This week on The Lede …

• 6 Reasons Why You Should Quit Blogging
• The Secret Code for Cracking ‘Tough’ Books and Reading Above Your Level
• The True Cost of Building and Managing a WordPress Website
• The Bootstrapper’s Bible
• Why the iPad Works for Writing
• The “5 A” Framework for Content Marketing Success
• A 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas

If you want to grab even more useful links every week, follow @copyblogger on Twitter.

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6 Reasons Why You Should Quit Blogging

Mr. Tynski thinks you should quit. Everybody’s doing it. Problem is, they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. Horribly, sadly wrong. Where did you ever get the idea that content production was easy? That overnight success was the norm? That a billion dollar IPO was something you should shoot for? Aw, just go ahead and quit. I’m sure there’s something new and shiny for you just around the corner …

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The Secret Code for Cracking ‘Tough’ Books and Reading Above Your Level

Read less. Read better. A dirty little secret of human wisdom (and western publishing) is that, for any given subject you’d like to master, there are only a handful of books that need to be read. Everything else is filler or pale imitation. The catch is, you’ve got to pick the right books. It’s not necessarily difficult to determine what they are, what’s difficult is getting down to business with them. Mr. Holiday lays out a useful plan for doing just that — extracting the valuable lessons from “tough” reads.

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The True Cost of Building and Managing a WordPress Website

Think you’re getting a deal from that cheap web host? Think again. The cost of hosting and maintaining a WordPress website is a bit more complex than “getting the cheapest price I can find”. From our newly unboxed Synthesis Managed WordPress Hosting blog, Mr. Morris analyzes these costs — the ones you know about, and the ones you might have missed — and explains what they mean for you, your site, and your business.

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The Bootstrapper’s Bible

Mr. Godin wrote this impressive little manifesto in 2004 stating, “There’s never been a better time to start a business with no money.” Seven years later, that statement may be even more true. Mr. Clark has said that, in many ways, building Copyblogger would be much easier today, with the rise of the sharing economy, etc. So take the tools in this free PDF and run them into 2012 and beyond.

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Why the iPad Works for Writing

Call me crazy, but if I wasn’t producing Internet Marketing for Smart People Radio, I’d run my entire working life from an iPad. No desktop, no laptop, just that gorgeous, single-tasking little solid-state tablet. Granted, not everyone can do this, but 90% of my work is done in a text editor and through email. Anyway, here’s a few good reasons why the iPad makes for a great writing environment. And, if you developers out there would make an all-in-one serious podcasting app for iOS, you got your first customer right here baby.

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The “5 A” Framework for Content Marketing Success

Frameworks are cool. They drop in place, and allow you to get to work on the things that matter, keeping you on course as you go along. Frameworks that build businesses are even cooler. The reason why should be obvious. Mr. Clark drops a content framework into place for you here, one that he’s been working out since the 1990s. No reason to spend a decade or more sweating to figure it out for yourself, he’s got you covered.

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A 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas

Speaking of frameworks, how do you grab your ideas? Do you stare at a wall, or out the window, waiting, praying for a good one to come along? What if there were a systematic process for “producing” ideas? Turns out, there is. You can thank me later.

Did you miss anything on Copyblogger this week?

• The Truth About Making Money While You Sleep
• WordPress Hosting That Means Business
• How to be a World-Changing Writer
• What Does it Take to Write a Billion-Dollar Marketing Story?
• 3 Simple Ways to Turn Your Website Archive into Profitable Books and eBooks
• Seth Godin on When You Should Start Marketing Your Product, Service, or Idea

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s Copywriter and Resident Recluse. Get more from Robert on Twitter and Google+.

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Last week you got a chunky 30-page excerpt of The Brain Audit. This week you can get two short five-minute audio files. These short audios will teach you two very important lessons which you can implement straight away.

What you will learn:
1) What is the difference between ‘The Solution’ and ‘Your Solution’ ?

2)  How to write a tag-line.

Deadline?
There is a deadline though. You have to get it before May 26th, 2012. Then it’s gone. So get it right away.

Either download it, or listen online.

Here are the links: (It may take a few minutes to play)
Solution Vs Your Solution

How to Create A Tagline

So what’s the reason behind this generosity?
Well I sure want you to see how The Brain Audit can help you in your business. That’s the one good reason

Sean
P.S. Don’t forget to download the audio before May 26th, 2012.

Earlier this year, we profiled five brands that have each built themselves a solid marketing presence on Instagram, the popular photo editing and sharing social network so often linked to Twitter and Facebook updates. We’ve also stressed the why and how of using Instagram for marketing, citing the increasing importance of mobile marketing, and how that should be playing into the strategies and tactics of your social media marketing.

Now, I’m sure most of you know that social media is important. I’m also confident that many of you know some basic strategies. But let’s talk about the Earlybird-filtered big picture: when it comes to presenting your brand on social media, your reputation and brand image is only as strong and complete as your most recent update. If your content is off-brand, your image will come across as confused, incomplete, or just plain wrong. That’s not to say you should be dropping nothing but explicitly on-product tweets, but to say that your content, be it original or shared, should always carry within it some sort of a representation or affirmation of your brand’s identity in some way. In fact, a Facebook study just recently confirmed this very philosophy!

An interesting way to explore this constant depiction of brand values and traits is through—you guessed it!—Instagram photos posted by brands. Check out the following images and learn how these ten companies completely nailed the representation of their respective brands.

