There was a time not too long ago when it was hard to get dealers to post enough. The mythical beast known as EdgeRank (which Facebook technically hasn't used in a long time, but that's not important now) compels people to want to maximize the exposure of their posts by keeping a constant flow of positive engagement going towards their Facebook page. More on that in a moment.

Before we get into the numbers surrounding posting, let's look at this from a human perspective. Facebook is the venue through which people are able to communicate in their own way with their friends and family. By "in their own way," I mean that not everyone makes it a two-way conversation, but they're still receiving information through Facebook. Those of us who are avid users couldn't imagine not liking, commenting, or sharing, but there is a large chunk of active Facebook users who rarely interact on it but who still log in and check it on a regular basis. These people are important, but again, more on them in a moment.

From a human perspective, most people are not interested in what a dealership has to say outside of ways that it can benefit them directly. Coupons, specials, events, etc - they don't mind seeing these for the most part. That's what they were likely expecting when they liked the dealer's page. It's not like Skittles; some brands are able to gather a following based upon simply being utterly entertaining. With car dealers, it's possible to be like that but extremely difficult. It takes time, effort, money, and often a willingness to drive away from the direct business needs into a realm of branding that is risky.

Now, let's get an understanding of the math, as promised.

The Algorithm: Why Posting Often is Good

We won't get into a lengthy discussion on the intricacies of the Facebook news feed algorithm - I'm not sure that a single blog post dedicated to the subject would be enough to do it justice and it's changing so rapidly (a big change just yesterday) that it would be outdated in weeks at best. There are, however, a few basic underlying premises that are important to understand today and that will likely stay in effect in one form or another for a long time to come.

Every time you post something to Facebook, it will be exposed to certain people in different ways. This exposure does not necessarily mean that they will see your post. It just means that they have an opportunity to see it in their news feed. The age of the post is one criteria that determines how high on the news feed they'll see it. If you post something and someone starts looking at their news feed right afterwards, that person has a better chance of seeing it than someone who checks their news feed 5 hours later. Where your posts stand from an engagement perspective with each individual person plays an important role as well. If someone has liked, shared, or commented on some of your posts in the past, Facebook will push your posts higher in their news feed. Yours might show up higher than posts by other businesses whose posts the individual has not liked.

Finally, there is the "friends who liked it" factor. If Bob likes a picture of himself that a dealership took and posted on their page, Bob's friends will be more likely to see it in their news feed as well.

This is just a basic overview and there's a lot more that goes into it, but it's enough to discuss why frequency and timing of posts is important.

The Humanity: Why Posting Often is Bad

Little Timmy sliding into third base. It's for pictures like these that the majority of pure Facebook users visit the site in the first place. They want to see what their ex-boyfriend from high school is doing. They want to see videos of their cousin at her recital 1400 miles away. They want to see if the guy in the accounting department is finally single again.

For the most part, they don't want to see what new trade in a local dealer just got on the lot. That's not to say that they won't interact with it if they do see it. Heck, there's a chance (a very good one if done properly) that this might spark them to want to see what else the dealer has since their car started making a weird noise on the way home from work today, which is why we continue to believe in the promise of social media. However, it's not the intent. They didn't check their Facebook feed in hopes of seeing a car. They wanted little Timmy.

This is especially true for the people I mentioned earlier, the ones who do not interact often but who check Facebook regularly. For these people, cat pictures will not be effective.

It's the human factor that makes it the most challenging for businesses to get a foothold in social media. Some have tried to "blend in" by posting funny cat pictures to their feed. They believe (in many cases, rightfully so) that they can get into the mix of their fans Facebook feeds by entertaining them. While this strategy can be effective, it's also very challenging, especially over time as fatigue sets in.

There's only so many funny cat pictures you can post before you start annoying people. They might like it. They might appreciate your funny cat for a time, but in the end they came for little Timmy and if you can't deliver him, you're not going to stay high on their list forever.

