Developing Internships: A Win-Win Playbook

Think "win-win" as the endowment of an abundance mentality. Why? Because your security comes from principles." — Stephen Covey

The continued conversations about whether or not to pay interns generally falls somewhere in between amusing and disturbing. In one case, a regional director of public relations and communications at a Fortune 1000 proclaimed they had no budget for interns.

It might make sense, given the company has suffered significant losses for three consecutive years. But then you have to wonder whether a student might do better somewhere else. As it is, accepting an unpaid internship is easily likened to giving (not receiving) corporate charity. And, if the thought process is that the company "needs" interns, one has to wonder how it can afford to put so much effort into looking for ways to work around government guidelines. Time is probably better spent elsewhere.

After all, first and foremost, paying interns is a matter of principles. And while I would be the last person to judge an independent contract between students and would-be employers, I can offer a few solutions that would add value to an internship program, thereby maximizing the value of the intern while maximizing the value of the intern experience.

Five Tips To Developing An Internship Program That Works

1. Develop a program plan. While it doesn't have to be written, planned internships define a series of step expectations during the course of a finite program. This reminds the mentor to assess and review the intern at one, two, and three months while providing the intern with tangible goals. Better performance equals a richer, more well-rounded experience.

As possible, these steps could focus on core skills (first month) such as research and writing/editing, enhanced skills (second month) such as creative projects and client products, and advanced skills (third month) such as heading up a project or participating in strategic planning. The intern only advances when they demonstrate some mastery over the previous step. The best interns also try to match their interests (public relations, creative, social media, etc.) with the firm.

2. Set assignments at their pace. Some firms assign interns client work that the mentor doesn't want to do, often without client knowledge, and others attempt to use them as personal assistants and coffee fetchers. Neither maximizes performance.

• Community service and self-promotion. Since both types of projects tend to take a back seat to client work, they are ideal communication projects for interns. Community service projects generally have a faster learning curve than some commercial accounts. And self-promotion projects have longer lead times while providing the intern an opportunity to learn more about the firm. At the same time, they offer no risk to clients. (The first assignment can even be writing an intern hire release.)

These base assignments can be augmented with editing the work of other communicators, which will prime the intern to work on select accounts in the second month. Research projects are also worthwhile because they introduce interns to industries served by the firm.

• Select client assignments. Within 30 days, even part-time interns begin to demonstrate an aptitude and interest for specific accounts. With full client disclosure (some clients are receptive to interns working on their accounts in tandem with their account executives), the intern can be assigned client work suited to their skill sets and interests.

While all students vary, they tend to perform best working on simpler accounts (consumer products, special events, etc.) than complex accounts (financial, medical, etc.). It makes the best sense to start with one account and gradually increase the mix to help them round out their portfolios.

• Challenging assignments. By the third month, interns that perform well can be given a more complex assignment that they spearhead from start to finish with oversight (like a press kit), work as part of a strategic communication team, or an assignment from a complex account. While oversight remains, the point is to give them a project that they feel belongs to them beyond any other tasks they've accepted along the way.

3. Provide self-starter training. Training interns isn't rocket science. Most well-established companies ranging from quick service restaurants to major utilities all follow the same approach. (Many firms make the mistake of jumping to the third step, which increases the training time and sometimes frustration.)

• Show them what to do. Either provide an example or let them stand over your shoulder, depending on the assignment.
• Supervise the assignment. Talk them through the process as they do it, standing over their shoulder as appropriate.
• Let them do it and review. Give them the assignment, allow them to complete it, and then review the work.
• Give them the responsibility. At some point, the review process can be reduced to a quick review of the work.

4. Expose them to meetings. Whether interns work on specific accounts or not, allowing them to join and sit in on client and vendor meetings provides benefits for everyone. Most of all, it provides the intern an opportunity to listen to how the mentor communicates with clients and vendors.

Beyond communication, interns are sometimes eager to offer academic solutions after the meetings. Sometimes they fit; sometimes they do not. Regardless, it opens a dialogue for mutual education, adding value on projects even if the intern never directly works on them. Clients, in particular, are generally receptive to having interns sit in, allowing them to contribute to the education of the intern. Some interns also demonstrate they are capable of working with vendors on behalf of the firm.

5. Help them set priorities and provide incentives. Some interns excel at setting priorities and others do not. In addition to communication-related assignments, ongoing work (such blog posts or weekly interdepartmental memos), clerical, or other task-oriented work is fine to assign, with the understanding most of it is meant to be completed in tandem with skill-building programs.

While incentives vary, internships that succeed have very definite end goals. It might be to have the intern work into a full-time position, extending their internship as an independent contractor, or an open letter of recommendation. Whatever it is, make it clear during the interview process. For future account executives, you might even offer a commission on new business.

Yeah, but what's in it for the mentor?

Some professionals keep asking "what about the value professionals deliver interns?" While there is no harm in asking, this is really unproductive thinking. The modern internship works best when it's a win-win experience.

Students are not interns just to "learn" as they did or do in school. If it is really their first job experience in the field, then they are there to contribute and their contributions have value. Some of that value is returned in the form of insight and experience. Some of it is returned in a nominal hourly amount. (Incidentally, paying interns empowers mentors to fire them too.)

The average hourly rate for public relations firms and advertising agencies ranges between $150 to $600 per hour. Excluding management, PayScale places the average hourly pay for in-house public relations professionals at $14 to $20 per hour (1-4 years) and $18 to $30 per hour (5-9 years). Ad agency professionals average $14 to $26 per hour, which is less dependent on years of experience and more dependent on performance.

Interestingly enough, many professional occupations pay interns and for residencies. But in creative and communication-related fields, more interns have not only asked to accept unpaid internships but some do so while paying for required academic credit.