Annie’s Homegrown

Annie’s Homegrown has done an excellent job of asserting its brand identity as an all-natural, organic, and healthy provider of foods Americans love, from macaroni and cheese to frozen pizza to fruit-flavored gummy snacks. The brand understands how important these qualities have become to its target demographic, so its Twitter strategy is based upon sharing product news, tasty-sounding recipes, and Instagram photos. This shot of a wooden version of Annie’s logo keeping guard over a small vegetable garden incorporates several important parts of Annie’s brand identity. It takes the brand’s logo, already cute and loveable, and places him directly amidst the action of the brand’s foundation. Additionally, the garden is small, and looks to be on a residential street instead of a factory, implying that Annie’s ingredients are not only natural and organic but also as homegrown as the brand name implies.

Billboard

Billboard is, like many other publications that originated in print, evolving its strategy to mesh with the era of real-time social content. On Twitter, Billboard uses Instagram to capture photos of the stars gracing its pages and share their presence within its brand in real time. The Billboard brand is based on its knowledge of who’s on top in the music industry, and its revelations of music previews, exclusive photographs, and breaking news in the music industry. Twitter is an excellent platform for Billboard to explore these real-time aspects of its brand identity, and Instagram allows for this exploration to turn into proof – Billboard can reveal its latest associations in more casual, semi-candid photographs, which make the stars—and thus, Billboard—appear more real and genuine.

Brisk

Brisk has gone through quite the evolution as a brand. Named after an archaic definition of the word ‘brisk’ that means ‘tangy,’ the drink has become Lipton Tea’s attempt to compete with various other popular canned tea drinks in today’s beverage-to-go market. This Instagram photo of a hand just about to pop the tab on a can of Brisk, coupled with a caption referring to the can as an alarm clock, serves two brand-representation purposes: it cues the viewer to imagine the scene playing out, watching the hand open the can and hearing the satisfying popping sound as the task is completed. The filter of the photo is one of Instagram’s many filters meant to call-back to older photos, just as Brisk’s name recalls an earlier definition of a flavor. This makes the brand seem both long-lasting and nostalgic, yet entirely modern due to the update’s home in social media.

The Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics are quite the social basketball team. Their Twitter presence is huge, from the individual players’ accounts to the strong social media strategy utilized to market the Celtics as more than just a basketball team, but also a brand built on the history of Boston, the luck of the Irish, and the joy of the game. They’re a team that builds its reputation on hard work and fast-paced play. This Instagram photo, sent out in a tweet just before the start of a game, captures a real-time moment that likely passed without notice, but displays the team’s togetherness, dedication to the game, uniformity, and excitement to go play, all in one shot. It also assists with the Celtics’ down-to-earth reputation in delivering a photo that is close-up, placing the fans’ viewpoints on par with the players, and low to the ground, literally implying that the team is down-to-earth and willing to put their noses to the grindstone to get to work.

Coach

Coach can sum up its brand identity in three words: classy, trendy, and luxurious. Seeing a Coach logo on a bag instantly raises the bag’s (and carrier’s) social capital, and the price tags attached to Coach bags are more than enough evidence to point toward their earned status as a luxury brand. In Coach’s Twitter feed, ample evidence of these three points are pronounced, but none are as pronounced as in its Instagram account. In this image, Coach divides a purse into three smaller photographs, all muted by a filter to suggest the classiness of the bag, despite its loud, unmuted color. The logo is present in two of the photographs, with the third zeroing in on the handcrafted detail of the bag, reinforcing Coach’s high-quality reputation by showing consumers the details in a setting more causal than a photography shoot, and more personal than a busy store.

Forever21

Forever21 is a clothing brand dedicated to affordable, trendy fashion. Despite its smaller price tags and distinctly non-couture reputation, from its name, Forever21 indicates that with its brand, it’s attempting to emulate a timeless feeling, through which clothing buyers can remain rooted in a particular time or age. In this Instagram shot, sent out over Forever21’s official Twitter account to announce some new arrivals to its stores, the recently-declared-back-in leopard print trend is paired with timeless fashion staples, and then sent through a nostalgia-inducing filter that ages the photograph back to the last time leopard print was in.

PepsiMAX

PepsiMAX is one of the newest product launches of megabrand Pepsi, and can be classified as Pepsi’s attempt to bridge the energy drink and “healthy” soda categories for sales. The brand identity pushed for PepsiMAX is that of something fresh, modern, and exciting, while also familiar to the trusted Pepsi brand consumers know and love. The Twitter feed for PepsiMAX, separate from its parent brand, serves to illustrate these seemingly paradoxical qualities, especially through its liberal use of Instagram. In this photo, we see an over-saturated image of a PepsiMAX can and a billboard of its ad campaign, indicating the real-time freshness of the drink and the update alike, paired with a foosball table, an activity that has been around for years that requires focus and one-on-one competition. PepsiMAX asks us to recall the in-the-moment feeling of playing a fresh round of a game we’ve all known for years, pairing that memory with its brand offering.

Puma

Puma is a footwear brand with attitude. Originally choosing to instill the quickness, agility, and hunting prowess of a puma cat with its footwear, this Instagram photograph suggests a far more laid back image. With the old photograph-toned filter, the presence of a pair of shoes on a person and a pair of shoes shed from a person, as well as the leisurely pace of the activity portrayed, it shows consumers that Puma shoes don’t only allow you to speed past every opportunity, but they also get you to places you can enjoy with others, and remember for a long time. While Twitter is fast-paced, filled with customer service interactions, product announcements, and other news, Puma’s Instagram account is a refreshing change, reminding users that Puma knows its product isn’t just about the journey; it’s also about the destination.

Sharpie

Sharpie is an odd presence on Twitter. Its flagship product, permanent markers, is hardly something that seems easy to market on Twitter at first glance; however, the acute focus on artistic freedom and expression that Sharpie integrates into its brand makes it one of the most successful social branding companies on Instagram. Many of its Instagram snapshots, each posted to Twitter and enjoyed by many followers, does not feature the markers themselves, but rather their ink as applied to some sort of canvas by unique individuals. In this particular composition, for example, Sharpie has brought alive an artist’s passion for music, through the quick, black-and-white illustration of old-school headphones. Choosing headphones over earbuds indicates a preference for the classic, timeless instruments that have a permanent place upon the scene, which are exactly what Sharpie markers and their permanent inks are intended to be.

