General Motors,  in a widely reported Facebook-IPO-week #Fail bail, has quit their social media agency of record and abandoned Facebook Ads.  We understand the former, but not the latter. The most common reason for Facebook Ads failure, or in any channel for that matter, is a serious misunderstanding of the channel.

Hey there Mr. and Ms. online marketer. What would YOU do with about 24 billion paid Facebook Ads impressions, served to the largest sampling of humans on earth with the end goal of selling GM cars? Would you target social ads broadly, run promotions, attempt to drive users to external landing pages for one-touch car-building conversions, gradually raise up a new generation of brand-friendly customers and/or socialize users for later marketing efforts? How tightly would you segment users? Would the campaigns be part of a deeper, multichannel and long term strategy?  Would you expect to sell cars after one, two or three direct response FB Ads touches?   Would the 10 million bucks be worth spending compared to less quantifiable buys like television ads, radio or print brochures? Would you track results holistically, shooting at appropriate KPIs after setting realistic expectations?   Well, if you’re General Motors, apparently the answer is none-of-the-above… no, no, no, no, and no (at least not anymore)!

As an agency, all hinges on our client’s willingness to look at appropriate long-term KPIs informed by predictive modeling on the front end, serious targeting grids, bleeding edge creative and analytics monitoring in a reasonable attribution model.   A good social media marketing agency FIGHTS for their clients at KPI setting time. Dude, it better be real. At very least, one must understand the implications of making a brand even more famous to laser-sharp demographics.

From brainwashing the next generation of consumers (in uplifting ways) to influencing the influencers, FB is replete with marketing opportunities for the informed creative social/search hybrid team…

We doubt GM had all those variables lined up prior to their eerily public and blatantly timed fail-bail from Big Fuel Interactive and Facebook Ads. Good for everyone else! After all, FB Ads are sold at auction. Fewer advertisers = more impressions, for less money, for marketers to leverage FB’s social targeting might.

Predictive Modeling
Assuming an average CTR, CPC, great targeting, bleeding edge creative and expecting extraordinarily low conversion for direct response car-selling here’s what the program may have looked like, run by a team that knows what they’re doing.

Even with the conversion rate cut in half from what we’ve modeled here, and excluding future cross-channel conversions (including new brand searches by SEO & PPC) tracked by multichannel attribution funnels, we’re still talking about selling lots of cars here. GM is quitting FB Ads? Hmmm.

Not everyone agrees with GM. A recent Forrester study concluded that Facebook fans are twice as likely to buy brands they ‘like.’ In Gina Sverdlov’s Market Insights Professionals Blog, she posted this infographic citing the propensity of impact of Facebook fans at buying time. Of course, every vertical is different. Cars are different than rakes or AppleTV.

It is interesting to note that the Forrester study was also publicized the very week of FB IPO Madness. Hmmm.  Do ya’ think that this IPO is open PR warfare?

A Like is basically a viral subscription, where brands can re-market to users once subscribed, at the same time as using Sponsored Stories (second degree of separation ads) to amplify marketing messages to users’ friends. Our data shows that FB, as a paid channel, usually yields fewer direct conversions at a higher cost than other channels. However, in harmony with other channels over time, the FB channel can be a blockbuster.

Direct response, that is selling cars directly as the immediate focus of an ad, is not the only way (or best way) to skin the Facebook ads marketing rat.  Wiring up legions of friends by providing incentive for them to like your brand can be highly effective.  There are many ways to use FB ads to procure users’ likes. THAT does not need to cost ten million bucks.

Let’s assume you have the likes. GM has over 300K users that like the GM brand, not a bad start.  Once a brand has users in-community then the marketing mission is about providing the community with meaningful discourse, valuable tools, content to demystify products and remove barriers to sales.  All of this activity can lead users down the future conversion path. The screen capture below shows Monday’s post on the GM brand page as an example of the creative they tender to fans in their community.

How can this type of messaging lead a community member down the conversion funnel path? Looking back over the GM FB content posting strategy (re-marketing to users who have liked), there are months of self-congratulatory rhetoric, posts of questionable value, and little or no engagement or reason for users to engage. Maybe GMs problem is not Facebook Ads.