To Overpost or Not to Overpost

That is the question. Hopefully you're not totally confused at this point, as I've basically said there are advantages and disadvantages to posting often. The reality of the answer comes down to your dealership and which social media personality you want to hold. There are two primary extremes: the business-only infrequent poster and the community-engaged frequent poster. In between, there are more complex strategies that I'm not going to go into directly, but here's a breakdown of the two ends of the spectrum:

The Infrequent Poster

• * Posts 1-4 times a week
• * Posts only relevant business posts such as offers and customer testimonials
• * Takes a big risk of never being seen without paid Facebook promotions
• * Stays on point and has a lower chance of being unliked or removed from the news feed

The Frequent Poster

• * Posts 1-4 times a day or more
• * Mixes in relevant posts with engagement-driven posts
• * Takes a big risk of being unliked or removed from the feed for fatigue
• * Has the opportunity to play the EdgeRank game and get their brands exposed to the broader community

Now, to answer the original question from this post. Are dealers starting to overpost? Yes. Running with the second strategy can be more beneficial if done right which is why posting often is becoming the norm. However, it's so often botched or misused that it's starting to become completely ineffective. To make it happen as a frequent poster requires a very specific strategy, one that takes time and expert understanding to get right. The potential benefits are high but the risks are high as well. It's very easy to take an extremely effective social media presence and destroy it by trying too hard.

My advice: if you are not absolutely sure your strategy of frequent posting is going to work OR if you are not keeping up to date (3 major changes in the last two weeks) with the Facebook algorithm OR if you're not investing money into Facebook ads, than you're better off toning down the posts. This goes contrary to what I have said as recently as three months ago, but that's the nature of this game. It changes so rapidly that someone like me who isn't knee deep in trying to run a dealership, who spends several hours a day exploring, practicing, and staying on top of social media, still must make adjustments to recommended strategies on a regular basis.

Be the best or play it safe. Don't overpost unless you're positive you know what you're doing. If you think you're on top of it enough, take a look at the related posts below. These all discuss a few major changes that Facebook has made in the last week.

Related articles

• Facebook News Feed Placement Is All About Relevancy (allfacebook.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Facebook: Yes, We Changed Your News Feed (FB) (businessinsider.com)
• Facebook Clears The Air On News Feed, Promoted Posts (forbes.com)
• There Are Now 4 Ways Facebook Determines What To Show You In Your News Feeds (businessinsider.com)
• This Facebook "All" Link Lets You See An Unfiltered News Feed, But It Might Get Shut Down (techcrunch.com)
• New Facebook Option Can Help Brands Regain Fan Engagement (news.terra.com)
• Facebook reveals the 4 factors that determine News Feed content (prdaily.com)
• Why Facebook Won't Give You a Straight-Up News Feed (mashable.com)
• Getting "Liked" Was Tough Enough, Getting Notified... Is a Whole New Ballgame (business2community.com)
• Facebook Adds a News Feed Option: 'Pages Only' (mashable.com)

There is a rise in niche-level outsourced social media that is refreshing on one hand and discouraging on the other. It's encouraging because when agencies take the stance of focusing on a single niche such as automotive or entertainment, they are able to build up several resources to make their jobs easier and the clients' social media presence more robust. On the other hand, it allows many to create an assembly-line, one-size-fits-all mentality of automation that can actually hurt the clients.

It's one of my biggest annoyances. When I sift through the hundreds of Facebook and other social media feeds that are attached to the car dealers I follow, I often see repetition. To some extent there's nothing wrong with this; a Ford dealer in Tuscaloosa sharing the same epic image of a 1967 Mustang that a Ford dealer in Boston shared is likely a safe practice, especially if they're not posted at the exact same time. However, when I start seeing feeds that are over half-duplicated with other similar dealers, I cringe.

Where's the personality? Where's the individuality that allows Facebook and other social media sites to pump up the good and dismiss the bad? Certainly the Ford dealer in Tuscaloosa has completely different goals with social media than the Boston dealer and a diverse personality through which their dealership's humanity can shine?