Starbucks

Starbucks got a mention in our last Instagram post, too, and it’s no wonder why. The coffee retailer is almost definitely the brand making the absolute most out of its Instagram-centric social media strategy. Starbucks strives to be seen as a local-friendly, socially conscious coffee shop that happens to have, oh, a few locations, rather than just another large corporate chain. In this particular image, we see bags of beans, for sale in the shops, that subtly boast the Starbucks logo, and a tray of samples of this coffee, conceivably headed for the counter of the tweeter’s local Starbucks location to be handed out to individuals. The coffee is unaltered, and the background is dimmed to black, allowing Starbucks to assert that when it comes to its brand, two things matter: the coffee and the customers’ opinions.

How could you depict your brand in an Instagram photo? What filter would you use?

Earlier this year, we profiled five brands that have each built themselves a solid marketing presence on Instagram, the popular photo editing and sharing social network so often linked to Twitter and Facebook updates. We’ve also stressed the why and how of using Instagram for marketing, citing the increasing importance of mobile marketing, and how that should be playing into the strategies and tactics of your social media marketing.

Now, I’m sure most of you know that social media is important. I’m also confident that many of you know some basic strategies. But let’s talk about the Earlybird-filtered big picture: when it comes to presenting your brand on social media, your reputation and brand image is only as strong and complete as your most recent update. If your content is off-brand, your image will come across as confused, incomplete, or just plain wrong. That’s not to say you should be dropping nothing but explicitly on-product tweets, but to say that your content, be it original or shared, should always carry within it some sort of a representation or affirmation of your brand’s identity in some way. In fact, a Facebook study just recently confirmed this very philosophy!

An interesting way to explore this constant depiction of brand values and traits is through—you guessed it!—Instagram photos posted by brands. Check out the following images and learn how these ten companies completely nailed the representation of their respective brands.

Annie’s Homegrown

Annie’s Homegrown has done an excellent job of asserting its brand identity as an all-natural, organic, and healthy provider of foods Americans love, from macaroni and cheese to frozen pizza to fruit-flavored gummy snacks. The brand understands how important these qualities have become to its target demographic, so its Twitter strategy is based upon sharing product news, tasty-sounding recipes, and Instagram photos. This shot of a wooden version of Annie’s logo keeping guard over a small vegetable garden incorporates several important parts of Annie’s brand identity. It takes the brand’s logo, already cute and loveable, and places him directly amidst the action of the brand’s foundation. Additionally, the garden is small, and looks to be on a residential street instead of a factory, implying that Annie’s ingredients are not only natural and organic but also as homegrown as the brand name implies.

Billboard

Billboard is, like many other publications that originated in print, evolving its strategy to mesh with the era of real-time social content. On Twitter, Billboard uses Instagram to capture photos of the stars gracing its pages and share their presence within its brand in real time. The Billboard brand is based on its knowledge of who’s on top in the music industry, and its revelations of music previews, exclusive photographs, and breaking news in the music industry. Twitter is an excellent platform for Billboard to explore these real-time aspects of its brand identity, and Instagram allows for this exploration to turn into proof – Billboard can reveal its latest associations in more casual, semi-candid photographs, which make the stars—and thus, Billboard—appear more real and genuine.

Brisk

Brisk has gone through quite the evolution as a brand. Named after an archaic definition of the word ‘brisk’ that means ‘tangy,’ the drink has become Lipton Tea’s attempt to compete with various other popular canned tea drinks in today’s beverage-to-go market. This Instagram photo of a hand just about to pop the tab on a can of Brisk, coupled with a caption referring to the can as an alarm clock, serves two brand-representation purposes: it cues the viewer to imagine the scene playing out, watching the hand open the can and hearing the satisfying popping sound as the task is completed. The filter of the photo is one of Instagram’s many filters meant to call-back to older photos, just as Brisk’s name recalls an earlier definition of a flavor. This makes the brand seem both long-lasting and nostalgic, yet entirely modern due to the update’s home in social media.

The Boston Celtics

The Boston Celtics are quite the social basketball team. Their Twitter presence is huge, from the individual players’ accounts to the strong social media strategy utilized to market the Celtics as more than just a basketball team, but also a brand built on the history of Boston, the luck of the Irish, and the joy of the game. They’re a team that builds its reputation on hard work and fast-paced play. This Instagram photo, sent out in a tweet just before the start of a game, captures a real-time moment that likely passed without notice, but displays the team’s togetherness, dedication to the game, uniformity, and excitement to go play, all in one shot. It also assists with the Celtics’ down-to-earth reputation in delivering a photo that is close-up, placing the fans’ viewpoints on par with the players, and low to the ground, literally implying that the team is down-to-earth and willing to put their noses to the grindstone to get to work.

Coach

Coach can sum up its brand identity in three words: classy, trendy, and luxurious. Seeing a Coach logo on a bag instantly raises the bag’s (and carrier’s) social capital, and the price tags attached to Coach bags are more than enough evidence to point toward their earned status as a luxury brand. In Coach’s Twitter feed, ample evidence of these three points are pronounced, but none are as pronounced as in its Instagram account. In this image, Coach divides a purse into three smaller photographs, all muted by a filter to suggest the classiness of the bag, despite its loud, unmuted color. The logo is present in two of the photographs, with the third zeroing in on the handcrafted detail of the bag, reinforcing Coach’s high-quality reputation by showing consumers the details in a setting more causal than a photography shoot, and more personal than a busy store.

