Laura informs us of ALL her secret and fave channels on the Interwebz…watch for one little brief minute, and you’ll see where she spends most of her time. Thanks for playing, Laura!

“GM Says Facebook Ads Don’t Pay Off.”

Let me get my reaction immediately onto the table:

1. Is this sour grapes, or what?

2. Are you flippin’ kidding me? Since when do people buy a car by clicking on a Facebook ad? Really?

3. What kind of cover story is this just prior to the Facebook IPO when a publicly traded company attempts to downgrade stock price and pose ponderings about a $104 billion valuation by a start-up with a CEO under 30-years-old?

4. Do GM investors want to snap up more shares for less price per share?

Now let me read the story; hang on a minute.

K, I’m back…here is the gist of the article:

1. GM spent “only about $10 million in 2011 to advertise on Facebook; a fraction of GM’s total 2011 U.S. ad spending of $1.8 billion.”

Uhmm, if that paltry percentage is being spent on Facebook advertising, then naturally someone isn’t going to click on a car ad on Facebook and buy the vehicle from the website…right? I mean, don’t you buy your car direct from a website, sight unseen without the lovely dealer experience?

2. “General Motors plans to stop advertising with Facebook after deciding that paid ads on the site have little impact on consumers’ car purchases, according to a GM official.”

Love the timing of this; just before the Facebook IPO in a few days and it helps get GM some extra publicity. I wonder what GM will do with its $10 million not being spent on Facebook ads? Will it go to charity? Or, maybe they’ll use it on Pinterest where women can click on the picture of a car and go buy a car from a website!

3. “GM’s decision raises questions about the ability of Facebook to sustain the 88% revenue growth achieved in 2011. Facebook said last month its first-quarter ad revenue was down 7.5% from the previous three months.”

I have no idea how to respond to this; it’s got to be the reporters (three of them) playing both sides of the fence.  Should the timing of GM’s announcement affect Facebook’s IPO? Will it? Should it even matter? I seem to recall an auto industry bailout that put the U.S. economy into a downward spiral. I don’t recall reading that Facebook ever strayed from its growth goals, so why should it quake in its boots because GM is playing chess? (Although $10 million is likely not chump change to Facebook.)

So, a few disclaimers here – I’m not in advertising. I’m not a Facebook shareholder (but, I’d sure like to get my hands on a few of those on Friday). I’m not a financial analyst or investment adviser.

What I am is this:

A Business-to-Business Social Media Marketer with a Public Relations core (how’s that for key word attention?). I probably should be applauding the GM investor relations team for its smarts to push such a story on the cover of today’s national financial paper. But, it stinks putrid to me (I said to me) in my rantings above.

What do you think?

Then came social media (well, some umpteen years later), and marketing altered again. Companies had to tear down the silos and implement integrated marketing again; however, it’s not over. Business is only in the early stages of adoption of social marketing, and one way to be successful is “marketing in the round.”

Marketing In The Round, How to Develop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era by Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston, provides a in-depth look at multi-channel marketing without silos, without a champion, and with a balanced, cross-cultural team working in alignment toward attainment of business goals. Consider it akin to change management.

When you put marketing in the midst of all the communication disciplines, you get marketing in the round. No silos, no hierarchy, just an investment toward positive impact on the business.

At the helm of the marketing round is a leader with an understanding for as many disciplines as possible. This leader is also a strategist who can encourage the breakdown of barriers that exist between advertising and public relations, for example.

In a perfect marketing in the round scenario, there isn’t a chief marketing officer to report to; everyone communicates from one level and uses all communication methods to stay current.

Marketing rounds will succeed well with communication approaches from the top down, via a groundswell, and by two left and right flanks. I bet you money Geoff wrote that chapter (Chapter 4) about military tactics akin to a marketing round. Another tactic of engagement is direct marketing.

Throughout chapters five to eight, the authors detail each tactic in-depth and provide excellent examples of deployment of each of the aforementioned strategies of communication.

In the final chapters, the discussion surrounds integration and the incorporation of various of these tactics from the outside in, inside out, internal only, horizontally, vertically, and any other direction you can imagine.

The book wouldn’t be a Gini book without a chapter on measurement. When you read that chapter, the takeaway is that measurement doesn’t happen overnight. There are many trials to determine what to measure, especially in this era of big data and analytics reports numbering in the hundreds of pages. Along the way, you develop your benchmarks and the dashboard to plug in these figures.

When your marketing round is humming from all the inter-collusion, be prepared to get a flat tire and inflate it all up again. The marketing round has no stopping point, it’s a model to develop, test, fail, test, improve and enhance some more.  The “dramatically changing media landscape has moved faster with each new decade.”  What that means is companies need to adapt even faster.

When you pick up your copy of Marketing In The Round, you’ll find tips, charts, how-to graphs, examples of companies trying, and an approach that clearly comes from the experts. I encourage you to buy this book and reference it regularly. And, there’s a FREE webinar by Radian6 this week featuring our now-famous-er celebrity authors. Click here to register.

May I close with a hearty congratulations to my friends, Gini and Geoff, for their accomplishment. Gini and Geoff are coming to a theater near you; if you’d like to order bulk copies or invite them to autograph yours from a club setting or tweet up, please indicate such right below in comments. I’m sure either or both are paying attention today.

I recommend a listen/watch, and I also recommend a follow. You’ll learn something from this woman because she knows which end is up on the Interwebz! Thanks for playing, Margie!

Brian lets us know his company just launched a social media tool called…shoot, the audio stunk right there, Brian. Is it called Pulse Analytics? I hope you come over and clarify more about your new product and let us all know in comments what it does. Meanwhile, I’m heading over to Mantis to provide a few links for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

Please excuse the shameless plugs throughout, but isn’t that what I’m supposed to do? Take it away, Brian!