Online Marketing News: 80 Rules of Social, Vine Growing, Yahoo Topples Google, Shoppers Go Mobile, Top Twitter Women

The 80 Rules of Social Media by @JeremyWaite is a clever Pinterest style infographic offering 80 tips and insights on the world of social media. You’d think by now we’d have heard everything there is to hear about social media, but this collection covers a lot more than the social web. There are gems here like, 42: “If fans start publishing and sharing your content without your permission, offer to help.” and of course 67: “Giving away free iPads to people on Facebook is fine – as long as you have no intention of building a lasting relationship with them”. bitrebels

In Other Online Marketing News…

Smarter Inboxes Means Marketers Need to Get Smarter Too – Promotional emails, cold calling, telemarketing, and direct mail have taken a hit with Gmail now segmenting your incoming marketing messages. Much to the dismay of many legitimate marketers (as opposed to spammers), their opt-in newsletters are being sent to a ‘Promotions’ tab. Clara Shih, author, The Facebook Era, on LinkedIn.

Editable Video App Makes Brand Films Easy for All Salons – YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, launched recently a new video-focused community and mobile phone video app, MixBit, which has the ability to offer phone-based editing for the first time, offering huge potential for the beauty industry. ModernSalon

Mobile Commerce May Top $25 Billion This Year Says comScore – Mobile commerce now accounts for one of every $10 spent online and is growing at a faster pace than traditional e-commerce. Mashable

Facebook Settles ‘Sponsored Stories’ Lawsuit for $20 million – Facebook will pay $15 per user after a judge approved a final legal settlement that intends to compensate users for the social network’s decision to display their pictures in sponsored stories ads without permission. Gigaom

Vine Grows to 40 Million Registered Users – After only seven months since Twitter acquired Vine, the six-second video sharing app has more than tripled its user base since June. MarketingLand

How to Make a Marketing Analytics Mindset Stick – Pat LaPoint, Executive VP of MarketShare, explains how to manage the intersection of marketing and metrics successfully, pointing (pun intended) to key principles that drive adoption: goal setting, visibility, honesty, transparency, bluntness, training, communication. Forbes

Responsive Design: The Next Great Hope or All Hype [Infographic] – Responsive web design adapts a site’s layout to various device types. Images, button, grids and text are automatically re-sized to provide the best user experience. For your mobile only visitors, responsive design is crucial. MarketingProfs

Changes at LinkedIn Create New Marketing Opportunities – LinkedIn is moving away from its roots as a business-oriented social network and becoming a business-to-business (B2B) content publishing platform, providing marketers a chance to include native ads in the feed and PowerPoint-style ads using technology from SlideShare, which they acquired last year. eMarketer

The Art of Writing Great Google+ Posts – If you’ve been stumped over how to write exceptional posts for Google+, you won’t be once you read this ‘how to’ from a writer who has mastered the art. Copyblogger

Retailers Face Shoppers Moving to Mobile Only – Researchers at comScore found that, on a monthly basis, about a third (35%) of the top 50 retailers’ audience came exclusively from smartphones and tablets. Translated, this means that of overall U.S. website usage, retailers are facing more consumers viewing their sites only from a mobile device. MediaPost

Google Announces ‘Helpouts,’ a Help-for-Cash Video Chat Service – Google has quietly launched a new p2p video chat helpline service. Anyone can sign up to receive or provide help, and providers can make money off chat sessions. You need a Google+ account and, if you charge for your time, Google takes 20%. Arstechnica

Yahoo! Finally Tops Google in Unique U.S. Visits – Yahoo! had more unique visitors in the U.S. than any other web company, including longtime No. 1 Google. Shares were up more than 2.5% in midday trading in the stock market last week, near 27.80, which had to make CEO, Marissa Mayer, happy. Investors.com

But … Google Still Tops in Video and Search – Google is still more profitable than Yahoo! and when you factor in mobile traffic and search queries, Google still rules. MarketingProfs

Facebook Shutters Physical Goods Delivery in Gifting Service – More than 80 percent of gifts sent on Facebook were digital, so plans to ramp down its physical gifting service are based on an overall lack of user demand. AllThingsD

25 of the Smartest Women on Twitter – From iconic TV journalist, Christiane Amapour to Chelsea Clinton to editors and authors, entrepreneurs and innovators, this list contains some super smart tweeple. FastCompany

From the Online Marketing Community

On “Business Blogging in a Content Marketing World – 5 Steps to Success,” Ava Cristi  said, Great tips Lee! I agree with you; the more useful the information you posts, the more readers you will attract and the more likely they will become regular readers.

On “How Top Consumer Brands are Successfully Using Google+,” Sarah Bauer said, Good reminders here for businesses to focus on enhancing the visual quality of their Google+ pages. All of these big brands know how to use gorgeous, expansive photography to their advantage, and platforms like Google+ seem made for such visual engagement.

On “How to Maintain Your Reputation During a Social Media Crisis,” Chris Syme said, Good post and reminder for brands to plan ahead so they don’t have to react. I wanted to mention one thing about humor: more companies have got into trouble using it than those that have been successful with it in a crisis. If you analyze why Red Cross was able to get away with it, there are a number of factors that make their situation unique. Nonprofit, extremely well-loved to begin with, rogue tweet was really a harmless mistake, etc. When visiting with brands, I always want them to know that humor in a crisis is usually not a good idea. There are too many cultural values to deal with and most people only direct their humor at one group’s sensitivities and miss the rest.

What’s Your Take?

Is Google really trying to “help out” or is this just one more way to grow profits? Will Yahoo! continue to grow market share? Are mobile phone video apps the next big thing?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!