Forever21

Forever21 is a clothing brand dedicated to affordable, trendy fashion. Despite its smaller price tags and distinctly non-couture reputation, from its name, Forever21 indicates that with its brand, it’s attempting to emulate a timeless feeling, through which clothing buyers can remain rooted in a particular time or age. In this Instagram shot, sent out over Forever21’s official Twitter account to announce some new arrivals to its stores, the recently-declared-back-in leopard print trend is paired with timeless fashion staples, and then sent through a nostalgia-inducing filter that ages the photograph back to the last time leopard print was in.

PepsiMAX

PepsiMAX is one of the newest product launches of megabrand Pepsi, and can be classified as Pepsi’s attempt to bridge the energy drink and “healthy” soda categories for sales. The brand identity pushed for PepsiMAX is that of something fresh, modern, and exciting, while also familiar to the trusted Pepsi brand consumers know and love. The Twitter feed for PepsiMAX, separate from its parent brand, serves to illustrate these seemingly paradoxical qualities, especially through its liberal use of Instagram. In this photo, we see an over-saturated image of a PepsiMAX can and a billboard of its ad campaign, indicating the real-time freshness of the drink and the update alike, paired with a foosball table, an activity that has been around for years that requires focus and one-on-one competition. PepsiMAX asks us to recall the in-the-moment feeling of playing a fresh round of a game we’ve all known for years, pairing that memory with its brand offering.

Puma

Puma is a footwear brand with attitude. Originally choosing to instill the quickness, agility, and hunting prowess of a puma cat with its footwear, this Instagram photograph suggests a far more laid back image. With the old photograph-toned filter, the presence of a pair of shoes on a person and a pair of shoes shed from a person, as well as the leisurely pace of the activity portrayed, it shows consumers that Puma shoes don’t only allow you to speed past every opportunity, but they also get you to places you can enjoy with others, and remember for a long time. While Twitter is fast-paced, filled with customer service interactions, product announcements, and other news, Puma’s Instagram account is a refreshing change, reminding users that Puma knows its product isn’t just about the journey; it’s also about the destination.

Sharpie

Sharpie is an odd presence on Twitter. Its flagship product, permanent markers, is hardly something that seems easy to market on Twitter at first glance; however, the acute focus on artistic freedom and expression that Sharpie integrates into its brand makes it one of the most successful social branding companies on Instagram. Many of its Instagram snapshots, each posted to Twitter and enjoyed by many followers, does not feature the markers themselves, but rather their ink as applied to some sort of canvas by unique individuals. In this particular composition, for example, Sharpie has brought alive an artist’s passion for music, through the quick, black-and-white illustration of old-school headphones. Choosing headphones over earbuds indicates a preference for the classic, timeless instruments that have a permanent place upon the scene, which are exactly what Sharpie markers and their permanent inks are intended to be.

Starbucks

Starbucks got a mention in our last Instagram post, too, and it’s no wonder why. The coffee retailer is almost definitely the brand making the absolute most out of its Instagram-centric social media strategy. Starbucks strives to be seen as a local-friendly, socially conscious coffee shop that happens to have, oh, a few locations, rather than just another large corporate chain. In this particular image, we see bags of beans, for sale in the shops, that subtly boast the Starbucks logo, and a tray of samples of this coffee, conceivably headed for the counter of the tweeter’s local Starbucks location to be handed out to individuals. The coffee is unaltered, and the background is dimmed to black, allowing Starbucks to assert that when it comes to its brand, two things matter: the coffee and the customers’ opinions.

How could you depict your brand in an Instagram photo? What filter would you use?

“Facebook ads suck.” For many companies, advertising on Facebook and expecting a return is a “fantasy.” If you clicked those hyperlinks, you found just two examples in the flurry of negative press surrounding Facebook advertising of late — all stemming from the recent GM announcement to cut $10 million in paid ad spend on the social network.

It makes you wonder what prompted this announcement from GM. Is this a media tactic to help searches for GM? Or were the results of Facebook advertising really so miserable that it warranted this media attention? Who knows — the onslaught of coverage wasn’t accompanied by a leak of GM’s analytics. One thing that is evident is that GM hasn’t had much visible success from digital advertising in general; just take a look at what Google’s Insights for Search tool had to show.

But is GM truly the digital marketing icon that we should be referencing to determine whether or not Facebook ads work? What about a brand like Southwest? They run Facebook ads quite frequently … how are they faring? Actually, they’ve been able to generate a ton of positive mentions in the same time period as compared to GM:

From this perspective, maybe it’s the Southwests of the world we should look to for guidance when it comes to digital ad success, not GM. What is clear is that we must have data points and ask the right questions — not just have opinions when it comes to determining the value in something like Facebook ad spend. Because the only answer to the question of whether Facebook ads work or not is “it depends.” While this response is typically an advertiser’s way of sidestepping a direct question, I mean it sincerely, and here’s why.

Just as with any marketing initiative, to run a successful Facebook marketing campaign, companies (especially those with a $10 million budget) need to consider many factors before even logging into their Facebook account.

11 Planning Considerations Before Starting a Facebook Campaign

1) Set your goals. Do you want fans? Conversions on Facebook? Conversions off of Facebook onto a landing page? What about leads, qualified leads, sales, revenue and ROI?

2) Determine your market size. How large is your audience, and what can you realistically expect from advertising on Facebook? Are there 2 million people that you can target, or only 1,000? Don’t be surprised to find out that the market for niche groups is often larger than you think. For instance, there are 127,000 people in the United States alone that list Agatha Christie as an interest — not bad for a British crime novelist that passed away in 1976.

3) Set a budget. Have you budgeted enough for your campaign, or too much? If you’ve set aside too much, you’ll likely be disappointed with your results as you’re pushing budget to the point of inefficiency. If you haven’t set aside enough, you’ll spread yourself too thin and your reach/frequency won’t be strong enough to target your core audience.