Some Different Thoughts:

• Hey Intern, Get Me A Coffee And Stop Whingeing
• Will Prohibiting Unpaid Internships Kill the Fashion Industry?
• Unpaid Internships In The Crosshairs

Closing A Case Study: Tiger Remains Virtually Unchanged

Not everyone believed that Tiger Woods might escape relatively unscathed despite departing from the traditional tenets of crisis communication. But the outcome was already set. When one aspect of a brand is large enough, all other aspects can be spun away leaving the core unchanged.

At his core, Woods is a golfer. And as he walked from the 11th green to the 12th tee, men and women of all ages rose by the hundreds and greeted him with a warm, crackling roar in the backwoods. Never mind the back story.

All Woods had to do is prove he still had what it takes to put the ball in the cup at the 2010 Masters Tournament. And by all accounts, he did just that, finishing fourth along with K.J. Choi.

Suddenly, no one much cares whether the Rasmussen Reports found only 43 percent regarded the golfer's public apology as sincere. And hardly anyone will remember the creepily exploitive Nike advertisement that accompanied his return to the tee.



No matter what you thought of the affairs or how they came to light, Tiger Woods is still a professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time. And since his other exploits are unrelated to his golfing career, none of what he did has any affect on that fact beyond changing how he is presented as a brand.

The loving husband image is gone, but the guarded golfer lives on.

If public relations professionals underestimated anything about Woods, it was how much his brand was related to what he did on the golf course as opposed to off of it. Sure, some people felt he was big on selling himself as a family guy. But most Americans only know him as a golfer who putted against comedian Bob Hope on national television when he was 2 years old.

For those preplexed by it, the Fragile Brand Theory sheds some light on the subject. Some people like Tom Cruise crash for far fewer transgressions while others, like Woods, won't.

Public perception plays the role of setting expectation as, for whatever reason, the public saw Cruise as a package with his boyish charm turned “rugged good looks, flashy smile, and three Oscar nominations.” Actor had equal weight or even less weight than all the other messages that revolved around him. Woods, on the other hand, had two huge attributes: private and golfer. As long as those remain in tact, Woods will remain in the game.

Sure, some brands bolted, but only those that enjoyed those lesser messages. Nike, on the other hand, had no qualms about keeping him. Woods is an athlete. Nike is about athletes. The only prerequisite Nike has is that the athletes are good. Had Woods finished 30th or if his infidelity had something to do with steroids or sports wagering, then they would be less inclined to stick with the cooperative brand relationship. It's about that simple.

That still doesn't excuse the ad as a "Just Don't Do It" moment.

Sure, it's creative. There is no mistaking it as divergent thinking. It takes a wild twist of thinking to get a golfer to surrender audio tapes of his dead father to overlay on top of his near expressionless, somewhat brooding likeness. I don't have any reservation saying it would have never occurred to me.

All that aside, it's an ad that only advertising and public relations professionals would like. For most people, they just walked away from it confused or disgusted.

THAT is the measure of an effective advertisement. It's never about what the ad gurus and communicators think. It's always about what the public, specifically the intended audience, thinks. The question isn't whether it's creative. Creative is easy.

The questions are: Does it make you want to like Woods and Nike? Does it make you want to buy shoes? Did Nike learn anything? I suspect it learned that other than the parodies, the Nike ad helped make the entire sordid affair seem old.

And if that was the intent, they did a fine job. If the intent was to sell Nike products, it fails twice. It doesn't make anyone want to buy a product. And while it shows Nike will stick by Woods, it disrupts the Nike brand in that no one ever anticipated the company would would fund the production of a tasteless, despite being creative, commercial. Yawn.

See what I mean. It's a tired tale. Case study closed.

Guessing At Recovery: Expect A New Consumer

"The question is whether [March retail sales] are a trend or a blip, and my guess is that this is more of a blip." — Ken Goldstein, economist for Conference Board

He is not alone. That seems to be the assessment from many economists despite the sudden strength of consumer spending across several categories. In addition to an upturn in the auto industry, consumers are eating out more, buying more apparel, and are less likely to wait for coupons or price promotions to buy cosmetics and toiletries than they were a few months ago.

Understanding A New Economy And Slow Recovery

However, not all data is so rosy. Consumer confidence remains at levels typically seen in the depth of recessions, reports Advertising Age. Even in a recovery, sentiment will likely lag behind. Bruce Kasman, JPMorgan Chase, suggests it is indicative of a shift in the U.S. economy from a debt and consumption economy to a savings and export economy, not all that dissimilar from what The Futures Company suggested last year in its Darwinian Gale white paper.

So what's the hold up on recovery? The Associated Press Economy Survey, released today, tells the story. Most of it is related to what many consider the pillars of the financial security — jobs and the housing market.

• Unemployment will remain high over the next two years, perhaps 8.4 in 2011.
• Home prices will remain flat, with no gain this year and only a 2.3 gain the next.
• The economy will grow 3 percent this year, which means a very slow recovery.
• The Federal Reserve will begin raising short-term interest rates in the fourth quarter.

What this means for marketers is settling in on a new but smaller base of consumers, those people who are employed but operating with a much more conservative approach to spending. More than likely, the uptick in some sectors indicates that this group is tired of waiting, waiting, and waiting for the economy to improve on its own.

It also means marketers need to get back to the basic tenets of marketing and rethink strategies that used to work in an optimistic growth economy. Michael Shepherd, owner of The Shepherd Group, will be one of those who can help. Like our firm, Shepherd believes a marketing message must be tied to a business strategy to succeed.

The New Rules Of Marketing Are Old Again

In some ways, this better explains why consumers pushed back against brands as social media became mainstream. It wasn't because brands needed to give up control over their marketing messages to consumers as much as consumers finally having the opportunity to tell companies that their marketing messages were out of sync with their business strategy (and some companies didn't even have sound business strategies).