Unfortunately, this simply isn't the case. Many niche social media companies have adopted as much of an assembly-line mentality as possible. Knowing what I know about social media, if I were on the other side of the discussion looking for the right type of social media I would look for certain things out of my social media partner. This is easy for me to say since we do not currently offer a product that matches these criteria; I have the luxury of speaking without bias. This is exactlywhat I would want if I were a dealer...

Seven Criteria for a Social Media Partner

I understand the concepts of scalability, profitability, and building a product that can deliver on the goods without being too cost-prohibitive. I have eliminated those thoughts from this discussion for the sake of describing an ideal situation. No vendor today offers this level of advanced social media marketing in the automotive industry (including us) today. That's a shame because it would help reshape the industry and align goals with results.

1. Constant Consultation for Both Parties' Sake - Running the various social media profiles that I do, I could not imagine being effective with them if I didn't have intimate knowledge of what was going on at the companies. This isn't something that can be accomplished by a monthly call. It doesn't necessarily require a daily call, either, as that would get annoying, but a weekly touch and an open phone line are absolutely required to make sure that we were taking full advantage of the best component of social media: real time.
2. Diversity of Personalities - There is no "master plan" in social media that works universally. A Chevy store in Fond du Lac may have a personality that is deeply rooted in the community. They might be one of the centerpieces of the city that plays an important role in cultural growth, education, and bringing the community together. A Honda store in Shreveport might have a completely different approach with different goals for their social media. They might be best served posting 3 times a week instead of twice a day, posting only what is relevant to their fan base that has grown used to seeing service specials advertised to them regularly.
3. A Budget for Facebook Advertising - Whether through Offers, Sponsored Stories, Events, or straight up Facebook ads, the idea that a page can be maximized without an advertising budget is like saying that a car can drive really fast without gas. I don't care if it's a Lotus - without fuel the only hope to go fast is to drop it out of plane. Facebook offers by far the most cost-effective form of advertising on the internet right now. The majority of vendors who deny this are either uninformed or simply don't want Facebook taking from their chunk of the pie.
4. Understanding and Focus on the Right Networks - Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are non-negotiable and should never be automated. Dealers and vendors who plug their Twitter into Facebook and call it a day are missing out. Dealers and vendors who use Hootsuite or other tools to keep their Google+ updated have missed the point (this one topic could be a blog post of its own). Tumblr, Foursquare, Pinterest, and Instagram are important and may fall in line with a strong social media presence. YouTube, Slideshare, and Flickr work well for dealers who are positioned properly with the right content. Scoop.it and a handful of other startups that we're watching are moving up on the list. Pretty much every other social network is fluff at this point. Vendors that say, "Get your dealership on dozens of social networks" are either ignorant or they believe that their clients are ignorant. The concepts of "more is better" and "it can't hurt to try" are absolutely false in social media. I'd debate anyone on this point.
5. Content that Starts at the Dealership - There is plenty of generic content out there that works pretty well. In the car business, there is no shortage of content. However, the only way to get real success out of posts is to localize them. A picture of a Hyundai concept car from the Geneva Auto Show is good, but a picture of a customer's tricked-out Hyundai that drives on the local streets is much better. Vendors who are not doing point #1 will never be able to accomplish this point.
6. Search Integration - This is a huge one that nobody is doing properly right now. Nobody. Social signals are quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. There are those who claim to be helping a dealership's search rankings through social media by getting additional inbound links, but this is a completely different strategy than social signal implementation. Again, this is another blog post waiting to happen, but if there is nothing in the strategy that includes getting high-quality organic social interaction on your website, you don't have a true social signals for search strategy in place.
7. Reputation Reinforcement through Social Media - This is one that is a "must have" for dealers. Reputation is everything. There are a few vendors who do a great job at reputation management - getting reviews, monitoring them to get the dealership's responses, and redirecting potential negative reviews directly to the dealership to allow for one-on-one conversations. Kudos to them. However, a component that I've seen done well on only the occasional social media presence is reputation reinforcement. It's not just about putting a tab on your Facebook page with a reviews feed. It's about taking the extraordinary reviews and getting them exposed to potential customers proactively.