4) Take seasonality into account. Mindsets change during summer months. Ecommerce budgets, for example, are typically much heavier in Q4. Market costs can increase during certain months of the year, or during years with major elections. Are you thinking about all of the external factors that could be impacting your campaign?

5) Consider the day of the week. Ad performance varies by day, especially from weekday to weekend. Understanding which days perform best for your company is vital so your budget doesn’t go to waste. For example, if you’re looking to drive users to your website to convert on a “Talk to Sales” call-to-action, you need to make sure that you have the proper staff working during the days these campaigns are live.

6) Use day parting. What hours of the day are the most effective to run your ad? When does your specific audience show the highest engagement rates? If you understand this, you’ll be able to get the most of out your ads and push them harder during your most efficient times.

7) Consider the decision process. What are you asking users to do? What are they thinking about when they see your ad? An example of a decision process might be:

Recognizes Need >> Performs Informational Search >> Evaluates Options >> Makes Purchase

If you know this, you can get in front of users with those needs, have a conversation trigger, educate them, and nurture them through the sales process.

Determine your target demographic. You could consider age, social class, gender, family size, income, occupation, lifestyle, education, religion, and race and nationality.

9) Determine your audience’s psychographics. Ask yourself these questions about your target market (TM):

• What does the TM like/dislike about your product or service?
• What does the TM like/dislike about your competitor’s product or service?
• What is the trigger that sparks conversion?
• Is there brand awareness?
• Were there influencing factors from other marketing campaigns prior to converting?
• Is disposable income a factor in the sales cycle?
• Are there emotional factors at play during the conversion cycle?
• What social class does the TM fall into?
• Who is the decision maker, as opposed to just helping evaluate options?
• Are there specific values that your TM identifies with?
• Are there hobbies or interests that would help define your TM?

10) Do your geo-targeting. When targeting ads, you should consider country, region, state, designated marketing area, city, town, and zip code.

11) Don’t forget about the customer service experience. Like we mentioned before, if you’re directing people to speak to someone at your company, experience matters. Will they talk to a live person who is knowledgeable about their questions? How long did the phone ring before the call was answered? Was the experience the same at 7AM as it was at 4PM? What about on Monday, versus Saturday? If the follow-up was via email, was it timely, friendly, and helpful? You should provide a consistent experience from initial ad impression to customer service interaction.

Once all of those details have been accounted for, then you’re ready to start spending money on Facebook ads. Why? Because it’s easy to generate clicks from a Facebook campaign, but the post-click experience is where the true expertise — and ROI — comes into play. From the ad, to the landing page, to the customer service experience, it takes a team effort from Marketing and Sales to convert leads and customers.

7 Ways to be Efficient With Your Facebook Ads

Now that you know your goals, target market, and understand the bigger picture of running a Facebook ad campaign, you want to ensure your campaigns run efficiently. Here’s how.

1) Build your audience. Using Facebook to generate fans (known as “connections” in Facebook ad lingo) is an opportunity to build the exact audience that you want to expose your ad messaging to. You should always be working to do this by pushing out thought leadership content, running contests, and promoting offers and lead generation campaigns. The more targeted you are with building this audience, the more impactful your broadcasts will be when you message your followers. For instance, start by targeting a select group like we’ve done in the screenshot below:

2) Attract more of those same types of users. The easiest way to do this is using Sponsored Stories. At HubSpot, we’ve been able to use Sponsored Stories to help attract additional connections that behave similarly to others in our target market.

Driving the right kinds of fans to your business page will help ensure higher response rates as you push your message out through Facebook ads.

3) Take advantage of the fans you’ve generated. Talk to your fan base regularly via your business page by posting content that drives engagement. And by engagement, I mean lead generation. Here at HubSpot, we take the thought leadership approach, meaning that we think people will want to use HubSpot software if we are able to prove that we truly understand the digital landscape and have the best online marketing software. Take a look at some of the ways we do that.

First, we like to share relevant blog posts that help educate our readers. You might think blog content doesn’t generate leads, but that’s only true if you’ve forgotten to include calls-to-action within your blog content. And we’d never do such a thing … would you?

But we also post lead generation content directly to our Facebook page. This post directs fans to a landing page on which they can redeem an ebook about creating effective calls-to-action.

4) Converse with your fans. What does talking with fans have to do with paid ads on Facebook? Well, it’s an important factor in the success of your overall Facebook strategy. You can’t just think about paid ads in a silo — you have to think about the entire strategy. Conversing with fans will give you a better idea of who your target audience is, what they think about, and what they need. And that makes for better ad targeting.

5) Run paid ads to target segments. Don’t be afraid to engage in direct response lead generation on Facebook. HubSpot uses ads like the one you see below to send users to landing pages that offer free inbound marketing assessments, free software trials, and inbound marketing software demos. Do they work? We wouldn’t be running them if they didn’t.

6) Segment as much as possible with your campaigns. Messaging and landing pages should be tailored to specific demographics. For instance, if GM were running a campaign for the Chevy Volt, you can imagine how messaging would change among those aged 25-34, as opposed to those aged 55-64.

The younger audience may be more concerned with the fact that the Volt is helping our planet become more green, while an older audience near retirement age may be more interested in buying a car with better fuel economy. Think of every possible way you can segment, and use your Facebook ads, messaging, and landing pages to connect with that segment accordingly. 

7) Put senior members of your marketing team in charge of your Facebook ad campaign. If the team member heading up Facebook advertising doesn’t know who Ogilvy is, then get someone else. The marketing game hasn’t changed, just the venues. Using the core concepts of traditional marketing, targeting, and messaging is the way to win with Facebook ads. Having that leadership backbone to coincide with the nuances of social and digital media will ensure a fully optimized campaign.