Specifically, when marketing messages are aligned, things tend to work. Apple provides a great example, selling 300,000 iPads on its first day. The iPad is not a must-own product, but it represents something Americans haven't seen enough of lately — innovation, even if that innovation is a first step toward fully functioning tablets that may one day replace laptops (trust me on this, it all depends on what such technology can dock to and not what many critics keep crying about).

Selling the iPad was only the tip of the iceberg for Apple. Three hundred thousand iPads means a surge in application purchases, no matter what anyone thinks about the product. But this isn't an iPad post. It's just an example of what sound marketing does despite the economy, shift toward a more cautious consumer, and how marketing tied to business strategy syncs with social media.

It also represents a better tact for marketers than the new mood of government, one that opens: "Over the past year, the Recovery Board has received its share of gratuitous criticism from some journalists and Internet grouches." It then goes on to explain that it didn't waste $18 million on a site redesign. The site only cost $6.8 million to date.

This isn't about politics. It's about contrast. Apple accepted the criticism and still stayed true to its marketing message. Government has been leaning heavily on push back public relations, feeling secure in winning a shrinking percentage.

Successful marketers in the near future are best served if they understand the difference. Marketers can no longer rely on mass media alone to reach the optimistic spenders made up of the sons and daughters of the generation that survived the great depression. The new consumer is looking for innovation, authenticity, and value. Count on it.

Collecting Tips: Fresh Content Project

Almost every day, someone seems to be posting tips designed to make your life easier as a marketer, advertiser, or social media pro. But the reality always is the same: not all tips are created equal. Some of them recap the same tips you can find anywhere and other tips are just downright wrong.

While we didn't mean to, all the fresh content project picks that took us from March into April tended to share tips one or several steps ahead of the same old posts. Even better, many of them bridge concepts that other people sometimes struggle with: should social media be outsourced, does communication count with a cause, or can SEO writers and copywriters ever play nicely together. Take a look. The answers might surprise you.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of March 29

• How to Maximize your Facebook Ads
Kelly Day shares several tips on how gender, age, interests, and education are only the tip of the opportunities that come with advertising on Facebook. While many people in the business already know some of these techniques, Day outlines several in a well thought out post that could help organizations break away from group blasting and work toward making their messages personal.

• Should You Outsource Social Media?
The topic has been talked about with no clear answer. So Valeria Maltoni reached out to 93 connections on Linkedin in search of an answer. I was on vacation and missed out on offering some input into such a worthwhile post. As expected, the answers are as diverse as always. However, you can see several strategic thinkers providing a clear direction: it depends. Why is that such a good answer? Because intent defines why mediums are used or not. Just remember to be authentic.

• Take Back Your Voices
There is some deeper meaning tucked inside Chris Brogan's post that recaps several clotheslines decorated with messages against domestic violence. While Brogan wonders about the effectiveness of awareness only (he doesn't know that was the case), the deeper meaning comes across in the creative communication from the students. It was impossible to miss. When important topics are missed, nobody ends up talking about them. And when nobody talks, nothing gets done.

• SEO Copywriting Checklist for Wordpress Blogs
Maria Reyes McDavis A.K.A. WebSuccessDiva offers up a real treat for advertising professionals by skewing her SEO post toward copywriters. While many copywriters tend to feel that SEO can often clutter the language, Reyes McDavis reminds them that good SEO is really about talking "their" language. She's right. Follow some of these steps to narrow what sometimes only seems like the great divide.

• How To Build Emotional Engagement in B2B Marketing.
Chris Koch pens a powerful message for B2B marketers: you can still be emotional and engaging in your communication. It only makes sense. After all, people who make purchasing decisions are still people. If you're still uncomfortable with the idea of blending emotional engagement into your B2B marketing efforts, test run some messages around his hot buttons: gratitude, loyalty, and respect.

Spreading Hope: Ten Cards4Cancer Stories

For the last several months, Spirit Jump and Bloggers Unite, and thousands of bloggers have been making handmade cards. The medium doesn't matter. Some use glue. Some use photographs. Some put pen or paint to paper. Some made purchases.

The cards are special. Their purpose is to bring hope and comfort to the many men, women and children battling cancer. The idea was to deliver as many as 100,000 uplifting cards to people in hospitals, hospices, and treatment centers.

For one of my friend's fathers, the cards will arrive one day too late. She e-mailed me this morning. Her dad passed away last night. She did not make it home in time. I'd share more if it were my story to tell, but it isn't. So here are ten others for hope.

Ten Stories From Those Who Spread Hope And Awareness.

1. Cards for Cancer... Wrapping Up... by Darcie from Minnesota. She has been working hard to create and collect cards for as long we can remember. On March 31, she had already surpassed her goal to create and collect more than 300. Make sure you follow the back links for more examples.

2. Card-Making Parties Are Great Not all of the stories can be found on independent blogs. Some of them have been collected by the sponsors on a dedicated Cards4Cancer blog. You can also visit the Cards4Cancer Facebook page, where more than 7,800 people have connected.

3. Easter, Cards 4 Cancer, And A Goodbye by Nancy in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. She shares her story that starts on Easter Sunday with potato salad. Make sure to check the sidebars. Nancy and her friends and family delivered 150 cards, some with tuck-ins.

4. Newest Batch of Cards 4 Cancer by Kim in Austin, Texas. She has been collecting cards long enough that an Etsy artist donated almost a dozen. She has several other posts that recognize contributors here, here, and here.

5. Only 10 days left until Cards4Cancer Day by Christine in Ottawa. In addition to her reminder after collecting 100 cards, Christine's entire blog is dedicated to creating more good news stories ... because there are not enough when you have advanced cancer.

6. Cards for Cancer by Tania. After sharing her plans with her S.M.A.C. students, they worked together to raise more than 500 cards for their local cancer center. She sumps up their contributions with recognizing their big hearts.

7. Paper Greeting Cards Designed for Patients And Survivors by Minny, an American romance novelist in the Netherlands. While found on Squidoo, the post still goes a long way in describing cards specifically for cancer fighters and survivors. But what makes this story really stand out are all the other ideas to support cancer patients.

