Yahoo! Sees Small Business Dashboarding Need - Social Media Explorer
Yahoo! Sees Small Business Dashboarding Need
Yahoo! Sees Small Business Dashboarding Need
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Leave it to one of the web’s mainstays to truly being to solve the digital marketing dashboard problem! Yahoo! (of all companies) unveiled a sweet small business dashboard product today. It’s Yahoo! Small Business Marketing Dashboard pulls together web analytics, Pay-Per-Click and other paid search advertising, e-commerce, social media monitoring, directory listings and more into a single reporting home.

Long the lament of the online digital marketer and lip-service goal of every social media monitoring and management solution out there, the unified dashboard has been a pipe dream for many a digital marketer for years. Some platforms offer a glimpse at what one could be. Few have pulled one together that is definitively good. Yahoo! has made a better-than-most effort here.

Yes, it’s geared toward small businesses. But this platform is powerful enough and built do pull disparate sets of data together into one place. Certainly, if you’re a Yahoo! Small Business customer, you’re going to love it. But even if you’re not, you may want to check this platform out. Don’t fall out of your chair on this one, either: The core product is free.

Not that it doesn’t have its limitations. The social media monitoring component (which they call reputation management) is very light and only offers you views of the last two mentions without upgrading to a paid version of the solution. I worry about it’s integrity in terms of providing you with enough and accurate data … it’s too simple in its set up to indicate that it’s good enough compared to many social media monitoring solutions. Still, with the upgrade (which starts at $9.99 per month), you can get access to similar data for competitors, too.

Even with the free version, you get access to directory listings and monitoring, email and SEO campaign monitoring, and all in an interface and tool designed for the business owner, not the marketing or tech geek.

The bottom line is that Yahoo! has tapped into a market need here. Yes, it’s focused on the small businesses, but even the large, enterprise companies I’ve spoken to recently are still frustrated with having to pull disparate reports together manually. No one seems to be solving this problem for much of anyone. And then Yahoo! comes along and does it.

Who’d a thunk it. Good on ya, Yahoo!

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About the Author

Jason Falls
Jason Falls is the founder of Social Media Explorer and one of the most notable and outspoken voices in the social media marketing industry. He is a noted marketing keynote speaker, author of two books and unapologetic bourbon aficionado. He can also be found at JasonFalls.com.

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