Who’s to Blame for GM’s Facebook Ad Failure?

So … was GM doing all of those things? Well, you can see that campaign setup and targeting isn’t really that hard — it’s the post-click experience that matters most. If GM was focused on all of these elements and still failed, then perhaps Facebook wasn’t the best fit for their particular brand. This doesn’t mean that Facebook isn’t the right avenue for the auto industry in general — or any other industry — since GM has a very specific target audience that differs from, say, KIA or VW. For digital advertisers, the answer to whether or not Facebook advertising is the right choice certainly depends on the market and brand, but most of all, it hinges on proper execution.

Facebook doesn’t want to fail. They have no interest in going broke. They’ll likely continue to hire top notch developers and engineers, and keep bringing on the best product management and marketing professionals to work on continuously improving their advertising options. Rand Fishkin wrote an article back in 2010 about all the things he wished he’d known before starting his company. A piece of the article illuminated exactly what we’re seeing in the general public right now regarding Facebook’s IPO and their advertising solution — haters gonna hate.

I don’t dispute that Facebook has not worked for a considerable amount of advertisers, but it’s also worked quite well in many instances. So before you jump on the lambasting train of Facebook ads, approach the situation using data and an evaluation of your own strategy on Facebook, not just opinions. Ask yourself, did I truly understand how to advertise on Facebook, and did I do all of the things that I should have in order to fully execute on my strategy? Or was I just looking for a quick and easy way to generate conversions? The barriers to entry are practically non-existent when it comes to Facebook ads, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy in terms of generating ROI. That’s what all advertisers must keep in mind when deciding whether or not Facebook ads are appropriate for their business.

What do you think of Facebook advertising? To what do you attribute GM’s Facebook ad failure?

Image credit: Zeevveez

Earlier this year, a HubSpot study found that when it comes to generating leads, LinkedIn is 277% more effective than Twitter and Facebook. What people are having trouble grasping, though, is how. 

The tricky thing with LinkedIn is that there isn’t just one single place to attract leads. There’s LinkedIn Company Pages, LinkedIn Answers, LinkedIn Today, and so on. But the leader of the pack — if done right, of course — is LinkedIn Groups. In fact, HubSpot currently has three LinkedIn Groups for our different communities: Inbound Marketing University Alumni, Inbound Marketing Certified Professionals, and Inbound Marketing Professionals, which is open to the public to join and learn!

There are many benefits to building your own LinkedIn Group, but today we’re focusing on the lead generation opportunity they offer — and that stems from an awesome feature called LinkedIn Announcements. If you’ve never heard of LinkedIn Announcements, think of it kind of like a social media and email marketing mashup. Or, just read this post to learn more about it, and how to use it for lead generation!

What are LinkedIn Announcements?

LinkedIn Announcements are messages sent directly to the email inbox of the members of your LinkedIn Group — in other words, it’s email marketing through LinkedIn! Whichever email a LinkedIn user includes on their profile will receive the LinkedIn Announcement. Here’s how to send one:

1) Go to “Manage” in the Group.

2) Click on “Send an Announcement.” 

Easy! Right? But how does that translate to lead generation?

Why are LinkedIn Announcements Great for Lead Gen?

Let me illustrate this point with an image. The following graph shows the number of daily leads generated from LinkedIn for HubSpot in the past 30 days. The yellow bars, however, are the days that the social media lead gen team sent a LinkedIn Announcement to our Inbound Marketers Group.

See what I mean? Clearly, LinkedIn Announcements helped boost the number of leads generated — not only for the day of the send, but also the days following. While the success of the LinkedIn Group is certainly a major portion of this, wouldn’t any marketer want to amplify their already great results when possible?

How to Write a LinkedIn Announcement That Generates Leads

The rules for writing great email copy in your other campaigns also apply when writing LinkedIn Announcements. The Announcements feature will automatically create a subject line for you that reads “Announcement from XXX Group.” Do not use this subject line. Instead, create a descriptive and eye-catching subject that shows members of the group that reading the message will benefit them. Here are some examples from recent HubSpot sends:

• Become a Data-Driven Marketer and Take Action with Metrics
• Build Inbound Links Through Social Media With These 10 Free Tips!
• Special News for Our Community: HubSpot’s New Email Tool + Free Ebook!

Once the subject line is nailed down, you need to write some compelling copy. Let’s dissect our most recent LinkedIn Announcement to highlight how.

1) Give them reason to keep reading. Open your email with something compelling enough to grab the reader’s attention, and convince them it’s worth their time to continue reading. It helps to include a mind blowing statistic here, if you have one. Use a clear but interesting transition to connect that first sentence to your main offer. The connection needs to be relevant and continue to keep the readers attention.

2) Have a call-to-action! Whether it’s an ebook, a blog post, a coupon, or an event page, send your readers somewhere they can get more information that will benefit them. And to track the success of that offer, be sure to use a link shortening and tracking service like bitly. This will help you gauge the type of offers that work best for your LinkedIn Group. 

3) Make your call-to-action compelling. It’s not enough to have a CTA — you need to convince your reader to click through! Clearly tell recipients why they should download your content, attend your event, or use your product. Don’t make them fill in the blanks — be explicit with the value they will derive from redeeming your offer. Using bulleted lists or other formatting devices to call out these points will help you make your case.

4) Pose a question about the offer. The email you send will be linked in a featured discussion on the LinkedIn Group (more on this in a minute). That means you need to give them a reason to engage with the post that appears.

5) Monitor the announcement. People may start commenting on your announcement, so be sure you’re looking out for notifications of new comments. That way you don’t have to keep manually checking in with your LinkedIn Group, and can quickly respond to commenters.

6) Make your discussion a featured discussion. By making the discussion featured, it’ll appear permanently whenever someone comes to your group, in the upper right corner. Users will automatically know the message came from a manager of the group, and therefore the content is likely important and helpful. 

