Today we've begun wrapping up our top posts of 2012 series here on Marketing Land and our sister site, Search Engine Land. In the next few days we'll be sharing some of the most popular stories from 2012, including some of the most read, most tweeted and the most liked on Facebook. To get us started we've pulled together the most popular stories shared on Google+. To gather the data we used Social Crawlytics, a free tool that crawls any site analyzes each URL to show how it's been shared on the most popular social channels out there, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, StumbleUp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Features & Analysis | Most Popular Stories | Top News

Google now offers small businesses using its AdWords Express service a way to promote their Google+ pages seemingly everywhere but on Google+ itself, which Google reasserts should be an ad-free zone. That omission may make these ads less effective for those seeking new customers or followers to their Google+ pages. Meanwhile, the push gets those same small businesses spending their advertising dollars to promote Google+ itself for Google. AdWords Express & Google+ Pages In case you're not familiar with AdWords Express, it's Google's version of automated paid search. With AdWords Expre [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Top News

Just two days after a social media storm erupted over Instagram's proposed new terms of service, the Facebook-owned company -- as promised -- has come up with revisions, in an effort to "communicate our intentions clearly." Rather than say the company's plans themselves led to the controversy, co-founder Kevin Systrom has painted it all as a misunderstanding, where poor wording in its terms caused confusion among users -- many of whom said publicly that they were deleting their accounts over the changes. The first section that people were up in arms about referred to a "non-exclusive, fu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Legal | Features & Analysis | Top News

Google videos were shared nearly 5.9 million times in 2012, making it the most shared video brand of the year according to Unruly Media's 2012 Social Video Share Index. Google ranked seventh in the 2011 index, and Unruly Media credits this year's jump to Google's success with its Project Glass: One day... video, the video that Google released in the spring to introduce how consumers might some day use the Google Glass product. (see below) Google videos were shared almost 200 percent more often this year than in 2011. Nike ranks second on Unruly Media's list with about 5.5 million video s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Video | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Glass | Google: Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Video

Gone will be the days of scrolling through pages and pages of your Tweets or Twitter's clunky search to find something you once posted. Twitter is in the process of rolling out a "Download all your Tweets" feature, which has been formally announced today on the Twitter Blog. To get your archive, go to the Settings area and look for the new "Your Twitter archive" feature: Due to high demand, don't be surprised if you get an error message like this: But keep trying, until you get a success screen that offers a link you can use to download the archive: You'll then get an email like th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Features & Analysis | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Accounts & Profiles

If you go by my Facebook and Twitter feeds, you'd think Instagram is finished -- users are packing their bags (downloading their photos using services like Instaport) and migrating to other services like Snapchat or even the venerable Flickr. This because the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service announced changes in its terms of service due to take effect in January, with some of those changes designed to allow advertisers access to the audience. Is everyone leaving Instagram before marketers get a chance to engage with them? Not likely. Since this latest Facebook-related-change panic (FR [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Acquisitions | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Mobile Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Two months after Microsoft introduced the same type privacy policy changes that Google did, and was attacked by the European Union over, the EU is finally getting around to questioning the Microsoft move. Microsoft's change happened on October 19. It was announced with little notice to consumers. Despite allowing for cross-platform sharing in the way privacy changes at Google allowed earlier this year, it attracted virtually no press attention nor that of regulators. In contrast, Google's change drew heavy attention the day it was announced and which continued on. Ten days after the anno [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features & Analysis | Google: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News

Next year looks to be a strong one for email marketing according to a StrongMail survey of more than a thousand marketers released today. The survey found that marketers plan to deploy more budget to email, social and mobile next year -- which makes sense given a second study by ReturnPath found mobile open share has increased 300 percent globally since 2010. StrongMail found that 89 percent of those surveyed plan to increase or maintain the same level of marketing spend in 2013, with 56% intending to grow their email marketing budget, 52% investing more in social media, 43% planning to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing | Features & Analysis | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Email Marketing | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Spend Projections | Top News

Nevermind the underperforming stock price. Facebook employees are still happy enough to have voted the company the top place to work in 2013 in Glassdoor's fifth-annual Employees' Choice Awards. Overall, Facebook scored a 4.7 rating (on a 1-5 scale) and CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a 99 percent approval rating from his employees. This is the second time Facebook has come out on top of the list. It was number one on the 2011 list, then fell to third overall on the 2012 list, which was published late last year. Numerous tech companies scored well in the Glassdoor survey. Google ranked six [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Business Issues | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Business Issues | Top News

With its incredible rise to popularity, Pinterest has become a big target for spammers. New systems have been implemented to help identify and report spam. The Pinterest quality team has been busy analyzing report data and are now making a move to ban these fraudulent Pinners -- forever. The bans will be "removed for good." Users may see a drop in followers in this clean sweep of spammers. Pinterest estimates that 99% of users will lose less than 10 followers.  The Pinterest team is also exploring ways to prevent these accounts from ever being created in the first place. For more [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Features & Analysis | Pinterest | Pinterest: Spam | Social Media Marketing: Spam | Top News

