All Web Journalists are Liars

Jon Stewart convinced us—as if we needed convincing—that all TV journalists are liars.

Ryan Holiday, minus the laughs, is the Jon Stewart of the web.

After reading the first 40 pages of Trust Me, I'm Lying, you will never read news from Business Insider, The Daily Beast, Drudge Report, BuzzFeed, Politico or Huffington Post with your old credulity again.

A recovering PR practitioner, Holiday explains how starving web journalists work; and how greedy publishers and wanton publicists exploit their hunger every hour of every day.

"Bloggers eager to build names and publishers eager to sell their blogs are like two crooked businessmen colluding to create interest in a bogus investment opportunity—building up buzz and clearing town before anyone gets wise," Holiday writes. "In this world, where the rules and ethics are lax, a third player can exert massive influence. Enter: the media manipulator."

With the same aplomb that Silent Spring laid bare corporate greed and The Pentagon Papers government secrecy, Trust Me, I'm Lying exposes the utter corruption that plagues web journalism—and the noxious effect it has on all of us.

Brands Faring Best on Facebook

Americans trust marketing content on Facebook more than marketing content delivered by other media channels, according to new research.

E-commerce consultancy The Acquity Group asked 2,000 Americans to score channels for trusted marketing content (1=most trusted; 10=least trusted).

Leading the pack, Facebook earned an average score of 4. 

Magazines and newspapers earned a 4.4.

Email and TV earned a 5.3.

In addition, young Americans (18-30) are twice as likely than old Americans (52-68) to rank Facebook as the most trusted channel for marketing content, the study reveals.

They're also more likely than old Americans to buy a product after encountering that content on Facebook.

NOTE TO READERS: Copy Points turns five years old this month!

Clickbait Headlines Do More Harm than Good

Meager response rates are tempting an ever-increasing number of marketers—even B2B ones—to resort to using "clickbait" headlines, those sensational promises that dupe you into reading thinly related content.

You know the kind:

What this customer said was so insane it will make your jaw drop...   

But the more sensational the headline, the greater the risk of disappointing prospects once you lure them to read nothing more than your usual sales pitch.

Disappointment never does your brand credit. 

Repeated disappointments will ultimately damage it.

Civility. There's an App for That.

Worried friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter might think you're ill bred?

Your social media reputation is safe with a subscription to ThinkUp, according to Farhad Manjoo, columnist for The New York Times.

ThinkUp keeps tabs on your graceless behavior on those networks and points out, among other things, how often you refer to yourself, use profanities and ignore others.

The tracking service is designed "to make you act like less of a jerk online," says ThinkUp co-founder Gina Trapani.

A Lesson from LinkedIn

Cleveland headhunter Kelly Blazek made national headlines last week for flaming a jobseeker who contacted her through a LinkedIn group.

Blazek's victim didn't sit still for the abuse. She posted the headhunter's put-downs verbatim on several other Websites and they quickly went viral.

Blazek apologized for the breach of trust in a letter to The Plain Dealer. “In my harsh reply notes," she wrote, "I lost my perspective about how to help, and I also lost sight of kindness."

Blazek subsequently deleted all online traces of herself.

Ironically, only last year the headhunter was named "Communicator of the Year" by the Cleveland Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators.

We all can benefit from the advice of Florence Hartley, author of The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, published in Boston in 1860:

"Never write a letter carelessly. It may be addressed to your most intimate friend, or your nearest relative, but you can never be sure that the eye for which it is intended, will be the only one that sees it. I do not mean by this, that the epistle should be in a formal, studied style, but that it must be correct in its grammatical construction, properly punctuated, with every word spelt according to rule. Even in the most familiar epistles, observe the proper rules for composition; you would not in conversing, even with your own family, use incorrect grammar, or impertinent language; therefore avoid saying upon paper what you would not say with your tongue."

Social Spam Surging

Spammers are frantically spreading their muck across the social media networks, according to a study by Nextgate.

Spam increased by more than 350% on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn during the first six months of 2013.

Facebook and YouTube host considerably more spam than the other social networks, according to the study.

We're immune to the spam that floods our email in-boxes, but social spam is insidious, because it's much more difficult to detect.

And there's another reason spammers love it.

Where spam delivered as an email reaches one victim at the time, spam delivered as a post on a social media network can reach thousands.

Rule #1: Think before You Link

With 200 million subscribers and climbing, in mercenary hands LinkedIn can be a weapon of self-destruction.

We’ve all connected with people whose self-serving discharge leaves us hoping LinkedIn will introduce a “hate” button.

But one comment arrived in my inbox last week that should earn for its author the LinkedIn Lummox of the Year Award.

She attached her tone-deaf comment to a 100-day old post by the manager of an interest group I follow.

The manager’s post asked readers to remember a beloved colleague and group member who’d died, suddenly and prematurely, two weeks earlier.

The self-promoter's comment read:

Sorry for your loss. I help companies with their tradeshows and events. Give me your marketing list and I will turn it into $$. Call 800-523-4635.

Clearly she hasn’t learned LinkedIn Rule #1.

Social Can't Sell

In The New York Times, tech journalist Stephen Baker recently asked, “Can Social Media Sell Soap?”

His short answer: nope.

Precision targeting, which generates ads "so timely and relevant that you welcome them," has "fueled a market frenzy around social networks," Baker writes.

But social networks are heading for a fall, because social can't sell.

As proof, Baker cites a chilly sales statistic (courtesy of IBM) from last year's Christmas season. 

"On the pivotal opening day of the season, Black Friday, a scant 0.68 percent of online purchases came directly from Facebook," Baker writes. "The number from Twitter was undetectable. Could it be that folks aren’t in a buying mood when hanging out digitally with their friends?"

I think Baker is on to something.

Social can't sell.

That's why the oxymoron "social media marketing" would make George Carlin's list.

Social is unlike traditional media.

When you consume traditional media (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV), you willingly trade your attention for content. 

That means ads are—more or less—welcome.

But in social, ads aren't welcome. 

They're like a telemarketer's cold call in the middle of the family dinner.

Want Followers? Go Native.

Inc. wants advertisers to go native.

So-called "native advertising" is marketing content that's camouflaged.

Inc. believes we'll hear a lot more about native advertising in the months to come.

A native ad looks and feels like 'the format, style, and voice of whatever platform it appears in," Inc. says. It blends into the landscape so well visitors see it as part of the platform.

As a result, a native ad is better read—and responded to—than a display ad.

But native advertising isn't easy, Inc. warns.

You need a steady stream of platform-tailored content.

Fortunately, "The content in question does not have to be slick to be effective," Inc. notes.

Marketers should let go their obsession with eye-pleasing imagery and focus instead on boldness, the magazine says.

2013: The Year the Social Networks Make or Break Your Brand

Branding Strategy Insider offers 13 tasty predictions for 2013.

Among them is this morsel: brands wll become increasingly susceptible to the chatter on social networks next year.

"Watch for greater influences of engagement and purchase habits via friends and social networks," Insider says.

"Brands will have to factor in the reality that peer-to-peer communications come in three varieties: good, bad and bland. This makes companies more susceptible to consumer indifference, their conversations and social interactions."

Marketers who want to compete need to understand how social networks actually work, or risk  being marginalized.

"The brands that make it here will know the 'how' of this consumer-controlled space," Insider concludes.