GM leaving paid FB as a channel is good for everyone but G.M. Ultimately, or at least temporarily,  G.M.s bail will very slightly lower the cost of FB ads for our clients. We doubt it will slow the FB IPO freight train. It would be a surprise if G.M.s reallocation of the the ten million + agency fees will sell more cars than they would have priming the social pump with FB Ads.

Photo by © Anatoliy Meshkov – Fotolia

Today we’re kicking off a new Friday afternoon feature, “Just For Fun Friday!” Being aimClear, we’re fortunate to have a ton of opportunities to experience life to it’s fullest.  From Sydney to San Diego, New York to San Francisco, Toronto to Tampa, our team seems to be everywhere these days.  Most weeks we’ll publish a few off-the-beaten-path pictures highlighting some tasty experience that lit up one of our iPhones, pocket cams’ or screen captures. Sometimes it’s the simplest things that delight me the most .

The picture at the top of this post is an iPhone screen capture of my SprintNav GPS (NavQuest), whilst crossing from Captiva Island, FL, to Sanibel Island on my way to the mainland. I was returning from speaking at Media Post Search Insider Summit (#MPSIS), just after BlueGlass LA (#BlueGlassLA). The picture below is taken from the same spot as the GPS shot, taken via the iPhone camera.

Finally, this third pic (below) is also an iPhone screen capture. It’s of the NavQuest Facebook app that loads after suggesting a check in. I canceled out and did not approve the reqesets. NavQuest does not need ALL of that extra data about me. Sorry NavQuest marketers. The NavQuest check in is not that valuable to me.

See you next week for the next installment of Just For Fun Friday!

Email marketing is easy, right? It seems so simple. Yet some respected companies still make classic email marketing mistakes. Read on for an online marketing rant down memory lane.

Before there were AdWords, Facebook or LinkedIn targeting, there was venerable email marketing. In this current (tricked out) demographic targeting era, where we regularly model and market to complex “Personas” and their sub- “Personalities,”  it’s important to take a step back and remember the basics. Profile your customers by leveraging focused on-hand data. Tread softly. Treat users with patience and care. Segment email marketing lists properly and (above all) don’t auto-opt customers into lists they didn’t clearly elect to receive.

On April 18, I placed my first TravelSmith.com order ever, scoring a sweet passport holder money belt for my globetrotting dad. You will note from the screen cap’ of my inbox below that the item was shipped on April 25.  On May 3, ostensibly because TravelSmith was probing to see what would make me bite, they sent an email titled, “Does She Like To Travel?” That’s fine in that they seemed to know I’m a guy and must be checking to see if I might want to gift a female. That was an overly optimistic analysis.

TravelSmith most likely does not use sophisticated enough corollary data methodology on my last name and address to give them any greater clarity on my household but, hey I thought, if they segment their lists that well and prospecting, great! I know of at least one another female Weintraub that has ordered from TravelSmith from that address, so, you never know. Then two days later, TravelSmith’s email marketers made it clear that they’re sucking random wind. Little did I know that soon they would begin marketing dresses and pocketbooks for ME.  Does dude look like a lady?

Fail #1: TravelSmith began an aggressive email marketing program soon after my first purchase, emailing me every 1-2 days. That in itself is way over-the-top. Do They really want to begin our new relationship by bombing me with that kind of annoying frequency? Be a bit more patient. See if I engage. Get to know me. Hello? Do I look like your upscale spam receptacle?

Fail #2: I most certainly did not opt into the content feed that resulted in my receiving the “Six Foolproof Ways…” mailing two days later. It’s possible I may have not unchecked the box to opt out of all emails when I made my purchase. Still,  it’s extremely presumptuous to auto-opt me into a content marketing feed without asking.  Ick… that’s the point where TravelSmith’s emails stopped being permission based. Read on, it gets worse in classic ways .

