🔊 Gauging the digital resilience of SMBs

CabinetM today announced the launch of LibraryM, a martech resource website. The initial iteration comprises a series of directories listing, among other things, news sources, experts, thought-leaders and communities, career information and further reading. It also lists martech directories where vendors can claim and manage their profiles, including some which are arguably CabinetM competitors like G2 and TrustRadius.

The front page aggregates news headlines from a number of sources, including MarTech Today and Search Engine Land, but CabinetM co-founder and CEO Anita Brearton told us: “”We have no interest in being in the news business but we are interested in pointing people to the news.”

CabinetM was created in 2015 as a directory site focused specifically on martech. It added stack audit and management capabilities, workbooks and other resources, and for a time offered a blog with original content and news aggregated from other sources. LibraryM signposts a broader set of resources than the former blog, and is designed to serve marketing, sales and revenue operations professionals.

Read more here.

If this year has taught us anything it’s that predicting customer behavior is not easy. In 2021, we predict marketers will focus both on growing revenue from within their customer base and meeting unprecedented customer expectations to build loyalty and increase lifetime value. Join our expert panel as they discuss 2021 predictions, why marketers are shifting their focus from new acquisition to customer loyalty, and the exciting role Customer Data Platforms can play.

Read more »

Sitecore, the CMS and e-commerce platform, has announced the launch of Sitecore Experience Edge, a new platform for headless content delivery at scale. The platform’s content creation capabilities will be accessible to marketers as well as developers. The headless content delivery will be available in early 2021.

Headless CMS — so-called because it lacks a content delivery component (the head) — allows the front-end (basically, any channel) to request content from a content hub through APIs. It’s viewed as advantageous to brands and organizations seeking to push content across many channels rather than just feed it to a website. When headless capabilities are combined with user-friendly content management tools, the result is often called “hybrid headless.” Jose Santa Ana, Product Marketing Director for Sitecore AI and Content Hub, confirmed that it would be accurate to describe Experience Edge as a hybrid solution.

“It does offer coding-free content management (with the full content planning, collaboration, and management capabilities) for marketers, but requires front-end coding for publishing of the content and building the experience,” he told us.

Read more here.

Become an expert in Google Ads, Advanced SEO, Technical SEO, or In-House SEO! Attend your choice of virtual SMX workshop next week, Dec. 15-16, for just $249!

Secure your spot »

With 40 million active accounts on the Roku connected-TV platform, there is no longer a question of whether content creators should set up their own channels. The question is how to do it in the most efficient way. This growing audience, the effectiveness of this content distribution method and the simplicity of doing business with Roku are the main drivers that attract content distributors to the platform — and advertisers follow.

In this comprehensive guide, we explore the content creation options as well as various strategies you can use to build an audience. Whether you’re just starting a channel or looking to ramp up an existing one, you’ll find actionable information to drive your success.

Read more »

The arrival of the pandemic, and the drastic reduction in opportunities for face-to-face engagement with customers, saw SMBs in particular scrambling to enhance their digital offerings. While many consumers instinctively want to support small and local businesses, especially in the time of crisis, they’re also looking for a good digital experience.

A new survey by customer engagement platform Moxtra assessed digital resilience in the small business space. Based on discussions with 1,500 SMB staff members and 1,500 SMB customers, the survey found that:

Why we care. We’ve seen reports all year about big box retailers and other enterprise-scale corporations profiting under the pandemic, a healthy SMB sector is vital to the economy — and a smart shift to digital could even help level the playing field.

The FTC and a group of 46 State Attorneys General issued an anticipated antitrust lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday. The suit charges Facebook with “illegally maintaining its personal social networking monopoly through a years-long course of anticompetitive conduct.” The allegations are the results of a long investigation into the company’s acquisitions, chiefly Instagram in 2012 and WhatsAapp in 2014 “and the imposition of anti-competitive conditions on software developers.”

The FTC said it is seeking an injunction in federal court that could force Facebook to breakup its assets, potentially selling off Instagram and WhatsApp. Additionally, Facebook may be required to gain prior regulatory approval for future mergers and acquisitions.

Facebook responded in a statement Wednesday, “We’re reviewing the complaints & will have more to say soon. Years after the FTC cleared our acquisitions, the government now wants a do-over with no regard for the impact that precedent would have on the broader business community or the people who choose our products every day.”

Why we care. This marks the biggest antitrust effort from the U.S. government against big tech, and is very different than the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google in which no specific similar remedies were discussed, notes Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling. The charges are also brought by a bipartisan group of Attorneys General representing nearly every state as well as Washington D.C. and Guam.

“If you are in B2B, you are not selling to everyone. You are selling to people with very SPECIFIC needs who want clear ROI — so the question becomes, is your content and programs SPECIFIC enough?” Sangram Vajre, co-founder, Terminus.