7) Automatically tweet the announcement. You can do this by clicking the little blue Twitter bird. It tweets both the headline, and a link to the post.

Send yourself a test email! Sometimes reading the content in a different location — like your inbox — highlights small spelling or grammatical mistakes. If you have a friend or coworker who can review your email, it’s a good idea to get another set of eyes on it, as well.

9) Send it!

Pretty easy, right? If you or your business owns a LinkedIn Group, start sending carefully crafted LinkedIn Announcements to supplement your lead generation efforts. And if you don’t already have a LinkedIn Group, well, why not start one? Creating a LinkedIn Group has many benefits that will be proven not just in the short-term, but in the long-term. You can also try asking someone who owns a LinkedIn Group with an audience you want exposure to if you can send a LinkedIn Announcement to his/her group. Just be sure you have something valuable to give that person in return!

Have you used LinkedIn Announcements? Have you seen positive results? If not, do you plan on using them now?

I spend a lot of time talking to and about the stuff that we do to make it work now. So sometimes it’s a real treat to get to talk to someone that’s so far out ahead of most of us in their thinking that you pretty much just listen with your mouth open when they talk. (I would put my conversation with Kevin Kelly in this class)

Recently I had a chance to visit for a bit with one of those folks – Doc Searls. Doc is senior editor for Linux Journal, alumnus fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and co-author of the seminal work – The Cluetrain Manifesto with Rick Levine, Christopher Locke and David Weinberger. (Look for our conversation in a coming episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.)

In 2000, Searls and company painted the road map for what was coming only to have it high jacked to some degree by marketers that misinterpreted the manifesto as a foreshadowing of social media. When Cluetrain told the world that markets are conversations, they meant, I fear, that we as marketers should have an actual conversation and not simply listen and react in ways that tailored our marketing conversations to the research we are now able to obtain via social sharing. (Click on this search for “markets are conversations” and you’ll get an even grimmer sense of this.)

In Searls’ latest work, The Intention Economy, he returns to the notion of conversations but puts the onus and control firmly in the hands of the consumer and not the organization. A great deal of the work that Searls was engaged in at Berkman surrounding the notion of something that’s become known as Vendor Relationship Management or VRM.

The idea of VRM is drawn from the traditional customer relationship language, but shifts the management aspect to the customer instead of the organization. In a VRM environment, the customer controls a great deal of the data and experience and is the determining party in how much or how little is tailored to their wants.

One doesn’t have too look to far out into future space to imagine a technology that enables customer to interact with CRM platforms in a way that allows them to decide what to share, what to update and what to request.

Can you imagine how powerful this type of true conversation could be?

The real hurdle is data trust, or lack of, but I believe we are sitting on a privacy bubble.

So, at what point do we rebel against being used as part of Facebook’s product? At what point do we start to demand the ability to control our own health records? At what point do we tell CVS to shove the little stupid rewards card and start to spend only with those that accept markets are conversations and that relationships are not data.

Enable true intentions in your customer relationships and open your organization to a world of commerce that does not currently exist.

What If Your Customers Could Talk to Your CRM is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

I spend a lot of time talking to and about the stuff that we do to make it work now. So sometimes it’s a real treat to get to talk to someone that’s so far out ahead of most of us in their thinking that you pretty much just listen with your mouth open when they talk. (I would put my conversation with Kevin Kelly in this class)

Recently I had a chance to visit for a bit with one of those folks – Doc Searls. Doc is senior editor for Linux Journal, alumnus fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and co-author of the seminal work – The Cluetrain Manifesto with Rick Levine, Christopher Locke and David Weinberger. (Look for our conversation in a coming episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.)

In 2000, Searls and company painted the road map for what was coming only to have it high jacked to some degree by marketers that misinterpreted the manifesto as a foreshadowing of social media. When Cluetrain told the world that markets are conversations, they meant, I fear, that we as marketers should have an actual conversation and not simply listen and react in ways that tailored our marketing conversations to the research we are now able to obtain via social sharing. (Click on this search for “markets are conversations” and you’ll get an even grimmer sense of this.)

In Searls’ latest work, The Intention Economy, he returns to the notion of conversations but puts the onus and control firmly in the hands of the consumer and not the organization. A great deal of the work that Searls was engaged in at Berkman surrounding the notion of something that’s become known as Vendor Relationship Management or VRM.

The idea of VRM is drawn from the traditional customer relationship language, but shifts the management aspect to the customer instead of the organization. In a VRM environment, the customer controls a great deal of the data and experience and is the determining party in how much or how little is tailored to their wants.

One doesn’t have too look to far out into future space to imagine a technology that enables customer to interact with CRM platforms in a way that allows them to decide what to share, what to update and what to request.

Can you imagine how powerful this type of true conversation could be?

The real hurdle is data trust, or lack of, but I believe we are sitting on a privacy bubble.

So, at what point do we rebel against being used as part of Facebook’s product? At what point do we start to demand the ability to control our own health records? At what point do we tell CVS to shove the little stupid rewards card and start to spend only with those that accept markets are conversations and that relationships are not data.

Enable true intentions in your customer relationships and open your organization to a world of commerce that does not currently exist.

What If Your Customers Could Talk to Your CRM is a post from: Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Top 250 Internet Retailers

Social networking for retailers makes sense right? Make your brand visible where your consumers are spending the most time. This infographic from Campalyst shares information on one of the things that helps makes retailers successful online, a social presence. Key findings include:

• Number of followers by social platform
• How success on social networks is distributed
• The most followed industries on specific social channels

Featured Team Member Story

Mike Yanke – Who Will Win the War of the Sidebars?