#Fail 3: THEN I got the “Sundress YOU’LL Wear All Summer Long” email. Dude, I’m not a lady. This pertains to the basics of email marketing. One day TravelSmith wanted to know if there is a lady I want to gift. They seemed to know I am man…or not. Now they are emailing me as if I am a lady.  My name is Marty. It’s pretty easy to infer that I’m a guy. #WTF, TravelSmith?

I headed a little further down the pictures in my email, already planning this post. When I saw the lady’s sandals and the macrame purses, I reached for the opt-out link and my direct response receiver relationship with TravelSmith was permanently over. They’re lucky because, out of respect for fellow marketers, I did not report TravelSmith as spam or include the brand term in this blog post’s title tag.

Remember the email marketing basics, arguably the demographic targeting roots of our industry:

• Segment your lists. Carefully matriculate user attributes you believe you know.  Though my name is “Marty,” a dude’s name, TravelSmith probed my gender and perhaps other females with my last name.  That may seem clever to their marketers, however it’s kind of a turn off for me to get email selling me women’s’ clothes.
• Start new email relationships slowly.  It’s not worth risking a turn-off with the appearance of spammy frequency. Every other day is WAY too much to ping a new customer.  Chill Rambo.
• Don’t play fast and loose with peripheral subscriptions. Agreeing to receive offers and deals, during an eCommerce shopping cart purchase, does NOT mean you can sign me up for you blog.

What’s the most annoying email marketing experience to grace your inbox? Let us know .

Gather round, boys and girls, it’s time for another installment of Community Manager Confessions. If you’re unfamiliar with this social-media-secret-spilling series, it’s because we just created it today.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to exchange a high five with one another. Yes, high fives. Remember those? You know, you put your hand up – yep, yes, just like that, right – very good, and then I swoop in and slap your palm with my palm, but not too hard! Just a nice, even “Yeah, buddy!” high five to show you’re recognized, and your awesomeness is appreciated, and hopefully, vice versa. Ready?

WABOWWWSLAP!

There, didn’t that feel awesome?

It did, didn’t it?

But, why? 

Maybe because it made you feel special. It’s a human connectivity type-deal. You were shown some attention in the form of  a groovy, enthusiastic gesture. You were rewarded simply for being here and taking the time to hang out.

Isn’t that sort of what being a community manager is all about? It’s certainly one of the pillars, anyway… making your cyber-citizens feel valued, finding little ways to keep them engaged, happy, excited, and glad they decided to join your company’s cyber-clan.

Of course, there’s much more to the community manager job description. It can’t all be sunshine and pussy cats. We’re firm believers in a data-driven approach to community management, undertaking serious research and deep conversation mining to help make more friends who matter, friends who are more likely to engage, evangelize… convert.

Incentivizing membership and participation by, for example, promising discounts or prizes, is far from unheard of, and can be a truly effective amplification tactic, when carefully executed.

But it can also go horribly, horribly awry. The company willing to essentially “buy” its Facebook fans or Twitter followers by way of a contest or other giveaway better understand that those “friends” are arguably there because you enticed them with some monetary catalyst.

Yes, that catalyst got them to “like” the page, but did it get them to actually like the brand? How long will those fans engage, or even stick around, once the contest is over and the allure of winning that big-ticket prize has flown the coop?

If, post-contest, you’re aggressively committed to providing ongoing value for your newly amassed community, your chances of hanging onto those members, and cultivating them into an army of brand evangelists are good.

But what if you don’t even get the chance to do so? What if the contest meant to grow a community ends up destroying the community before you even get the chance to play with it?

Let’s conclude with a story of how one online community in turmoil, ripped apart by unhealthy competitiveness over a flatscreen plasma TV, was brought back to a state of peace and harmony, thanks to some ridiculously silly trivia questions and high fives.

Yes, high fives.

It all began with the best of intentions. Company X was hosting a “share your story!” type contest to garner new members and amplify engagement  in its Facebook community. First prize was a fancy plasma TV. People got jazzed. Submissions poured in. Page likes were through the roof. The community was buzzing with curiosity of who would win. Spirits seemed high.

Deadline neared. Contest closed. Winner was announced.

Community. Freaked. Out.

