Social Media Top 5: Redefining Nice Guys, Facebook URL Fad, and the Social Media Playlist

Facebook URLs in Ads- The “New Way” or Fad?

Edelman’s Steve Rubel points out the emerging trend of companies adding Facebook fan page URLS to their advertising, and raises the question, are the  on-domain URLS dying in terms of advertising. Steve seems to doubt it, and I definitely do. Facebook remains hot and may be for a long time to come, but the hunger for more control– moving campaigns, even those extending to Facebook, back to the main Web domain, will likely re-emerge fairly quickly.

It will be interesting to see how these Facebook URL ad campaigns work out though.

Marketers Don’t Want to Hear Buzzwords (“Social Media”), but They Do Want to Invest in Them.

Courtesy of Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim, I saw that a poll by the Marketing Executives’ Network showed more than half of marketers are sick of buzzwords like “Social Media,” “Twitter”a nd “Social Networking,” but nearly 75% intend to invest more in it. While that makes for a fun, possibly ironic juxtaposition (in fact, Andy’s punchline is that the thing these buzzword-hating marketers want most out of social media is — ROI!), I see it more as people straining (in a good way) to see the business value as they seek to make these investments, rather than making knee-jerk responses to popular new-marketing-speak. Am I a killjoy in thinking this? Does that make sense to you? Feel free to comment and take this further.

Reconsidering your “Social Media Playlist”

When I look for material to comment on and make me think, I wonder if I am just spinning tires by reading the “usual suspects” of social media blogging. Amy Mengel has wrestled with a similar question, and decided to redesign her reading around a smaller number of “big picture” and “trend” resources. I don’t think I’ll go the same way, but it does make me think there is a solution to “social media blog burnout.”

My approach may point in a different direction– I find more diverse reading material in the Shared Items (in Google Reader) of my friends, many of whom are these so-called social media bloggers. Yes, use the hard work these people do in their own reading to lessen my dependence on their own blogs. Brilliant. Keep sharing, folks.

What Really Makes Us Stupider? Google? Hmm?

This opinion piece in my local paper on Google and stupidity, and however you want to frame it, illustrates two things for me.

First, that headline writers need to be eliminated or reeducated somehow. In this case, “Google is Making Us More Stupider” led me to think it would be a tirade against how those interwebs are making us dumb, but it was instead a tongue-in0cheek (but too subtle) jab at the people who conclude such things. How many great stories for PR clients have been ruined by a “clever” headline that subverts the story?

Second, it shows that people perhaps are not being fooled by the idiocy that posits that the Internet is making us dumb. Stupid is stupid. We don’t need Google’s help.

Nice Guys Finish Last… Because They Stop to EAT YOUR LUNCH- YEEEAAAHHH!

Peter Shankman makes a great case for “nice guys.” The idea that you have to be a jerk to be strong pervades a a lot of industries and companies, and it is good to see people come out on the other side.

In a dozen years in public relations, I have seen too many people fall sucker to the belief that being loud and obnoxious (I guess you can still be “nice” in that case) is the only way to succeed. Of course, if you are obnoxious AND good, I’ll take it (to a point).

Now, about that phrase “Nice guys finish last.” Let’s replace that last word, shall we?

Nice guys finish:

• what a**holes started
• what others can’t
• with the help of the friends they made
• _________ (your idea here)