Part of my job is to manage paid social media placements and advertisements for clients. Sometimes tiny riots arise on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn … the majority of which are from users who don’t want to see ads in general. A few of those people comment on sponsored Facebook posts saying a much more eloquent version of “Get that ad out. of. mah face.” 

So we put out tiny fires one by one. And these clients? They’re the good guys. 

An overwhelming majority (if not all) of my clients are not solely focused on ROI, revenue, leads, etc… The majority of them are focused on raising brand awareness or creating a genuine connection between a product or company they believe in and its users. Most of them don’t want to interrupt you. Most of them just want to invite you — and only if what they’re selling is relevant to you.

It’s a win/win when advertising and marketing is strategic and relevant — users get introduced to new brands that are relevant to them and companies don’t pay for impressions to the wrong users.

As consumers, we want to choose the brands we interact with. We want to “opt in.” We don’t want you pushing your ads in our personal bubbles. We don’t have empathy or ground rules for interacting with brands because they are not people. So instead of learning to live in harmony with the advertising world that just keeps getting bigger and bigger — we let brands really affect us by freaking out over how they “treat us.” They interrupt us. They monetize the things we love. We feel like they bastardize the “organic nature” of Facebook and Twitter … which are just brands that we feel hot and cold about anyway.

As marketers, we don’t want to be schmucks. Some marketers are giving most marketers a bad rap. That’s how it goes though, groups are often defined by their radicals and marketing is no different. I recently did a webinar with my friend Mary Ellen and her business Reputation Capital on increasing traffic to business blogs. At some point, the “panelists” and I were asked what we thought about LinkedIn Groups as a place for marketers to increase engagement or drive traffic. I cringed at the thought for a second. The purpose of LinkedIn Groups is to facilitate a forum for discussion between professionals. I’ve seen really great discussions and Quora-style collaboration and fire-poking in LinkedIn Groups … Wait .. actually, what I’ve seen is people helping students find internships and some mild discussion around issues or rhetorical questions. I do think that they can be a fine place for genuine marketers to establish thought leadership and have conversations with people in their industry. It can also be a great place for genuine marketers to listen to users or prospects on what they are searching for.

But I couldn’t stop thinking of every attendee hopping off that call and jumping right in to the first LinkedIn Group they could find to post a link to their latest press release. It stung.

So I said that I was nervous to say “yes” because there are always a few bad apples who really do ruin the entire bunch and I actually felt anxiety over the thought of reckless marketers tearing through the caverns of LinkedIn like a klutzy Hulk looking for easy results. I didn’t think I could trust the listeners to know how to be genuine. 

So I think we need a treaty — between marketing people that represent companies on social media and the general consumer population — to keep this a win/win for everyone involved.

As a consumer: 

What I won’t do.

• I will stop overreacting and saying that a brand ruined my life with a sponsored post on Facebook.
• I will never proactively exploit a social media mistake that does not personally offend me or mean something. So someone said Detroit sucked once … statistically and according to Google Analytics, you don’t live there. Also, Detroit does kind of suck.
• As a consumer, I will stop expecting social media networks to stay free without ads. I will acknowledge when I am dangling that carrot in front of myself and vow to click on one display advertisement once in an actual blue moon. For me, I think of it as my sacrifice to the powers that found a way to exchange a completely free social game-changer for millions of users for a couple of pixels of ad space that doesn’t usually interfere unless I let it.

What I will do.

• As a consumer, I will like some Facebook pages that manage to entertain or inform me. What the hell, I might even click “share” every once in a while.
• As a consumer, I will demand more from marketers — ethics, sincerity, a willingness to inform and educate — on social media.
• I will remember what this felt like when I’m feeling frustrated with ads on social media.
• I’ll try to remember that there is more likely than not a twenty-something, young and eager professional on the other side of that social post. And I will try not to make him or her wish they were never born.

As a marketer: 

What I won’t do.