Seriously. We’d never seen such hideous backlash before from what was supposed to have been a fun, creative, lighthearted giveaway. Grownups ripped into each other, and their kids joined in, too, slinging cruel accusations at each other and totally ludicrous (not to mention libel) insults at the community manager.

*Stares off into the distance silently, shudders*

It was wholly unanticipated and horrifying.

It kind of looked like this:

In the end, Community Manager X followed the Ultimate Guide To Intra-Community Bloodshed, banned hate-spewing tolls, removed completely irrational comments, and resolved the conflict best she could.

But there was still the community in shambles that needed rebuilding.

In attempt to restore trust, engagement, entertainment, and smiles in this particular community, Community Manager X began posing silly little trivia questions to the Facebook crowd each day: “How many lakes does Minnesota really have?” “What year was the sandwich invented?” and the like.

The prize awarded to person who first correctly answered the question? Not a plasma TV. Not a gift certificate. Not a brand new car.

A high five. A cyber high five, to be more specific.

Silly little hand-drawn artwork that took Community Manager X all of three minutes to make. And guess what the community did?

Freak. Out.

In a good way! Suddenly, not only was there active interest and interaction surrounding the daily trivia questions, there was honest to goodness sportsmanship. There were people congratulating other people upon winning that morning’s cyber high five. In place of spite and jealousy, there was joy and camaraderie. Freakin’ sunshine and pussy cats galore!

Of course, this was just the beginning. We wouldn’t recommend attempting to sustain or scale a social media campaign with cyber high fives alone. All that data-driven goodness and strategic marketing brainpower needs to come into play in order to achieve the thoughtfully-established KPIs that should support any serious social media endeavors.

The moral of the story is simply this: Sometimes, people just want to feel genuinely special. And sometimes, all it takes is an absurdly goofy rainbow cartoon high five to do just that.

Happy Friday  

By now, most Facebook users probably have not have noticed Page Post Like Sponsored Stories, FB’s paid organic amplification product, creeping into their news feeds. Facebook marketers, on the other hand, are jumping up and down for joy. CTRs (click through ratios) for Page Post Like stories are through the roof and, with clever second degree of separation targeting, there is obviously hay to be made. Sure, we’ve heard this was coming for months. In fact there has been reporting on the subject since last December. Still, not everyone has seen news feed stories. Now the feature seems to be mainstreaming, as evidenced by rising CTRs across many campaigns.

Facebook Ads Sponsored Stories have traditionally been displayed at various locations along the right sidebar of the FB template, clearly noted as sponsored. Now, they appear inline with organic news. The “Sponsored” moniker is very subtle. Yes!

The D.I.Y. ad unit uses a whole bunch of the original brand page post it’s amplifying, unlike the RH side bar version. Here’s what the slipped-fish looks like in my news feed:

Sponsored Story CTR has usually been higher than traditional Facebook Ads. “Higher” still  meant sub 1%. Starting a few days ago we’ve seen some sponsored story CTRs roll in the door at an absurdly high rate.  The highest for a good size sampling of impressions was 13%+.  The conversion rates for connection KPIs (clicks to Likes) range from 3% to 30%, depending on the story’s content.

aimClear votes: Yes! We’ve known for quite some time that “ads” displayed with social endorsement perform much better. FB friends of friends download and use more apps, like things more, watch videos, etc. These new Page Post Like units are through-the-roof-cool. Its huge size and extended text are going to make many marketers happy and users might not mind. This of course depends on the strength of FB editorial in keeping the riff-raff out. Of course, higher CTR means more money for FB. You know the rest.

To attendees kicking it this week at SMX Toronto, be sure to check out aimClear’s own Manny Rivas (@mannyrivas) as he tears up the stage from dawn till dusk! Well… by that, we mean speak at the first session of the day and the final session of the day. On truly rad topics, to boot! Read on for a peek at what he’ll be dishing up during his bookend sessions.

Thursday, April 26, 2012 (That’s Today!)

