A Social, Local Roundup (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest)

Well, Google’s had a crappy week, huh?

Their quarterly earnings were released early due to “human error,” (surprising all of us who’d come to believe Google didn’t allow errors — or humans, for that matter). Plus, those earnings weren’t so hot, at least by Wall Street’s standards (they’d be astonishing for many other companies).

Meanwhile, France is looking at legislation Google says threatens their very existence.

Oh and Reuters reports the FTC is close to hitting Google with an antitrust suit.

Now, I’ve been following Google’s antitrust woes over the last few years in posts like “What every small business needs to know about Google’s antitrust investigation,” “Should Google’s antitrust woes worry you?”
“What Google vs. FairSearch.org and the US Senate Means to You” and “Google, ITA and the coming antitrust war,” so I’m not too surprised by this.

So, just for fun, let’s pretend there’s a world without Google and see what else you can do to grow your business without ’em:

• Search Engine Watch shows how brands use Instagram for visual marketing.
• Social Media Today climbs on the Instagram bandwagon with a look at 4 brands using Instagram really well.
• Search Engine Land looks at how Yelp outed 8 businesses it caught trying to buy reviews.
• PageLever has data showing 1 out of 5 new Facebook fans now comes from mobile–a 280% increase from May to August.
• BazaarVoice says Twitter volume reflects stock price plus a whole lot more
• And, finally, TechCrunch outlines Google promotions launch on Google Shopping and how it enables distribution to Google Offers & Maps on Android, too. OK, I know I said there would be no Google. But, is that even possible to imagine?

Have a great weekend, Big Thinkers. We’ll see you back here next week.

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Technorati Tags: social, social commerce, social marketing, social media predictions, social search, social strategy, strategy