• I will stop the asshattery of interruption marketing. I will take the time and spend the money to be relevant and engaging to potential users.
• I will not advertise a garbage product with social media advertising. I will play by the user-driven rules of social.
• I will stop believing people care about my brand just because I do. Instead, I’ll prove mama didn’t raise no fool and find the value I can offer my customers and prospects with great content.
• I won’t make a stoopid mistake and speak out on social media on behalf of my brand when I am drunk or otherwise impaired.

What I will do.

• I will invest in good creative and copy that will delight my users and invite them instead of repel them.
• I will take all of the conceivable measures to protect my account from being hacked like a putz.
• As a marketer, I will stay in a consumer mindset — and will be wary of ad or campaign concepts or “strategies” that play the role of “necessary evil.” “No, no, trust me … buying followers is still a thing.” It’s not.
• I will engage in open dialogue with my customers, fans, and prospects and listen to any concerns or suggestions they have for how they interact with our brand.

You might not want to lean in to the cult of brand as a consumer. And some marketers don’t care about sincerity in experience or reputation. Remember — somebody is designing, writing copy, and programming ads for mail-order brides and penis pumps … that’s somebody’s job. 

With some help and some mutual compromise, we can make the Internet feel a little less like an AOL chat room.

What do you think? Are you feeling like Will Smith in iRobot? Or the robot that gains consciousness?

They’re hosting an educational webinar series, the final webinar is today at 1 pm CST on how to build a killer Facebook presence for your personal or company networking.

You can view the first two webinars in the series on-demand here:

• Developing a Strategic and Effective Presence on LinkedIn

• Essential Elements for a Successful Twitter Presence

Check out the infographic that goes along with it on Slideshare by clicking the preview image below:

The price for each webinar is $37.99 or $99 for the bundle of all three.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive introduction and discussion about best practices on social media for HR or job seekers, this is it.

Plus, they’re just awesome people. So follow them on Twitter here and here.

JELL-O wants to reclaim #FML to mean “Fun my life.” They have responded to #FML tweets on Twitter with the following response:

Read the rest at Social Media Today

This is the funniest cat video I have seen since angry cat. Watch it and pass it along.

The New Starr Conspiracy

I work for a badass B2B marketing agency called The Starr Conspiracy. We launched our new website this week and it’s fly. Go check it out, play around, try to get to level 2 access.

Get the most out of LinkedIn

Jennifer McClure and Laurie Ruettimann want to teach you how to get the most out of LinkedIn. They’re pros. Go absorb their collective genius on Slideshare and listen to the archived webinar on the same topic to dive deeper.

TEDx Talks: Dan Ariely — What makes us feel good about our work?

Sense of purpose, money, yadda yadda. Listen to the man, sheesh.

Have a great weekend! 

Stop! Before you put that little widget on your corporate blog that enables people to “Like” your post, there may be a better alternative.

Sure, you like the idea of having a customer give your post a little gold star, and you like to see the total number of “Likes” displayed on your blog (or Facebook page).

But what if clicking on that “Like” button is distracting your prospect or customer from doing something far more valuable in terms of your social media ROI? That “something” is sharing your post.

It’s easy for someone to click “Like,” but it’s almost meaningless from your point of view. It’s like a polite little spatter of digital applause. Good for your ego, but what about for your bottom line?

When a customer or prospect takes the extra step of clicking a Share button to repost your post, tweet about it, or send it by email to one of their own colleagues, you’re expanding your reach to new prospects. In addition, your post arrives with the endorsement of the person who shares your content. They become, in effect, your brand advocate.

It’s a little more difficult to “Share” a post than it is to “Like” one, but you can help nudge your reader in the direction of sharing.

As DailyBlogTips.com points out, by removing the “Like” widget from your blog, and leaving only the buttons for sharing as options, you are vastly increasing the chances that someone who likes what you say will act as your brand advocate.

A 2011 study by Eccolo Media found that simply having sharing buttons available on a blog increased the perceived value of the content. It’s seen as something that should be shared.

The SocialFresh blog agrees — and so does Facebook, because Facebook’s algorithm, EdgeRank, gives Shares of your page more weight than it gives ‘Likes’. (Read more about EdgeRank and B2B social media on Marketo.com.)