Social media done properly can be tremendously beneficial to dealerships and just about any business out there that works with consumers. It takes a personal touch from the business that can only be achieved by doing it themselves with strong strategies and proper guidance or through true social media partners that put in the efforts, that stay on top of the trends, and that are willing to get personal and understand the personality of the business instead of blasting out generic content and hoping for the best.

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Nataliya Hora / Shutterstock.com

Purists will say that using apps and dashboards like Hootsuite or Buffer take away the fundamental interpersonal relationships that are built through social media. By scheduling posts or sending them through these tools, users won't be able to see the person behind the message, they say.

Marketers find other reasons to avoid dashboards, particularly with Facebook. The posts often do not carry as much weight as ones posted directly through Facebook, making it convenient but less effective to use tools. Both purists and marketers may be correct, but there's one major advantage that dashboards give us: statistics.

In this infographic by Hootsuite, we explore the usage trends of one of the biggest dashboard companies out there. The focus is on Twitter, but expansion into other apps and services allow these companies to start consolidating the overall posting process, particularly for businesses. Click to enlarge.

Related articles

• Conversations have been added to Hootsuite
• Why I Use Buffer More Than Hootsuite
• HootSuite expands App Directory with reddit, StumbleUpon and other social media apps
• HootSuite Partners with Webtrends to Track Social Media ROI
• Social Dashboard HootSuite Hits 4 Million-User Mark [Infographic]

There is a combination of hope and fear in the automotive industry. On one hand, many dealers and vendors are really starting to "get it" when it comes to automotive internet marketing. Dealers are finally embracing the internet as the primary arena through which to market their dealerships and vendors are starting to listen to their dealers as well as watch the trends in internet marketing more closely.

It's still scary. The direction of the economy may or may not be heading towards the same type of situation we had a few years ago when people were holding off on buying cars. The industry suffered as a result and many dealers felt the pain. It may not be the case. Things may end up being much better than anyone expects. Still, it's better to be prepared.

As internet marketing rapidly changes, dealers are coming face to face with decisions that must be made sooner rather than later. Now that the fall conference season is behind us, it's time to reflect on what we learned and make decisions about how to maximize ROI at the dealership level on our internet marketing spends.

Since I work for a vendor, I'll recuse myself from offering opinions. The goal of this article is to get you thinking along the right lines. I have my opinions and other vendors have theirs, but as long as you are going into this with your eyes open, I'll leave the pitches to the sales teams. Here are the components that you should look at and some of the questions that you'll want to ask as we head into the new year:

Mobile

This used to be a checkbox item. In other words, it was something that most dealers would ask about from their website vendor in the form of a yes or no question. Do you offer them or not? Now, as mobile devices begin to account for 1/5th or more of a dealership's traffic, it's important to look more closely to make certain that the experience is the right one.

First and foremost, it's important to understand the two biggest target instances that you'll want your mobile presence to enhance. The on-lot experience means that people are away from their computers. They rely on their mobile devices to search inventory and contact dealers. In many cases, they may try to contact you while they're at a competitor. We've all heard stories of people doing comparison shopping while on a test drive or in the middle of negotiations.

The second instance that is important to your dealership is the "second screen" moment. As your television ads run, people who are in the market for a car might try to visit your site. Instead of getting up and going to the computer, they may just grab their iPad or smartphone and see what you have going on. Will they find what they need very quickly? Will the presentation be swift and responsive? Will it be easy for them to contact you from your mobile site or app?

Examine your mobile presence. Is it as strong as it could be? Look at the options and make a smart decision.

Social

Most have tried. Many have failed. The majority of social media products currently being offered to car dealers are awful at best (just being frank). The best practices that many are offering are antiquated. Some are downright damaging.

