Marketing Lessons from the Three Stooges

For pure marketing genius, contemporary giants like Jeff Bezos, Howard Schultz and Tony Hsieh shrink in comparison to the three ur-marketers.

I'm talking about Moe, Larry and Curly.

Sure, attend all the marketing conferences you want. Follow all the blogs. Study all the books. Consume all the CDs.

You won't learn a tenth of what you'll learn by watching any one of The Stooges' shorts.

To save you time, I've boiled their innumerable brand-building insights down to three key lessons:

Make great products. The boys always innovated and never imitated! Want to make a great cupcake? Add pillow feathers. A great microbrew? Add a whole box of alum. A great soup? Add a live oyster.

Keep a laser-focus on your goals. The boys understood the paramount importance of attention to detail and keeping "on task." Which of their competitors would have spent as much time fixing a leaking pipe? Pitching a tent? Eating an artichoke?

Utilize short, snappy content. As content marketers, The Stooges were ahead of their time. They drew millions of fans by keeping their messages brief and on point. And they built a loyal following by perfecting a consistently edgy—and authentic—tone. While you don't want merely to copy the boys, it will help if you break rocks over your head, mistake a skunk for your hat, and rip out clumps of your own hair.

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.

Carpetbaggers

During a phone call this week, blogger Michelle Bruno complained to me about the unsavory folks who copy the content of her blog, Fork in the Road, and publish it under their own names.

"I see my stuff all over the place," she said.

Michelle spoke with resignation. 

But I'll take a New York minute to call out these plagiarists.

Or, as I prefer, carpetbaggers.

You'll remember from US history classes that carpetbaggers were opportunists who descended on the vanquished South just after the Civil War. They exploited Southerners by stealing their land and businesses.

The term is synonymous with "crook," "charlatan," "plunderer" and "thief."

Time to Quit Facebook?

Copyblogger's Sonia Simone thinks content marketers should quit Facebook.

Because you can't control what social platforms like Facebook do, she says, it's risky to build your business on another company's "virtual land."

"The minute you actually depend on Facebook for your business, they will change their terms of service in a way that causes you pain," Simone writes.

Publishing on social platforms like Facebook benefits the platforms' owners, nothing more.

They goad you to post content so you'll win a bunch of "Likes."

But that's only a ruse.

In reality, according to Simone, your publishing efforts "are helping them build an audience they can show their spammy display ads to."

Worse yet, Facebook isn't about selling.

"People go to Facebook to share duckface selfies, pictures of grandkids, and memes from George Takei," Simone says.

And while it's still possible to engage people with your Facebook posts, "'engagement' does not equal 'customers.'"

You Facebook posts will get Likes that never lead to sales.

"That’s not marketing," Simone says. "It’s an annoying hobby."

Google+ Boosts SEO

Social media maven Courtney Kettmann, writing for Socialmouths, says that Google+, because it's owned by Google, will boost your company's search engine rankings.

"Posts and accounts will appear high in Google search results," she writes. "This is beneficial to a business, as it can help improve the SEO of a company’s Website."

The extra search-engine hits "alone make Google+ essential for a business," according to Kettman.

Google+ posts with images and videos score particularly high among visitors, she notes.