8. New Cards for Cancer Update by Terica in North Carolina. Although Terica will deliver the cards on Monday, her post today goes a long way in sharing a striking collection of cards. Many of them include very creative use of pressed flowers.

9. A Huge Success by Mimi in Northport, Florida. To help, she hosted a card creation party at her studio from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in order to create more than 400 cards. She provided food and beverages all day long.

10. Cards4Cancer by Paula from Massachusetts. You might notice we included one of Paula's cards up top to accompany the post. Make sure you visit her blog to see several more made with a mixed medium approach. They are lovely additions.

A special thanks to all the team members at Spirit Jump and for Jason Teitelman at Bloggers Unite and BlogCatalog for spearheading this effort. It was an event well done.

Maybe one day I'll share a few of my own stories for those left behind. Just not today. Instead, I'll leave you with one parting photo from Geoff Livingston, who recently raised funds for cancer research with a new tattoo.

Finding Purpose: The Trouble With Labels

A Lynn University freshman, pursuing his bachelor's degree in psychology to help veterans transition to civilian life, is quickly becoming a role model in Florida. His purpose, to help reduce the suicide rate among returning servicemen and servicewomen, is only part of the reason.

Slotnick is 84.

I won't invest space on the back story. You can read about it here, here, and here. There is something else that can be learned by Slotnick all together.

Three Lessons To Learn From Slotnick.

1. Labels are meaningless. Slotnick could embrace any number of labels not to do it. He's retired. He worked for vacuum and lawn mowing businesses. He left college almost 60 years ago. He is a World War II purple heart veteran. And yet, none of these labels — whether spun up good or bad — hold Slotnick back while pursuing his degree. He's doing it, with a 3.4 grade point average that he hopes to raise to a 3.5.

2. People wear lenses. Part of it can be attributed to how our brains are wired. People put things in boxes, assign them labels, and see the world through any number of colored lenses. It helps us process information. And yet, most people are unaware that such cognitive conveniences are often wrong. It might convince them to devalue students. Guess at intentions. Or forget that potential equalizes everyone.

3. Purpose is important. We first learned about it detail late last year; 46.5 percent of of soldiers with PTS have suicidal thoughts and 33.5 percent have tried to commit suicide. Many accounts attribute it to the lack of debriefing that was once a necessity as transportation home took weeks and months. Much of it, it seems to me, has to do with lesson one and two. But perhaps even more so, it had to do with rediscovering purpose.

Andrew Weaver addresses how to escape it in his post 8 Ways to Escape the Cult of Mediocrity. Valeria Maltoni warns against it with her post Are You Getting Typecast? And, every now and again, students in my classes and interns at work hear about how the pursuit of potential can be a game changer not only in their lives, but in the lives of people around them.

It's all very simple, but incredibly difficult. Shred your labels. Recognize our lenses cast perception. Find purpose in what you do, even if what you do or enjoy doing doesn't seem as admirable as Slotnick's current endeavor. W. Somerset Maughan once suggested as much.

Paying Interns: Marc Hausman Says No Way

Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) uses social media to engage, educate, and entertain audiences for companies like BearingPoint, British Telecom, GovDelivery, Microsoft, Monster, and Sun Mircosystems. But it doesn't pay interns.

Marc Hausman, president and CEO of Strategic Communications Group, is very clear about it in several places. Interns don't add enough value. Interns are lucky to work there for free. And interns ought to be grateful to get portfolio building assignments.

Fair enough. It's his business and if he cannot afford to pay a nominal rate of $8 or $10 or $12 per hour, I can only hope his business picks up. Sure, he is right that the Labor Department need not intervene. But to propose that unpaid internships ought to be standard practice, Hausman is as wrong as his justifications, as are many who commented in support of it.

Why Copywrite, Ink. Has Always Paid Interns.

• Interns Add Value. Sure, not all interns are created equal. Some prove to be a poor match or, in one case I recall, a legal liability. However, students in general add value to professional firms because most come into an internship with high expectations, infectious enthusiasm, and devoid of bad habits learned at other firms. They can also reveal strengths and weaknesses within the organization, especially among future management.

• Interns Earn Opportunities. If the internship program is designed correctly, then they aren't so lucky. They have to earn it, sometimes from a field of other qualified candidates. In other cases, they have to give up paid jobs with no promise of future employment. Sure, the firm might hire them. However, the firm's ability to hire them is not based purely based on their ability. It's based on the firm's fiscal position, which they have no control over. The trust-based risk is mutual.

• Firms Get Paid For Intern Work. If there isn't an opportunity to build at least some samples, paid or unpaid, it's not worth the time for the intern. However, even with oversight, there might be a question of ethics to charge clients for unpaid intern work (especially government clients) for what amounts to a higher profit margin. Besides, in today's world, portfolio building has never been easier. Students can create videos, blogs, and Web sites that demonstrate specific talents.

• Firms Invest In Training Anyway. There are always costs associated with candidate selection and training. If the firm accepts that risk when hiring any candidate, then how could it justify treating a student any differently? At minimum, an unpaid internship is like a free test drive that the same firms would never offer a client for a period of three months with set hours.

Are there times when unpaid internships are acceptable? Sure. Unpaid interns in the nonprofit sector make sense because it is called volunteer work. I encourage students to learn through community service on their own or under advisement.

One of the most beneficial and rewarding non-internship programs I developed five years ago for students taking the Writing For Public Relations class at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was to volunteer time to develop a media kit for the nonprofit organization of their choice and I would volunteer my time to provide step-by-step oversight. It was a win-win-win, given my near addiction to serving the community.

Only two students ever accepted the challenge. Both landed positions at major firms. As for our paid internships, all of the students with any talent whatsoever landed positions specific to their career goals, including one with a major New York publisher and one a position with a major Los Angeles public relations firm (there are many more, but those came to mind). We design our program that way. Two interns, after they left our firm, returned years later, not as employees, but as clients.

