Source: Mary Meeker’s 2018 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis – Recode

When your agency encounters a client with a slew of negative reviews, it’s a symptom of a bigger brick-and-mortar problem. But as a digital marketer, you’re far from powerless when it comes to the in-store experience: Getting Real with Retail: An Agency’s Guide to Inspiring In-Store Excellence

On Friday the 13th this month, Ray Kurzweil took the stage at TED 2018 in Vancouver to talk about his latest work at Google. Their latest service, Talk to Books, allows you to, well, talk to books. And not just a few books. More like the 100,000+ volumes available in Google Books.

Source: Will Google’s Semantic Search in ‘Talk to Books’ Supplant Keywords?

We’re living in a voice-activated world, but do local businesses need to pay attention to voice search? BrightLocal’s voice search statistics tell the local voice search story.

Source: Should local businesses worry about voice search? | Voice Search Statistics

Facebook is reportedly the source of some of the fake review solicitations.

Source: Reports: Fake reviews are a growing problem on Amazon, Google – Search Engine Land

Not sure how to optimize your webpages for voice search? Contributor Bryson Meunier lists 12 ‘how-to’ tactics and suggests two of them are the real workhorses in driving traffic to your site.

Source: Already doing SEO? Add these two things to optimize for voice search – Search Engine Land

If you want to displace negative content or build a strong brand identity, Twitter can help, says Contributor Chris Silver Smith. Here are 10 ways to use tweets to dominate page one on Google.

Source: Here’s how to use Twitter to dominate the Google search results – Search Engine Land

A brief history of the many privacy disasters at the world’s dominant social media platform, and what the most recent data exposure means for marketers, and other data Borg as Facebook’s CEO faces Congress…

Source: Facebook & Cambridge Analytica: What we know, what they knew & where that leaves us – Search Engine Land

Local business blogs are important when marketing small businesses – but can come with their challenges. BrightLocal’s poll results explore if starting a blog for your business is really necessary; how often you should blog; what local businesses should blog about, and the benefits of blogging.

Source: Do Local Businesses Need Blogs? | Poll Results

“How do you find new businesses when you’re on vacation? If you’re like most people, you search on your phone for specific types of businesses near you. In fact, from 2014 to 2015, “near me” searches increased 130%, with the 88% of those searches happening on mobile devices.”

Source: Mobile Near Me: Attracting Consumers on Vacation

“A recent study commissioned by Real Estate Webmasters has discovered the top marketing tools used by real estate professionals and reveals spending trends that will likely occur in 2018.

In 2017, a 53 percent majority of real estate professionals spent less than $5,000 on their annual marketing efforts, including both online and offline avenues. However, 1 in 8 real estate agents spent more than $20,000 in the year, with the top three percent spending more than $80,000 on their marketing.” Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/3727858#ixzz5CMrXP6Ew