9:00 am EST - Beyond Search: Leveraging Ads On Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
Manny will wake up audience members and shake up the great city of Toronto with tips for creating killer social ads, from deadeye targeting to bleeding-edge creative. Moderated by Alan K’necht, President/Founder, K’nechtology Inc. and joined by fellow speakers Hussein Fazal, CEO, AdParlor and Sarah Lokitis, Social Media Specialist, Search Mojo, this will be a social-savvy panel with sharp paid marketing chops – not to be missed.

Hope to see you there!

Facebook’s Broad Category targeting is serious- seriously cool! The things you can target (for example, expecting parents) are ridiculously deadeye. Broad category targeting is also seriously powerful (for example, folks who have children in certain age brackets). Now, unbeknownst to all, advertisers can even target users based on the type of mobile device they use to access Facebook…

We have information from very reliable sources that leads us to believe when selecting an option from the Mobile Broad Category in Facebook’s targeting grid, you are actually targeting users who access Facebook with that very mobile device (a good indication they own those devices, no?). This is a stark contrast to typical Facebook targeting, which of course is based on the fact that a user likes or associates with some targetable concept in their profiles, etc.

Oh, the possibilities! Have a gluten-free recipe finder iPad app to market? One simple Broad Category targeting click and you’ve identified the iPad enthusiasts. Take this one step further by targeting related gluten-free and celiac interests, et voila!

This is an awesome targeting rollout. But it begs the question: Why doesn’t the Facebook Ads Team release these cool features publicly and thoughtfully explain them to the community? Shouldn’t they be shouting these new cool features from the rooftop? Hmmm…

Post image photo credit: Henriksent

We could not be prouder of our team, the work we do together, and now it’s official. Minnesota Business just named aimClear one of the “Best 100 Companies To Work For.” Because it’s such a rocking place to be and grow, we’ve been lucky to assemble an amazing collection of beautiful people who love working together long-term.  We are SO proud of the team.   Matt, Manny, Merry, Alyssa, Lauren, Kathy, Lindsay, Molly, Joe, Erica, Megan, Dan, Mike, Quentin, Kara, Ryan, Laura P and Reed, you rock our world and this is for you <3.

Though we have offices in multiple cities, we are one family.  Because everybody’s happy at work, we provide wonderful services to our clients and go the extra mile.  Above all, this award comes as a result of the incredible opportunities we have every day to work with our clients and vendors, who are most special.

For over five years, it’s been our mission to invest in each employee’s personal brand to the greatest extent possible.  aimClear is proud to have supported team members building their personal brands, intrinsically steeped in each of our deepest goals and dreams.  As a result, it’s obvious that we all bring our whole self to work because each staff member knows they’ll leave at the end of that day with more then they came with, in exchange for fully sharing their drive, ambition and talent.  This is huge. Man we’re so very lucky.

In 2012, six aimClear team members will have spoken at 15+ advanced international online marketing conferences including SES, SMX, PubCon, International Search Summit, Media Post  Search Insider Summit, MediaBistro, mozCon, and Zenith Social Media Conference. 2012 speaking cities will include multiple New York appearances, Jerusalem, eight gigs in San Francisco, 7 appearances in Sydney, Australia, London, Las Vegas, Seattle, Chicago, Park City, Utah, and numerous others. We tell our staff that it’s important to embrace opportunities as if they are unique and priceless…and we do.

Our credo is to invest in thought-leadership and share until it hurts. Each year, we devote over 1000 hours to scientific studies of Facebook, YouTube, Bing, and Google, which result in marketing insights that literally few, if any, other other companies in the world know…let alone share. Dude, we give it away.

Five aimClear employees contribute to major trade publications including SearchEngineWatch and SearchEngineLand.  Yet, we totally understand that the “real” rock stars are the ones that work their butts off behind the scenes, seeking little attention except for a job brilliantly done. You each know who you are.

We’re known for backing promises up with action, training and money. We’ve offered motivated employees media-spend stipends to market their own personal projects and encouraged them to use company human resources and equipment. We find that each team member’s devotion to their personal projects daisy-chains into passion for our clients’ work. The marketing vocabulary discovered whilst pursuing what matters most to each employee, is priceless.