Certainly, internships require an investment by all parties, but it's a mistake to think that only the intern stands to receive a return on investment or that compensation ends with the privilege of allowing someone to stand over your shoulder. The return is directly proportionate to what you make it.

Next week, I'll offer up some insight into developing a paid internship program that works. In the meantime, please consider some other thoughts (and apparently few thoughts) on the value of paid internships. As a footnote, I might mention that communication (advertising, public relations, communication, social media) has become the hotbed of unpaid interns.

• PR Interns Part III: You Get What You Pay For
• All Work And No Pay: One In Three Interns Unpaid & Exploited
• Was Your Internship Illegal?

Interviewing Techniques: Nodders, Translators, Talkers, Conversationalists

After ten years of teaching, you can't help but to notice a few things in the classroom. One of them, unless you're a lecturer as opposed to an adaptive instructor, is that every class is different. It only makes sense because the students are different.

This year, my class seemed especially quiet compared to the year prior. At first, I thought it might be because of the smaller class size, but I was convinced it was something else by the third lesson. Seriously. They were so quiet, I almost thought adding keynote presentations during a portion of the class was a mistake.

I might have even skipped keynotes all together had three guest speakers drawn the same quiet, nodding heads. There was that, and I read an article in Communication World by Steve Crescenzo, owner of Crescenzo Communications.

He said there were two types of communicators: nodders and translators. Translators, Crescenzo wrote, know that if they walk out of the interview without understanding the topic, there is no way they can write an article that anyone else will understand. Nodders, on the other hand, hold back on asking questions because they don't want to look stupid.

The article struck home at first. My class was stacked with nodders. But was it really that simple? Looking back on past interviews and classes, I knew it couldn't be that easy. Maybe there are four types.

Nodders, Talkers, Translators, Conversationalists.

• Nodders. While Crescenzo attributes the nodder to being afraid to look stupid or ask dumb questions, I don't believe all nodders are created equal. Sure, some try to fake their way through without looking ignorant, but some are like sponges, analysts who sit back and consider every word spoken with the intent to research anything they don't understand afterward. There is nothing wrong with that, but sometimes they leave the speaker or interviewee guessing. Do you get that?

• Talkers. This is one of two styles we might add onto Crescenzo's thinking. Talkers command the floor. They don't ask questions as much as they make statements. Inexplicably, they don't always allow the speaker or interviewee to complete a thought before they lead them with a question that opens up dialogue for their stories and statements. They already know the answers so questions aren't really part of the equation. They already know what you need to do.

• Translators. As Crescenzo notes, translators know they not only have to understand a topic, but convince the speaker or interviewee to communicate in ways that the average person might understand it. They have many tricks and tactics in order to accomplish this task. Sometimes, they will ask the same question several ways. Other times, they will ask for examples. And yet other times, they will direct the speaker or interviewee to assume the readers/listeners don't know anything.

• Conversationalists. As the second add on, these folks are fascinating people who frequently drift away from the topic or spend ample time asking questions about the speaker and interviewee. Sometimes they are even forced to scramble during the last ten minutes of a meeting to cover questions they know they need to ask and tend to be surprised when the interviewee announces they have to leave for the next meeting. While the dialogue is always engaging, the social chatter sometimes overshadows the topic.

Crescenzo suggests that the translator has the advantage. While I would normally tend to agree because this style seems to complement the other styles, it seems to me the best interviewers need a more adaptive approach.

Nodders tend to win over talkers and translators help conversationalists stay on track. Conversely, talkers can draw out nodders and conversationalists welcome varied duplicate questions posed by translators. The best interviewers quickly assess and adapt their style to what seems like the best match. Sometimes, saying nothing works. And other times, interviewers have to fill the silence or else the entire session will go bust.

More importantly, never assume any style conveys anything about the other person. The nodder might be afraid to look stupid. Or, they could be analyzing your every word because you haven't stopped talking. Case in point: the interview that unraveled Richard Nixon consisted of a single question. When no other questions were asked, the talker filled the silence.

Baffling Gawker: Classic Marketing Company

Gawker doesn't get it, and you might not either. Classic Marketing Company spent an estimated $107,075 to run a full-page "press release" in The New York Times.

It's not a great press release. It's only the typical boiler plate kind that says a whole lot of nothing, right down to the quote.

“SWS was selected because it has the marketing and sales expertise needed to position our brands for their continued growth," says Joe Ballin, president and CEO of Classic Marketing Company, before the release devolves into an inauthentic marketing pitch. "Fragoli is a unique, first of its kind beverage alcohol product that allows women to spoil themselves with something truly extravagant!"

There is so much wrong with the release that I'd need another post to correct it. Today, we'll just stick to the big picture.

How To Make Bad Marketing Worse With Logic.

Simple logic is the likely culprit in buying what Gawker calls the world's most expensive press release. And while we're very interested to learn if Joe Ballin, president and CEO of Classic Marketing Company, ever responds to their inquiry, it's easy enough to speculate.

At some point, press releases issued by Classic Marketing Company probably outperformed ads. So, for someone, it was easy to conclude that the release would be more effective than the ad in The New York Times. And there you have it.

Except...

Many marketing decisions fail because they are based on erroneous conclusions. And, while this is speculative, we've seen some marketers follow the same decision making path for decades. Here's our educated guess.

First, nobody asked whether the ad is effective. In this case, the answer is no. Sure, some beverage companies believe they can follow the fashion brand ad path with sexed up big product shots, but liqueurs need some help. People need to know what to do with them. This is why the Mud Slide is as well known as Kahlua coffee liqueur.

Second, the company completely misses its target audience. It places ads in wrong publications. And, the image of a woman biting the neck of the bottle would probably appeal more to men than women. Unfortunately, this product probably appeals to only a very small segment of men. It's also a stretch to think men would buy a liqueur to spoil their women.