While Google made headlines this week with the launch of its Knowledge Graph (ie a new sidebar element designed provide facts the search giant has amassed on people, places and things), emerging force Bing made its own announcement last week with a platform relaunch, complete with a social sidebar. So what sidebar format will most engage users – a vast collection of knowledge on people, places or things you may never see – or a vast collection of facts on people, places and things you may see every day? Check out Search Engine Land for more on both Bing’s social sidebar and Google’s Knowledge Graph.

This Week in Online Marketing News

Facebook IPO Could Place Its Value at $140 Billion
The social network priced its shares at $38 apiece, valuing the company at $104 billion. The average first-day “pop” for a technology company is 32 percent; if Facebook follows that trend, it’ll be worth $137 billion by day’s end. Via Bloomberg.

Who Invited Penguin & Panda to the Party?
Google’s new penguin update has many organizations confused, frustrated, and angry. It seems that many sites have seen a sudden drop in traffic, and are blaming “Penguin” and “Panda” for the decline. This article covers the importance of knowing which update affected your traffic as well as tips for gaining some of your traffic back. Via Yoast.

57% of Facebook users Never Click Ads
Facebook’s public offering has generated a lot of buzz and anticipation. However, the ineffectiveness of advertising and user distrust due to policy changes may stunt aggressive growth goals. Curious to know other results of this poll run by CNBC? Via MSNBC.

Is Google+ Becoming a Ghost Town?
This week Fast Company received exclusive insights into Google+. If it’s true that Google+ is the company’s “social spine” then they are in need of some serious adjustments. The picture painted by the data shows very weak user engagement, waning interest and minimal social activity. Via Fast Company.

9 Ways to Be An Expert, Without the Attitude
There is a fine line between providing valuable information, and the stigma that comes with being thought of as an expert. This article provides 9 helpful tips that you can share valuable information in an influential way without being perceived as a jerk. Via Brass Tack Thinking.

17 Steps to Becoming a Content Curator
Many people curate content without even thinking about what they are doing. Re-sharing an article from a friend or colleague, or collecting and sharing a series of blog posts on a particular topic. There are some very simple rules that you can follow to properly curate and share the information you find online. This guide from Econsultancy covers the basics to set you up for success. Via Econsultancy.

TopRank Team News

Kodi Osmond – Yahoo Debuts Big Data App Called “Genome” at Internet Week
Genome, over-simplified, refers to the biological information needed to build a living thing. If one thinks of data as capturing the behavior of a living thing, then data must be a “living thing”, too. Perhaps this was the logic used when Yahoo named its big data software, scheduled to release in July. Read more of Yahoo’s press release and what EVP of Americas Rich Riley had to say at Venture Beat.

Shawna Kenyon – What People really Want vs. What They Share on Social Media
Social media monitoring company NetBase published a year’s worth of its own data and compared it against a Harris poll to determine the gaps between what people say in social media updates compared to what they actually want. They found that in general people are ‘emotional sharers’ but in actuality tend to be quite logical when asked a direct question. This article poses an interesting comparison between men and woman within a number of categories. Via Mashable.

Roxanne Hagberg – Google Search Just 1,000 Times Smarter
(We all know that Google’s Knowledge Graph is big news this week. Our team found this change to be very important for our readers so we have included another review from Mashable)

Google taps into a variety of knowledge databases to roll out “Knowledge Graph”, the next generation of search. Knowledge Graph allows users to quickly narrow their search to find the most relevant results. Via Mashable.

Brian Larson – Saving Time in Google Analytics
I remember the first time I really, really dug into a Google Analytics (GA) profile. I logged into GA at noon and the next time I looked up it was time to go home. There’s no doubt that there’s a tremendous amount of valuable information in GA. There’s also no doubt that it can be easy to lose time data mining in this tool. Search Engine Watch’s Eric Stiu shares ‘7 Time Saving Google Analytics Custom Reports’. Via Search Engine Watch.

Time to Weigh In: Wow, this was a big week in SEO and social news. Google “Penguin” as well as their new “Knowledge Graph” are on the minds of many organizations. Has your company seen any significant decreases in traffic since this release? Do you believe that Google+ is a truly effective mechanism for engaging customers and clients socially? What updates would you recommend Google+ make to increase usability and engagement?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
Online Marketing News: Facebook IPO: Worth $140 Billion, Google Penguin & Panda Party Crash, G+ Ghost Town | http://www.toprankblog.com

What is marketing?

Is it a process of gathering as much money as you can, throwing it to the “creative” winds, and hoping something will come back?

Is it a practice of interrupting as many people as possible with a message they don’t care about, and never asked to receive?

Is it a performance you frantically stage around your product, service, or idea, in the final moments before launching it into the world?

Or is it something else entirely? And if it is, how and when do we employ it?

Seth Godin has been asking, answering, and living out these questions for decades. In the process, he’s written thirteen best-selling books, built dozens of companies, and crafted one of the most influential blogs on the planet.

He’s on the show today, delivering a fast and elemental definition of marketing, and what it means to engage an audience in the post-industrial era. Don’t miss this …

In this episode we discuss:

• Seth’s definition of marketing
• When you should start marketing your product, service, or idea
• Why running a ton of ads just doesn’t work anymore
• The most important element of good marketing
• The most dangerous element of bad marketing
• How the Internet builds trust, and why you must get it
• A stunning example of breaking out of the old marketing system

Hit the flash player below to listen now:

Other listening options:

• Click here to download the mp3 | 21.3 MB | 18:33
• Click here to subscribe via iTunes
• Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
• Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes:

• Internet Marketing for Smart People Course (free)
• When Should We Add Marketing?
• SethGodin.com
• We left the building with Girl Talk …

About the Author: Robert Bruce is Copyblogger Media’s Copywriter and Resident Recluse. Get more from Robert on Twitter and Google+.

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