We also encourage our staff to use company assets to support charities that matter to the individuals that work here. For instance we’re committed sponsors of the Human Development Center, a crucial community resource for sliding fee mental health services in Duluth.  We encourage our staff to regularly volunteer at regional universities to support marketing students, making at least one appearance per quarter.  In a community bleeding population for a generation, we’ve hired and trained 7 local college-folk who have gone out and conquered the world.  aimClear spent over 80 hours in 2011 creating a free demographic research project to support online marketing of Duluth tourism and it made the front page of the local newspaper.

We’ve sequenced and are in the process of staging an ambitious three-track Duluth social media marketing conference, “Zenith Social Media Marketing Conference 2012, Tips, Tools, Tactics, & Beyond,” and imported a number of our accomplished colleagues to set the speaking roster’s tone including Rand Fishkin. The conference will feature an impressive sampling of the illuminating panelists you’ve see us presenting aside at international conferences over the years. All proceeds go to benefit Duluth’s Chamber of Commerce’s business outreach programs aimed at keeping college grads in Duluth.

Photo via Dana Lookadoo

Laura and I place the highest emphasis on culture and creating an atmosphere of respect, love, dignity, human rights, accountability, and natural consequences. Why accept less? We have 6-8 monthly fine wine tastings (and I mean fine) and our Duluth office is centered on a Food Network Show caliber gourmet kitchen. We participate in the city Art Crawl and highlight works of up and coming artists.  The St. Paul Chamber of Commerce cited us as a shining example of urban redevelopment in our historic landmark office. We’ve hosted networking events for geeks, LinkedIn groups, college students and wedding showers for our staff.

We have a washer and dryer so employees can do their laundry at work, pitched a mountain tent for napping and have a treadmill desk by the staff’s recording studio.  Our team often eats all three meals here, with great food we keep stocked.  We have family style meals often and have kitchen conferences.

Here are some of the philosophies we observe:

o   Achieve consensus for new hires amongst all employees, even if it means not hiring candidates the CEO believes to be qualified. Choose employees we love to be around.

o  Understand that luck and the actions of others have as great an impact on the outcome as any personal action. Know that personal action can manufacture luck.

o  Never hire at the rate you we get work. Take work at the speed we can hire amazing people.  There is no reason to ever go to work with people you don’t like. Hire employees who compliment your weaknesses.

o   We travel to support our domestic and international work, and encourage employees to piggyback vacation time surrounding business trips so that the company pays air expenses.

o   Achieve buy-in for the financial and product development missions. Everyone needs to be on the same page, determined, and committed to the process.

o   Be totally willing to change your mind in light of feedback from employees and customers. Face the actual odds. Kick butt.

o   Apologize when we are wrong, and don’t give ground when we are right. I say I’m sorry often. I’m not co-dependent when I think I’m right. Keep the slate clean with everyone as if there is not another chance tomorrow. Remember that there will be another chance tomorrow.

o   Pay training forward. In the technology space, daily training is crucial. A person can’t live unless their mind is active and questing.

o   Be conservative financially Be brutal in your assessment of your weaknesses. It’s completely essential to understand your own vulnerabilities. That goes especially for me.

o   Never allow customers or vendors to treat our employees badly. If they do, fire them. Always have your teammates’ backs. In the technology business, you can’t have customers unable to understand and implement your team’s recommendations. Don’t accept anything that drains your life’s energy.

o   Take jobs we can succeed at and don’t kid ourselves by taking jobs we can’t win just for the cash. Life is too short.

o   Don’t try to be something we’re not. Teach your teammates what you personally know and pass your knowledge on, unselfishly.

o   Manage like you are dying. Be determined to leave this earth with all emotional and personal ledgers even. We spend a lot of time at work. Let’s be as healthy as possible.

SO, great people, great clients, great place to work… This situation is what every founder team dreams of helping to create. To our staff, thank you. To our clients, this one’s for you.  To our community, it’s such a pleasure to be part of this everyday.  Here’s to the next five years!

