the page settings.

If you have more than ten locations, they can be added in bulk via a file upload.
The second option (Add multiple stores) is the best for that – it will also provide you with an example template that shows how it should be filled in and the blank template you can use for your stores:

How to Request Access to Claimed Pages

Log in to Facebook and go to https://business.facebook.com/settings/pages.
Click the “Add” button and, from the drop-down, select “Request Access to a Page”:

Enter the Facebook Page name or its URL.

Tip: It’s better to search for your page using its URL as, when you type the name only, you can be presented with several options. It may not be clear to understand which page you need to select—unless you want to claim them all—or which pages are yours.

Once you have selected the page, use the toggles to choose which permissions you need. If you want to keep the business information up to date, then it’s best to request full control.

Click Request access.
This request will then appear in your dashboard as “Pending”.

Managing your Facebook Business Page

We hope these steps have helped you with the first step of adding or claiming your Facebook Business Page. For tips on getting the most out of your Page, optimizing its layout, and even asking your audience for Facebook reviews, head to our guide on how to manage your Facebook Business Page as a local business.

Expert Predictions for Local Marketing in 2025

Jamie Banks — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 10:30:05 +0000

2025 is here, and with it comes the inevitable swatch of reflection and predictions. But who else has gathered 25 of the top names in local SEO to share their thoughts for the year ahead?! Hear from experts from the likes of RicketyRoo, Sterling Sky, Steady Demand, Croud and much, much more.

Read on as our contributors dive into AI, LLMs, visual search, and much, much more. First, we’ll start with a summary of the predictions, for those short on time, then move on to the predictions in full, in alphabetical order by surname.

Expert Predictions: The TL;DR

1. Google Business Profile (GBP) Optimization

Overview: GBP will continue to be a cornerstone for local SEO, with businesses needing to fully optimize profiles and leverage new AI-driven features.

AI features like automated descriptions, sentiment analysis, and holiday hours suggestions will grow.
Integration with social media content (posts and UGC) is likely to enhance GBP relevance.
Businesses must ensure consistency across GBP and other listings.