Third, the press success was likely based on random pick ups and search engine ranking. Some pubs ran the full release for filler, and several probably picked up the only graph or two that constituted news. In the spirits distribution business, Southern Wine & Spirits has a strong brand. Classic Marketing Company, not so much. The pick up would be news to someone.

At the end of the day, the poorly thought out advertisement was outpaced by the poorly written release based on measuring reach over outcomes. And thus, someone allowed the release to take center stage in The New York Times. And, what do you know, it is getting exposure (for all the wrong reasons).

There is only one saving grace for the marketing ploy that misses on every level. It allows Southern Wine & Spirits to tell bar owners that Classic Marketing Company has invested in a campaign that includes The New York Times. So, they ought to buy a bottle or two for some rainy day when a patron might ask for it by name. After all, nobody likes a bar that can't deliver a drink.

Shifting To Digital: Media Moves

According to a study conducted by PR Newswire, journalists are facing heavier workloads. However, if there is any good news for print, it's that the heavy workload provides increased job security as the fear of further job erosion has become moderate.

Last week, as part of my final class for Writing For Public Relations, I hosted Bruce Spotleson, group publisher for Greenspun Media Group, which publishes some 30 different online and print publications. Many of them are niche media publications, delivered free to targeted demographics within specific communities.

"Most of the dailies had made cuts in critical positions such as investigative reporters and political reporters," explained Spotleson. "They tend to be the most expensive positions for newspapers, but they are also among the most important."

While Spotleson has hope for the future and believes that publishers will survive (based in part on slight upticks across several economic indicators), he seems less certain about where the evolution will lead. As hard news reporting gives way to short breaking news, novelty, validation media, and highly trafficked informational light content similar to broadcast news, it is anybody's guess where the objective journalism will end up.

"Heavier workloads, shorter deadlines, and increased competition are causing journalists to seek out new sources of information to help them get their jobs done, including social networks," said Erica Iacono, executive editor of PRWeek. "Although these new tools offer a different way for journalists to interact with PR professionals and media consumers, there must still be a focus on the basic tenets of good journalism."

Unfortunately, good journalism doesn't always translate into readership, a requirement which has been thrust upon some journalists as publishers count page views. Counting hits tends to undermine quality news in favor of trolling for traffic.

Expect more of it. One of the biggest changes in the last year, just as "2010 PRWeek/PR Newswire Media Survey" reveals, is the merging of traditional journalism with online communications. Spotleson said Greespun Media and the Las Vegas Sun had done much the same last year. Reporters and online journalists are attempting to balance two mediums despite very different criteria and formats. Instead of long format in-depth analysis, journalists have to be just as comfortable with three-graph news blurbs.

Likewise, while Spotleson didn't provide details, he made it clear that news publishers are looking to the iPad as the future of print. He's not alone. The survey reinforces this fact, with a continued shift from print to online reporting. Fifty-seven percent of magazine and newspaper journalists indicated that this trend will continue in earnest. The survey also revealed that as many as 91 percent of bloggers and 68 percent of online reporters "always" or "sometimes" use blogs for research, only 35 percent of newspaper and 38 percent of print magazine journalists said they do.

The transition will likely cause some other changes not considered by PR Newswire. Specifically, wire services with the exception of ginning up SEO, will likely become less relevant than search and social networks. And publishers will have to balance being popular and providing quality news in order to remain competitive. Another possibility, according to Spotleson, is that some print could become its own niche. People tend to browse printed magazines when they are delivered to their door or mailbox for free, he said.

Recapping Content: Fresh Content

Sometimes something happens as a byproduct of social media. Someone stumbles upon something that works in terms of driving traffic and then they stick with it, pumping up more traffic generating posts that lack value to gain traction over real thinking.

Although the Fresh Content Project is an experiment that removes popularity from the equation to find which communicators are providing the best content, it also offers a glimpse at some of the best posts being shared by people who believe in the content they write. This lineup is no exception. See for yourself.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of March 22

• Productive Crowdsourcing Requires Community Management.
Geoff Livingston pinpoints some of the challenges with crowdsourcing despite its growing popularity on the social web. Crowds aren't always trustworthy and sometimes they aren't even your customers. He concludes that crowdsourcing requires strong community management for companies to realize positive results. He's right. Community guidance is mission critical.

• Six Questions To Ask Before Launching A Facebook Fan Page.
Shel Holtz brings some much needed strategic thinking to the process of creating Facebook fan pages. Before dashing off to start one without a plan, he rightly suggests considering who the audience might be, who the fan page might attract, who will manage the medium, who will provide content, and what is the contingency plan. There are more questions to ask, but these six serve up an excellent starter set.

• Japanese Bureaucrats Crush Digital Economy Innovators.
David Meerman Scott delivers a powerful piece on how government and industry are actively blocking innovators in Japan from creating similar success in the fast-growing, new digital economy. It's an excellent story that might even mirror what is happening in the United States as government tends to serve slow-moving entrenched giants as opposed to small business upstarts even though small businesses employ as much as 80 percent of the workforce in the private sector (depending on the state). It's a must read for many reasons.

• How Marketers Can Prepare For The Next Wave of Mobile Adoption.
Most people know by now (and if they didn't, the iPad lines might have woken them up) the future is mobile. So we were thrilled to see that Jennifer Riggle created a composite of several key points that influence the future of communication. One of the most compelling will be the creation of mobile commerce. Clearly, the easier it is for consumers to buy products, the better.

• The Cult of Mediocrity.
Andrew Weaver provides a wake-up call for small businesses and anyone in business. He ticks off a list of 13 elements that are indicative of mediocrity in the workplace. The result is always the same or, as Weaver puts it, a practice in depressing excellence. When you think about it, the same can be said about the Web. In an effort to produce traffic, communicators sometimes depress excellent content in favor of traffic attractors. Except, of course, any posts that find their way here.