According to AdWeek, it was Facebook’s dogged insistence on emphasizing shares that finally got major brands to change their own focus. Watch for Facebook ads that used to sport “Like” buttons to replace those with “Share” icons.

Three Tips for Better Sharing

1. Use LinkedIn. It turns out that one of the best places to get those golden shares for blogs is on LinkedIn. Make sure that your blog is linked to your LinkedIn company page so that your posts are automatically appearing in the Recent Updates section of your LinkedIn company page.
2. Make your newsletter articles easy to share. If you put sharing buttons in your email newsletter, consider linking them to a specific article (via links to the website version of the newsletter) rather than having your brand advocate be required to share your entire newsletter. This ensures that the sender doesn’t have to worry about “spamming” the recipient. And it increases the chances that the recipient will perceive your company as providing exactly what they were interested in.
3. Assess and update your sharing tools. Remember that you’re sharing in a rapidly changing B2B social media environment. Take a look at what your competitors and business partners are doing with sharing tools, and gauge their results. Periodically reassess your sharing tools to keep pace with change as new sharing platforms emerge.

What are your tips for better sharing?

About the writer: Daniel Kushner is the Co-Founder of Oktopost, a marketing expert and social media guru. As the former VP of Marketing at innovative high-tech company Nolio, Daniel grew sales with double-digit growth year over year. Daniel has been in the field for more than a decade and has successfully led the online marketing departments of various global organizations.

In my corner of the B2B marketing universe, I often hear clients assume that LinkedIn is the best place to invest for lead generation online. Despite the hard-line cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-lead (CPL) numbers being much higher than that of Twitter and Facebook, it can be difficult to steer B2B marketers away from the perception that LinkedIn is the best network for them.

Why Twitter?

A recent study published on Mediabistro’s All Twitter found 82 percent of leads generated through social media are referred from Twitter. That same study found that Twitter outperforms LinkedIn and Facebook 9 to 1 for lead generation.

But everyone knows quality is more important quantity. Lucky for Twitter, their audience is highly relevant as well. In another recent study conducted by Twitter, 30 percent of Twitter users searched for B2B tech brands, compared to 12 percent of average Internet users.

The same study found that 11 percent of Twitter users who saw a tweet from a B2B tech brand went on to convert on the company’s website by completing a sign-up form for downloadable content or demo, compared to only 4 percent of average Internet users.

How do I get results from Twitter advertising?

Twitter has several promoted product lines — promoted accounts (typically used to gain new followers),promoted tweets in search and promoted tweets in timeline.

Read the full post on Social Media Today

#NextChat

A3. I still think it’s important for #GenY to know how they can move up — a career plan with vision.#nextchat

— Lizzie Maldonado (@lizonomics) May 8, 2013

A4. The thing is, influence is no longer a hierarchy – it’s a conversation. Inside and outside the organization. #NextChat

— Matt Charney (@mattcharney) May 8, 2013

 

I co-hosted this week’s #NextChat with my friend Matt Charney. The topic was something that was actually pretty fascinating to me. Gen Y was a huge topic and you still hear radicals from both ends of the spectrum claiming that Gen Y has revolutionized the workplace and then those who believe Gen Y is a lazy bunch of asses. This week we discussed what Gen Y’s movement up the ranks at work means for the workplace. Check out the recap here.

How B2B Marketers Can Overcome Negative Online Brand Mentions

I published my first post on the marketing blog Business 2 Community yesterday — if you’re into B2B marketing and you want to find out what people say about your brand and where they say it, check it out.

Increase Traffic For Your Business Blog

I love having smart friends. I did a webinar with my friend Mary Ellen Slayter and her team at Reputation Capital. The topic was business blogging. You can watch the recording here if you blog for your business and you’re looking for some tips.

Do Work That You’re Good At And You’ll Be Happier

My new co-worker Lance Haun wrote a great plog post about how your job can be “a vehicle for making your passions happen.” Check it out.

Daniel Pink on Money

This quote from Daniel Pink on Explore:

“The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table: Pay people enough so that they’re not thinking about money and they’re thinking about the work. Once you do that, it turns out there are three factors that the science shows lead to better performance, not to mention personal satisfaction: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.”