Your social presence must be one of two things: strong or safe. It's better to have a safe social presence that does no damage than to have one that is using spammy or questionable techniques.

To get a strong social presence takes more work than most dealers (and even vendors) are willing to put into it. The ROI is the biggest question; if we make it amazing, will it help sell cars.

I always remind dealers that social media is not like search or other forms of internet advertising. The value is almost intangible, but not completely. Just like when you run a television ad and you sell more cars as a result without being able to directly track it, so too does a strong social media presence operate in the same manner. This is one where I take exception - please feel free to contact me if you have questions about your strategy. Again, I'm not in sales and I don't pitch our products. I simply want dealers to do better than they are today. Almost everyone has a great deal of room for improvement in this arena.

Classified Advertising

Things are changing in the Autotrader, Cars.com, and Craigslist front. The consumers are using them differently. It's not that they've stopped using them, but rather the trends point to their use as much more of a research tool than a way to contact the dealership.

Look at your statistics and talk to an unbiased expert about them. They are still effective - that much is certain - but the way that the costs are structured should be re-evaluated in many of the cases I've seen over the last few months.

Paid Online Advertising

Video Pre-roll. Retargeting. Display advertising. Sponsored social posts. It seems that this arena has expanded so far beyond the good ol' days of "plug it into PPC and forget about it".

The challenges here are many and I have one word that every dealer must remember when delving into this world: TEST. There are so many options. Few would question the potential. Many have seen a tremendous benefit. Still, it falls into the same realm as social in that the ROI is more challenging to understand than other digital marketing spends.

Test out the different options and see what works for you. The vast majority of dealerships in the country are in a position to benefit from advertising, but the formula for each is often completely different than for others. Talk to your peers. Check with your 20 groups. Take a long, hard look at advertising and test to find out what works for your dealership.

SEO

This is arguably the most changed form of internet marketing compared to where we were a year ago. Penguin made many services obsolete. Some have exited the game. Others have emerged. As someone who has lived in this house for a while, I can tell you that SEO is much more challenging than it was at the beginning of 2012.

Thankfully, it's challenging in a good way. It allows those who know what they're doing to rise to the top. It's hard to know what to trust and who to believe when it comes to SEO because Google (and Bing) threw so many wrenches into the machines. See where you rank. Check your analytics to see if your getting more keywords and better rankings in those keywords. Technique is important and probably deserves an entire blog post, but keep one thing in mind: if someone tells you that SEO is dead, it's probably because they don't know what they're doing. SEO is alive and well and can still be the easiest way to dramatically improve your traffic, leads, and sales.

Modern Websites

This is not a technology issue. It's a mentality issue. Car dealer websites must be fluid and able to change with the trends of how consumers use them.

First of all, a website must highlight the inventory above all else. This has technically always been the case but recent studies show that people are deciding much more quickly whether or not they want to consider buying from a dealership. The primary deciding factor is the inventory. It's not just about what you have on your lot but also how easily it can be found.

You might have the perfect vehicle for someone but if they miss it on your website, they may never come to see you.

Second, your website must allow for easy content creation. Whether it's you building the content, your website vendor, or someone that you hire, adding original, high-quality content is going to be the differentiator for success in search, social, and content marketing. If you can't put up a solid page in a few minutes, ask yourself if the benefits of your vendor are worth the lack of flexibility that 2013 will demand.

CRM

In working with several CRM companies and talking to dozens of dealers, I'm convinced that the biggest challenge in the CRM industry is appropriate adoption by the dealership. To me (and keep in mind that this is not my expertise, so take this portion with a grain of salt), a CRM's primary responsibility is to elicit buy-in from the dealership's team. If they don't use it properly because it's confusing, clunky, or poorly trained upon, the greatest CRM technology in the world won't make it effective.

Changing CRMs is one of the most challenging transitions that a dealership can make, so make sure that you're not jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Still, it's also arguably the most important contributing factor when it comes to properly managing your leads, so it's something that must be explored this year.