Ranking Content Providers: Fresh Content Project, First Quarter

Last year, we launched an online experiment called the Fresh Content Project, which tracked approximately 100 blogs (currently at about 230) to determine how much popularity played a role in what communicators read online. We speculated it played a significant role, and sometimes at a detriment.

So, to put popularity to the test, we removed it from the equation and tracked approximately 100 blogs (currently at about 250) frequently referenced by a capped Twitter list of 300 communication-related professionals (currently at 248).

From those blogs, we narrowed the "Fresh Content" to choosing a single standout post every weekday (with weekend posts spilling into Monday). There is no algorithm. We picked one post per day. You can find out why we picked them here.

So what happened? Thirty-six communication-related professionals were picked at least once, with a handful picked more than once. Popularity, not surprisingly, is no measure for quality content. In fact, we even had to remove three popular blogs; two for plagiarizing the content of lesser known bloggers and one for providing consistently bad advice.

We're NOT including the names of those blogs or the balance of the blogs included in this experiment because it is designed to lift people up and not tear them down. So please don't ask if "so and so" was included in the experiment. They probably were. Besides, there are some people who are already on next quarter's list like Chris Koch, who was picked just yesterday.

Speaking of which, I might mention that we also made note of posts that, on any other day, might have been the pick. Mostly, we added that measure so we would not have to list ties in alphabetical order. Suffice to say that there are some worthwhile authors who haven't been picked yet.

So, here are 36 communication-related professionals who provided Fresh Content Picks in the first quarter of 2010. While some are suited for specific tastes, there is no mistaking that the top of this list (with more than one pick) ought to be in your reader.

The folks below represent some of the freshest, most original content related to communication today. And, we look forward to reading more of their fresh content in the second quarter along with some new faces. The comments are yours.

36 Fresh Content Communicators By Quality Of Content

1. Valeria Maltoni is a passionate brand strategist and author of the Conversation Agent. Her work frequently appears in other places and spaces, but you'll find a consistent stream of strategic communication content on her blog. Hands down, she is the hardest working communicator online with more fresh content picks than anyone. She pens posts you won't want to miss almost daily.

2. Geoff Livingston may have undergone some positive transitions this past year, but he still measures up as someone who not only practices what he preaches but does so with unabashed authenticity. Whether you follow his occasional work on The Buzz Bin or his personal blog, you'll find most posts play along. But then, without any warning, he takes a stand that strikes at the heart of an issue with such clarity, it reminds you that he doesn't embrace the Echo Chamber.

3. Ike Pigott is a smart guy who pens smart content that is generally too far off the beaten path on Occam's RazR for him to become popular. What you'll find, however, are ample amounts of truth that are only occasionally distracted by personal interests. The benefit is that, free from the trappings of being popular, he can call it like he sees it. He's also one of the better writers online. You'll love the prose.

4. Maria Reyes McDavis A.K.A. WebSuccessDiva, is "almost" a surprise find. Her online presence might have been well-known among people looking for SEO, but that isn't what makes Web Success Diva stand out. It's her smart and business savvy approach to strategies and tactics, the kind of skill sets that not enough communicators are working to develop. Reading her blog has become a real benefit since starting this experiment.

5. Lee Odden doesn't need much of an introduction to anyone who follows anything about SEO. He has been penning great content as CEO of Top Rank Online Marketing for what feels like forever. He's a veteran online marketer, but his expert understanding of SEO is what most people remember. There is a reason for that. He wasn't given any gift of popularity. He earns it.

6. Bill Sledzik, public relations professor at Kent State, doesn't provide the volume of content needed to keep up with the more popular people with opinions on public relations and sometimes social media. But what he does do at ToughSledding is provide value. What you'll find are posts that frequently bridge proven practices with tactics that some experts mistake as new ideas.

7. Mitch Joel is an author and digital marketer bent on good design. As he is a new media enthusiast, you're likely to find some posts on Six Degrees of Separation attempting to peer three steps into the possible future. While he sometimes misses, you'll find he hits more than his fair share by practicing a mantra that can best be described as rethinking everything.

8. Jay Ehret A.K.A. "The Marketing Guy" is chief officer of "awesomeness" at The Marketing Spot. Specializing in small business marketing consultation, Ehret has been around for some time. What you'll find is a retooling of social media to meet the needs of small business marketing as learned by big businesses once upon a time. Not everyone will appreciate his roll-up-the-sleeves approach, but you'll find more than a few gems on his blog.

9. Bob Conrad is one of the better but somehow underrated thinkers in the field. You'll find his work on The Good, The Bad, The Spin tends to challenge the status quo with new ideas, but not at the expense of traditional thought that continues to prove itself true. If he wrote more posts, he'd likely be higher on any list.

10. Callan Green is a junior account executive on the BG Creative team who lends her voice to the company's Don't Drink The Kool-Aid Blog. She's also one to watch. Green is already starting to stand out because she has the right background and obviously has the right guidance as a junior account executive. It's easy to say so because when she recaps lessons learned or shares observations, they are always spot on without too much slippage we see from longstanding social media experts.

11. Joel Postman is an internal communications executive for Learning@Cisco. His blog, Socialized, is rough to read in the format in which it is presented. But if you can get past the gray on gray tight columns (or subscribe in a reader), the content speaks for itself. Of late, Postman is making a great case as a well-meant contrarian who turns some readily accepted social media ideas on their heads. You have to love that.

12. Beth Harte wears many hats, which has contributed to a much slower posting pace at The Harte of Marketing. That isn't a bad thing. Since she scaled back on her postings, each post has become more important and much more grounded with her roots as a marketing professional. Apparently, the initial Kool-Aid buzz has worn off and she has become a welcome advocate for integrated communication.

