Friendly, local hometown deals are lighting up the local Seattle landscape like a Cascade sunrise, courtesy of the city’s premier South Lake Union anchor tenant and Etailing jungle beast, Amazon.com. The local brands and Northwest flavors are as homespun as the Emerald City and its three neighboring suburbs in the deal zone: Tacoma, Bellevue and Snohomish County. A small irony is that, for the short term, the local deals are being coordinated vis-a-vis the “other” Washington, by LivingSocial, the second largest social dealmaker in the market space, headquartered in the nation’s capitol. Amazon invested $175 million in LivingSocial back in December when talks between Google and rival Groupon melted down. AmazonLocal will soon offer direct deals sourced by Amazon, according to the company.
In the inaugural test flight (without a lot of fanfare) , AmazonLocal brokered 4,801 local offers. A local product offering by Google sold more than 8,000 offers in its first 22 days in the Portland market so the pace is faster in Jet City. Look for such local deals as $15 for $30 at the Coho Cafe Restaurant & Bar on the Eastside. Or get social at The Garage watering hole with bowling alleys and pool tables at half-price, $25 deals going for $50.
Mary Osako, Amazon.com spokesperson, describes the service this way: “AmazonLocal isn’t just about the amazing deals; it’s about opening up Seattle, our hometown, for exploration. From coffee shops to the arts scene, there are so many innovative businesses and locally-developed services to try out right in our own backyard. With AmazonLocal, Seattleites can rediscover their city and get great deals at the same time.” [24×7]
Let Seattle’s Social Media Club Help You Craft Your Storytelling for the Online Video Age
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must range into the millions. Just ask Seattle’s Social Media Club panelists. These viral video experts have engaged hundreds of thousands, entertaining and educating along the way.
This Tuesday evening, June 28, from 6-9p.m. at Seattle City Hall, hear from Jason Reid of Sonicsgate fame, CommonCraft founder Lee LeFever, and Ben Crawford of Epipheo Studios as SMC President-elect Shauna Causey moderates a session that will touch on storytelling in the video age, how you can create great content and use social media to spread your messages and engage viewers. A few tickets are still available via Eventbrite. [24×7]