That’s it for me. Back to the Vick’s Vapo.

I happily agreed to do a webinar with my friend Mary Ellen Slayter on attracting more traffic to your business blog a while ago.  For the past five days, however, I’ve been knocked completely on my ass by a nasty virus.  The webinar was yesterday.  I can’t tell you what personal pride I feel hearing very few audible symptoms of my cough or wheeze.  I’m a mute-button ninja.

Anyway, I think the webinar went well and if you run a business blog, I’m sure you’ll benefit from some of the tips we discussed.  If you want to check it out, I’ve embedded the video below, you can check out the #moretraffic hashtag on Twitter, or download the whitepaper here.

A couple of tips the panelists — Ian Greenleigh, Jesse Stanchak and I — offered to business bloggers are below:

• Leverage your email list by treating your subscribers well. Make your list signup process double opt-in, your content relevant, and unsubscribing easy and accessible for readers. Don’t hold your subscribers hostage.

• When you guest post on other blogs, treat the “host” well — submit a great, editorial-style piece of content on time, in the format they requested and be sure to follow the submission guidelines (if they exist). Don’t be an asshole. Be good to them, they’re giving you a voice.

For more, check out the recording of the webinar. Thanks!

Fan Mail

I work for an agency called The Starr Conspiracy — it was founded by Bret Starr. He wrote an awesome blog post this week about blog comments. You should read it. It’s called “Fan Mail.”

Try Ghost

My friend Nancy sent over the link to Ghost yesterday and I just about lost my cool. I’m fully aware of Medium, although I can’t try it yet, either. Check out what Ghost is doing — they received a freakish 358% (out of 100%) of the necessary stage one funding through Kickstarter — but they are in round two with a ways to go if you’re thinking of supporting the upcoming platform. The benefits for supporting are pretty convincing.

I’m pretty sure the founder (above) is gonna get his dream blogging platform. Look at him. He’s gonna be so excited when he finds out.

Little Dragon — “Twice”

I love Little Dragon. Give it a listen.

Hey, have a great weekend! 

Partly because I genuinely want to help you increase conversions and get some new leads.

If you’re a B2B marketer, chances are you’re using content marketing with a mix of webinars, white papers, research, infographics and a few other socialized content types mixed in. Content marketing relies on relevant content, design, effective multi-channel promotion, and kickass landing pages. Great content falls flat if it’s put behind a craptastic landing page.

Let’s look at the examples.

Example #1 — rdio Landing Page

rdio’s landing pages are simple, elegant and user-friendly. They sell a B2C service, obviously, but this landing page is still a good example of function in B2B. Pay attention to how they tell the story of social radio, instead of the story of just their particular solution.

If you are in an emerging market segment or if you have a new solution in an existing category, your content marketing initiatives and coordinating landing pages should promote the category and the product in general, as well as why your solution is different. Using rdio as an example, if you as a user don’t know what social, streaming radio is and you landed on rdio’s website where it highlighted the differentiators between rdio and Spotify, you would be too confused to follow through with a free trial or download.

Example #2 — Statusboard Landing Page

This landing page from 37 Signals (creators of Basecamp) Supersteil for Statusboard tells the story of what Statusboard will do for you. Because it’s an add-on for Basecamp, they don’t have to tell the story for why you need a traffic or project management tool in the first place. Instead, they link you back to Basecamp where they tell that story. This landing page is just highlighting the added benefits of combining Statusboard and Basecamp.

Example #3 — SmartRecruiters Landing Page

For B2B and especially in HR technology marketing, I reference this SmartRecruiters landing page design on a regular basis. The call to action is prominent, requires minimal fields for signup, features are in bullets and give you a comprehensive sense of what the product will give you, and they display a preview of the product next to the CTA. If you never scrolled down, you wouldn’t need more information than that to sign up.

Just in case you do need more — they include a quality list of clients, the “why” behind recruiting software in general, and why SmartRecruiters is different (free, hire on Facebook, etc.). As far as B2B landing pages go, this is my favorite example landing page in terms of functionality.

What do you think? Do you have some good landing page examples bookmarked? Share them below and I’ll check em out.