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2013 may prove to be the most important year in recent memory for the automotive industry. We are modernizing. We are going from being behind the times to leading the charge compared to other industries as dealers become savvy to the benefits of the web.

Take charge. Ask the right questions. Differentiate yourself from your competitors by only accepting the absolute best from your team, from your vendors, and from yourself.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

There were several takeaways from Nielsen's recent mobile study surrounding restaurants, travel, and the automotive industry, but the one that surprised me the most was that 43% of automotive searches on mobile devices were done to do price comparisons. The rise of mobile in our daily lives means that many of the activities that once tethered us to our desks at home or at work can now be done on the go, so I knew instinctively that the number of people comparing prices while out on the lot was probably high. I simply had no idea it was THAT high.

What does this mean for dealers? With around 20% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, the need to simplify the experience and increase the engagement is higher than ever. They aren't just using their mobile devices to get directions and a phone number. They're doing live research. It could be while they're watching television and using their mobile device as the second screen of interaction. It could be while they're chit-chatting with their spouse about that weird noise they heard in their engine on the way to the restaurant. Then, of course, it could be while they're at a dealership looking at vehicles, in which case the need for a dealership's mobile presence to offer price and vehicle details on inventory is paramount.

Mobile sites are not just a "checkbox" to be covered anymore. The times are behind us when the questions surrounding mobile being asked to a website vendor was, "do you have mobile sites included?" Today's savvy dealer (and business in general) must explore more deeply in order to make certain that the mobile sites are perfect. They should be responsive, have simple methods of communication with the dealership on every page, and present details about the vehicles including big pictures (that don't slow down the site) and further information.

The second most important statistic from the study:

Overall the study found that half of the mobile automotive search audience were doing longer term research but roughly half (49 percent) were “looking to make a purchase within the day.” However 36 percent of this group converted “within the hour.”

If that's not a compelling piece of information to make you want to maximize your mobile site effectiveness, nothing will convince you.

Here's an infographic from the study. The full study is available by registering.

Every few months (it's actually been over a year since the last one) we like to review the various social media tools out there. The rate at which social media is growing makes it extremely challenging to manage for a business without the right tools. The rate at which social media tools are progressing makes knowing which tools work best an ongoing effort. The rate at which new social media tools keep popping up...

... you get the picture.

Inspired by the announcement that Viral Heat recently made, this weekend I will be reviewing as many social media tools as possible. Some will say that a weekend isn't long enough to do a complete analysis, but considering that I spend hours a day in multiple social media tools, I believe that I'll be able to make certain judgments even with only a few hours on each. IF it takes longer than I thought I'll continue the following weekend.

PLEASE leave a comment, Tweet me @0boy, or reply to my Facebook post about it. Here are the ones I know I'll be reviewing for sure:

• * Hootsuite
• * Post Acumen
• * Vertical Response
• * Buffer
• * Sendible
• * Viral Heat
• * Cyfe
• * Vocus
• * Commun.it
• * Agora Pulse
• * GaggleAMP
• * Sprout Social
• * Social Toaster
• * Scoop.it
• * Crowdbooster
• * Lithium

What else needs to be on the list?

The difference between cheating and playing smart is often a very thin line. In social media, the line gets a little thicker.

This is an exercise that I wish I had time to perform more often. There’s probably a proper name for it somewhere in the social media blogosphere, but I simply call it “Profile Peeking”. When you work in a niche the way that 90% of my time is spent in the automotive industry, you have to connect with the right people. Networking at events, referrals, LinkedIn – all of these are valid methods of expanding your network. However, they can be slow and I don’t like to wait, so I often peek in on my competitors social media profiles to find more people with whom to connect.

This is very effective on the three majors right now – Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ – but it can be applied to almost all other social networks. I’ve used it on Pinterest a few times. The bottom line is this – check other people in your industry. Look at who they are following. Find people that you should be following and that you hope will follow you back. Interact with them when possible (if their privacy settings are conducive to it). Then, check out who they are following.