According to new Google figures, Google+ now has 135 million active users, with 235 million active users when counting Google properties with Google+ features, and 500 million with Google+ enabled accounts. Below, a chart of the growth and more about each type of figure. Google's Growing "Network Thingy" If three sets of figures for a social network seems odd, that's because Google+ is positioned by Google as more than a social network. Google has often spoken of it as a social "layer" across various Google properties. More recently, it has been described as a social "spine." Google's pos [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News | Uncategorized

The big three sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) are about to become the big four. Pinterest is here to stay and was the clear cut winner in Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report. Pinterest showed the most growth year-over-year for social desktop usage, social web usage and social app usage. Pinterest saw a 1,047% increase in unique PC visitors, and is aiming to surpass LinkedIn this year. The social site that show the next highest growth was Google+ that saw an 80% increase in traditional web users.  Pinterest’s mobile growth also dwarfed the competition. The popular bookmarking sit [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Pinterest | Pinterest: Statistics | Top News

Earlier today, as everyone now knows, a press release went out announcing the acquisition of WiFi provider ICOA by Google for $400 million. Though it was suspiciously short and lacked any quotes from company officials most people took it as official and ran with it. I was prepared to write something as well when our news editor Barry Schwartz expressed skepticism, did some digging and found out the release was false. Many of the familiar, leading tech blogs (and even AP) went out immediately with quick stories and analysis pieces about what it would mean for Google's fledgling ISP efforts. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Features & Analysis

According to some new survey data released over the weekend by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 56 percent of all mobile phone owners in the US access the internet. In addition, Pew says that 85 percent of all US adults now own a mobile phone. There are approximately 250 million US adults today. If 85 percent own a mobile phone that would make 212 million mobile phone-owning adults in the US. There are roughly 26 million teens in the US and 75 percent of them own mobile phones according to Pew. That would make an addressable mobile population of roughly 230 million (not cou [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Top News

Last week the Android operating system celebrated its fifth birthday. CNET offered a breakdown of the current and very impressive Android penetration numbers: Roughly 1.3 million activations per day globally More than 500 million phones sold/shipped (CNET estimates 570 million to date) Nearly 600,000 smartphone apps Nearly 600 unique Anroid devices in the market IDC simultaneously reported last week that 75 percent of global Q3 smartphone shipments were Android devices. While this is not the same as actual market share or device sales, it spectacularly underscores the fact that An [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Google: Android | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Top News

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer stood on stage at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium and ticked off the ways that Windows Phone 8 and Surface machines would make Microsoft competitive again against its main rivals Google and Apple. Before that we'd just been given an hour-long feature tour of Windows Phones by Microsoft VP Joe Belfiore: bold design, great camera, personalization, novel apps (e.g., "kids corner," "Data Sense") and so on. And while Windows Phones (8) do have some unique features and the UI is nicely done, none of those individual OS features is likely to lur [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Google: Android | Microsoft: Mobile

There are a lots of tablets in the market now and hardware-tracking firm IDC says that Android's share is gaining on Apple. However, despite the increase in "shipments" of various tablets, very few of them drive meaningful web traffic according a new study from mobile publishing platform Onswipe. Onswipe says that the iPad is responsible for a remarkable 98 percent of all tablet-based traffic to its publisher partners. All other tablets drive less than 2 percent of web traffic combined. This would be almost unbelievable if it weren't supported by other research showing similar trends. Ho [...]

Related Topics: Apple: iOS | Apple: iPad | Apple: Safari | Channel: Content Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google: Android | Google: Mobile | Google: Nexus | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Top News

It's election day in the United States, and there's plenty of internet-related activity going on related to today's polls. Below, a recap of things being done by Google, Facebook, Bing, Foursquare, Yahoo and other companies, as well as what people themselves are doing. Where To Vote & Voting Hours One of the current hot topics on Google Trends is "where do I vote," generated by all those people who are trying to figure out where to cast ballots: Similarly, lots of searches are happening related to "what time do polls open." One easy way to find out is to go to Google and cl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Features & Analysis | Politics

In just one month, Marketing Land’s SMX Social Media Marketing conference comes to Las Vegas on Dec. 5 & 6. The show will end in a great way, a keynote talk with Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Engineering, for Google+. Vic oversees all of Google's social efforts, and he'll be filling conference attendees in on all the progress that Google+ has made over the past year plus perhaps give some hints on what's next with the up-and-coming service. You won't want to miss the keynote, which happens on Dec. 6. Nor will you want to miss the show! Learn more at our SMX Social M [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Features & Analysis | Internet Marketing Industry: Search Marketing Expo - SMX

Google's new Google Search app for iOS is now out, bringing with it a Siri-like quality of speaking to get answers and having them read back. The app is cool, but it can't do all the "assistant" things that Siri can. Then again, for many searches, the Google Search app can be much faster than Siri. That's something which might make Google, rather than Siri, the first choice for iPhone, iPad and other iOS searchers. The Zooey Deschanel Test The Google Search app and Siri are not the same in capabilities. Google is designed to help with searching; Siri can help with searching as well as d [...]

Related Topics: Apple: Siri | Channel: Search Marketing | Features & Analysis | Google: Search | Top News