For years, we’ve been counseling our clients to practice what we call “the fundamentals non-gratuitous social media behavior.”  Lovely conduct that endears users to other community members and earns respect is actually quite easy. Still, even some professionals present terribly irritating habits. You may or may not agree, but brace yourself for this stored up rant featuring aggravating tactics employed by social media players who (IMHO) just don’t get how things work in the sandbox.

Pushy Follow Grubbing
Yep, this is the digital birdcage liner of social media. Dude! Provide value and most users will consider following you. Unless there’s a really good reason, please don’t tweet, DM in Facebook, beg, send an email, or try to shame folks into following.  Literally, I’ve seen a user give someone crap in public because the request recipient did not follow back or answer a follow-grubbing inquiry within a few minutes or hours. Don’t program your post scheduler to tweet your follow-me begging to hashtags every hour on the hour.

Mindless Mechanical Thanking
Thanks for the follow, thanks for the mention, thanks for the link, thanks for thanking me, blah, blah, blah, blah. Act like you’ve been there before. Some folks thank for everything and it just adds noise to feeds. Above all, do not automate messages of thanks, for any reason. IMHO, it’s trite and fake. Better to tender actual thanks that actually mean something by not overdoing it as mechanical standard operating procedures. If you are going to thank people over and over, do it in private so it feels special to the recipient.

Gratuitous Gushing Praise
If a person you do not know very well approached you in person with over-the-top praise, you might feel uncomfortable. Social media praise can be perceived the same way.  It is certainly okay to lay well-placed admiration on fellow community member, just don’t gush. Offer up the same type of feedback that would not creep out the recipient if you were face to face… be appropriate and measured.

Boilerplate Branding As A Social Media, “Visionary” or “Guru”
Gandhi was a guru. Einstein was a visionary. Robert H. Goddard was an expert.  Really, are you a “Guru” to your 8 LinkedIn connections? Are you really a “Social Media Visionary?” Do you lead thinking to such a great extent that you are truly a spiritual teacher? #justsayin…

Spammy Self Promotion
Look, if you are an actual acquaintance, then an occasional sales approach is reasonable.  If you want to approach me in LinkedIn to lay your stupid self-promotional spam, I’ll report you as such and publish your dumbass DM in a blog post.

Fake Familiarity
Ever meet someone at a party who acted as if they knew you a little “too” well? Did it creep you out? Social media mirrors physical life and the same P2P rules apply.  If you don’t know someone well, don’t act as if you know him or her well.

Yes, it’s cool to make new friends and work to get closer. That said, frame the context of the communication. Say something like, “We only met last week, but I want to reach out to [purpose of reaching out]. Perhaps you’re interested. If that’s not what you’re into, then no problem, it’s good to be casually connected, and thanks for all you give to the community. Ciao!”

Selfish Over-Posting
There was recently a study that suggested that Facebook page owners shouldn’t post more than 1x every 3 hours.  Our friend Dan Zarrella found that users don’t like it when a brand spams the feed. To me, this includes personal brands, but really the amount of posting that is deemed “okay” is up in the air. All I know is that I don’t want to be constantly pinged in my news feed over and over by a single friend who shares a common group or page with me. I know a so-called thought leader who WAY over does it. This person participates in nearly every thread, posts every day repeatedly, and (in fact) totally spams my news feed.  Hey, you know who you are! Take a chill pill and quit trying to dominate the feed. It does not make you a thought leader to over-post. It makes you annoying.

Channel Inappropriate Profiles
Unless your last name is actually “SEO Master,” then don’t say it’s your name. It’s a lie, in the name of optimization, and it does not recommend you in any way. Yeah…like anyone’s going to hire you even if you do end up ranking for “SEO of the SEO at SEO.” Ick.

LinkedIn and Facebook people profiles are supposed to be about people.  Don’t be a spamwad hack.  If you want to call yourself HoneyBunnyBoo, then get a StumbleUpon or Twitter profile, where it’s appropriate to operate under a pseudonym.