It’s a path that can engulf you for a time, but it’s well worth it. In the game of network expansion, it’s often easier to find than it is to be found. Until you get to the point that you’re a known entity in your industry, being aggressive and reaching out to influencers is the fastest path to an improved network. With a bigger network comes more reach. With more reach comes more business. It’s pretty simple.

It isn't uncommon for a page to be created on Facebook, only to be abandoned. Many dealers started off with multiple pages and then consolidated to one. Others had an internet manager who has since left the dealership and they didn't even know there was an additional Facebook page out there.

Find them. Destroy them. They can do damage to your reputation.

As you can see in the image above, this is a dealership page created at the same time as the dealer's primary page. They made a page for sales and a page for service, but unfortunately the service page didn't get much attention. They had one post in 2012 and a couple of posts in 2011, and that's it...

...except for the negative comment at the top of the wall.

This isn't even the worse case scenario. It's easy for a page to be "hijacked" by spammers or competitors who post bad things. There was a relatively-infamous instance a couple of years ago where a dormant page was loaded up with porn.

Don't take the chance. Only bite off what you can chew at the dealership. There are definitely multi-page strategies that work, but they require a commitment. If you cannot make the commitment to manage and monitor more than one, don't build it. If there are dormant pages for your dealership out there, find a way to get control of them and either remove them completely, start managing them, or make them hidden from the public (just in case you want to revive them later).

Don't leave them hanging. You can end up with a bad representation of your dealership without ever knowing about it.

The art of saying as much (or as little) as possible on Twitter with the 140-character restraint is challenging to master. Some of us still prefer to use proper English and regular spelling of words (archaic, I know) when texting or posting to social media, so getting the full message across appropriately is difficult.

One technique that works well is to punctuate with a hashtag at the end of your Tweet. Think of it like the opening scene to every CSI:Miami episode. The main character, Horatio Caine, walks onto a crime scene and is giving a quick debrief. He then gets his trademark stoic, contemplative gaze set somewhere off camera, says something relevant to the current murderous situation, and brings it home by putting on his sunglasses and launching an awful pun about the situation.

"YEEAAAAHHHH!"

It even turned into a meme, of which this is a terrible but relevant example:

When you end a Tweet with a hashtag that is part of the conversation, it helps to put emphasis on what you're trying to say. All too often, hashtags are used exclusively as keywords or a method to group different pieces of content together. They are used to track the Tweets going on at an event or to attach it to a current piece of news. These uses are all fine, but the punctuating hashtag is drastically underused. Here's an example.

@elizabet_foster Brand have to be very careful with politics for sure. On my personal stuff, I'm often #TooPolitical

— JD Rucker (@0boy) November 9, 2012

When you can, use hashtags to help you make the point upon which the Tweet was focused. It's an easy way to say more without actually having to say more.

I've learned that coincidences don't really happen. There's always a reason. As I worked on my story today regarding content, I stopped to check Facebook and found exactly what I needed, courtesy of Jeff Glackin.

What you say in all of the media types - television, radio, print, social media, search marketing, billboards, etc. - has an opportunity to reach people. Often I'm asked questions about spends and ROI.

• * Will $10,000 spent on social media give the same or better yield than $10,000 spent on television?
• * Should I sink everything into online marketing or keep my offline marketing going strong?
• * Should I minimize my internet spend to just a website and classified ads and move the rest of my budget offline again?

The answer to all of these questions is the same. It depends on your message. That's it. The real question isn't whether or not a social media spend is better than a radio spend. The real question surrounds the way that you're putting your message out there. The words are often much more important than the medium.

This topic deserves much more research and examples than I can put together today, but it's important to get in the right frame of mind before exploring this topic more fully. To do this, I'll rely on a pretty good video on the topic. It's not a superb video but it evokes emotion and gets the basic point across.