Gutless Observers
The Arab Spring proved for the gazillionth time that a single idea, from a person with heart and guts, can start a process that can change the world.  Be that hero. Also, if (in life) you see someone getting mugged in the park, you call the 911. When you observe an injustice at work, it’s appropriate to report the incident or otherwise stand up for the victim, keeping your own safety prudently in mind.  If you see a social media community member being mauled verbally or otherwise bullied by a maleficent provocateur, stand up for what you know is right.  Jump in the thread. Contact the person in private to support. Don’t be a spineless wimp.

Hair-Trigger Anger
I am guilty of this one myself.  I tend to try and solve things in public first using a large hammer as opposed to more delicate diplomacy. Sometimes that’s a good thing but more often than not, there are better ways. Try and solve problems in quiet ways that foster the perception that you are a good citizen.  Nobody likes a mean old grouch. Save the big stick for when more measured and patient approaches fail. Then, nuke em’ in Twitter or buy FB ads on their brand terms, only if you can stand the heat and have full confidence that you’ve taken a legal and righteous position.

Lies To Game Friendship Mechanisms
Some sites restrict who can friend you. For instance, LinkedIn wants users you approach to be in the same group, be current or former colleagues, friends and other criteria. Don’t fib to game the Friending criteria. It’s not a good start to a relationship.

Promotion Requests From Idiotic Strangers
Grrrrr.

Horrendous Ads Targeting
The stupidity of some ad targeting in Facebook and LinkedIn just blows my mind. What could justanswer.jp be thinking here?

There are so many cool ways to hang in social media. Rebroadcast with added editorial value, ask reasonable questions, don’t sell or spam, share delightful content bits, and tastefully thank people.  These are wonderful tactics. Be magnanimous and act in ways that would fit in the physical world.

The best way to get likes is to do likeable things. The best way to make friends is to be friendly.  Follow these simple rules and it’s less likely that you’ll annoy the snot out of people.

Image Credit ©Maridav – Fotolia (dot) com

Oh, Facebook. You just keep getting… bigger! This time last year, as the aimClear team readied to head west and deliver our Facebook Marketing Intensive Workshop at SMX Advanced, the social network had a community approaching 600 million. Last reports from December, 2011 put its population closer to 845 million (monthly active users). That’s nearly a billion people from around the globe plugged into the same cyber ecosystem, some self-disclosing everything but the kitchen sink, i.e.: nearly a billion people brands and advertisers can play with, segment, target, sell to, or befriend. If they know how.

Yes, the size of Facebook’s user-base isn’t the only thing that’s constantly changing. From revitalized Page layouts to a fresh-faced Ads UI, new community manager capabilities to an assortment of powerful new ad units–Facebook is by nature an ever-evolving beast, and we want to help show you how to dominate it.

Join aimClear at our full-day Facebook Marketing Intensive Workshop, upcoming at Search Marketing Expo’s Northwest edition. The place is Bell Harbor Int’l Conference Center. The date is Thursday, June 7. We start at 8:30 am and rock it till happy hour. Come prepared to have your mind blown. In a good way. Read on for a #sweet sneak peek at our curriculum

aimClear Facebook Marketing Intensive Agenda:

• Facebook Demographic Research & Guerilla Targeting
• Establishing Facebook Marketing KPIs
• Curate & Aggregate! Industrial Strength Content Sharing For Powerful Community Managers
• Holistic Befriending in Facebook: 36 Ways to Make More Social Media Friends Who Matter
• Facebook Crises Management! Dealing with Intra-Community Bloodshed
• How To Buying Fans For Fun & Profit
• Killer Facebook Ads: Account Structure & Optimization
• Killer Facebook Ads: How To Write Ads like a Rockstar
• Killer Facebook Ads: Choosing Images That Scream
• Sponsored Stories & Other Fantastical Social Facebook Ad Units
• Decoding Facebook’s EdgeRank & Organic Visibility
• Digging Deep In Facebook’s Insights & Mining Organic Analytics
• The Great Big Glistening Tremendously Tricked-Out Book of Tools

We’re thrilled to be a part of the esteemed SMX Advanced curriculum once again, and can’t wait to kick it with the seasoned crowd of no-nonsense marketers this Seattle-based event attracts each year.

Want to learn more? Check out the full session descriptions. Already convinced? Register now for best savings on Early Bird rates.