13. Andrew Weaver writes about life, business, and everything in between on Leave It To Weaver. Sometimes it touches on communication and marketing issues, but not enough to operate inside the communication bubble. As a result, it's under-read despite the relevance. One of the most striking series shared by Weaver is The Cult of Mediocrity. It's a good series to follow, especially for any popular bloggers who didn't make the list.

14. Lauren Fernandez is an account executive at Moroch | PR who pulls double duty as a resident specialist in social media. Her work can be found at LAF and the best of it breaks away from what people want to read and centers on real industry need. Specifically, she sees that some social media experts are leading their lemming followers off the edge of a cliff and wants to do something about it. I give her credit. I'm inclined to let them fall.

15. Carl Haggerty is an enterprise architect at the Devon County Council who sometimes shares some heavy-handed and important topics at Carl's Notepad. Frequently, the posts revolve around U.K. government without the polarization of politics experienced in America. But more than government, his content tends to be refreshing because it covers how organizations interact with people. Something many Web developers might consider.

16. Adam Singer is responsible for The Future Buzz, which is a blog about Web marketing combined with public relations strategies. While he frequently makes the case for popularity measures (and why marketers need it), Singer demonstrates enough "why" to remind people he is not advocating popularity over expertise. What you'll also find is a lot of bullet-laced posts that make for easy reading, even if that reading isn't always memorable.

17. Dan Zarrella is a social, search, and self-dubbed viral marketing scientist who has built a solid following on The Social Media Marketing Handbook. While his writing is filled with social media buzz terms, including several he coined himself, you'll still find fresh content with an emphasis on sociology, even if he doesn't always link the two fields. More importantly, Zarrella is persistent in wanting to move social media away from soft-focus fantasies that popular marketing bloggers tend to preach.

18. John Jantsch is another one of those folks who most people know. Duct Tape Marketing rightfully pinned him down as one of the world's most practical marketers. Practicality is important if you hope to make a case for communication to the executives you hope will pay for it. At the same time, Jantsch teaches public relations firms and communicators something most forget. At the end of the day, communication companies are businesses too. Act like it.

19. John Bell, who heads up the global 360-degree influence team for Ogilvy Public Relations, demonstrates that not only can large agencies learn new media, but they can quickly become experts by applying proven strategies to new platforms. Digital Influence Mapping Project provides the focus for his work and the work being done at Ogilvy in this space.

20. Sree Sreenivasan, professor and dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School, contributes to places like DNA info and Mashable. While being a contributor makes his work harder to track, it's very clear Sreenivasan has tasked himself with helping journalists evolve at a pace that will help preserve the best of the profession.

21. Kelly Day is an associate creative director at BG Creative, the second team member to be included from its Don't Drink The Kool-Aid Blog. Although her simply stated insights into Facebook tend to be more popular than her tips for better creative, we're likely to attribute that to social media readership more than merit. The content contributions are equally solid and more designers will likely find her over time. (Sure wish she would update her blog-to-Twitter link soon).

22. Gini Dietrich is the CEO of Arment Dietrich. You'll find most of her work on F.A.D.S.. What you'll find is a blend of fresh, friendly commentary and marketing from a business perspective. While it didn't make a pick, read Predictable Success: The Lifecycle of Successful Businesses for a sense of her style.

23. Larry Kim, a search marketing enthusiast and founder of WordStream. You're more likely to find his written work elsewhere, places like the Search Engine Journal, but he always brings a unique perspective as a software engineering and search specialist.

24. Louis Gray is the managing director of new media for Paladin Advisors Group, which provides marketing, public relations, sales processes, and new media services to its clients. He shares observations about technology and innovation from Silicon Valley. What you'll find is exactly that, presented as a conversational diary recapping the news. The only difference is that this diary and scrapbook of sorts is open to the public and includes some interesting insights.

25. Aaron Brazell is author of the WordPress Bible and comes from an I.T. background, and was one of he first tech bloggers to capture a communication audience too. It's hard to pin down precisely why Technosailor lost some of its lift. Mostly, Brazell still provides a good read in between conference buzz and some gut guesses that fall short of the mark.

26. Jeff Bullas is a Web marketing practitioner with plenty of useful information that is usually presented as some sort of list at Jeffbullas's Blog. Almost all of it starts with a number of something, which is often the kind of stuff we avoid. However, what works is that some of these lists are backed by real data and time consuming research. It's not puff, and almost always includes new ideas for using various free tools to do it.

27. Barbara Nixon, Ph.D., teaches at Georgia Southern University online and Southeastern University offline. Her blog, Public Relations Matters, frequently covers public relations basics and entry level ideas on social media. What works is that she often covers what many social media experts don't know enough about to write about.

28. Shel Holtz has always positioned himself on the front end of technology and communication. It has served him well over the years, and will for many more years to come. A Shel of My Former Self is often a testament to that. What you'll find, in between the podcast marketing posts, are social media adoption tests for the sake of adoption and strategic communication applied to social media. Other times, however, you'll find Holtz to be surprisingly stubborn in framing up the world as it "should be."

29. David Meerman Scott saves much of his best work for places other than Web Ink Now, which tends to feature a much lighter sampling of topics than you might find on places like The Huffington Post, where he reminds us he still has the skills of a journalist.

30. Amber Naslund has become best known as director of community for Radian6, but her start with Altitude was a real pleasure to watch. What you'll find is that her content is engaging because it is infused with her infectious personality. Even when she retreads topics, it feels fresh and clearly articulated, especially as someone who learned most of her social media and marketing skills on the fly.

31. MarketingProfs, headed by Ann Handley, provides surprisingly solid content despite the irritating sign-in page. Sure, not all of the content is as fresh as you might find direct from contributors and not all authors are clearly identified. However, MarketingProfs keeps a pulse on public relations and marketing, with the occasional surprise breakthrough the noise moment thanks to objective research.

32. Jennifer Riggle is a public relations professional with CRT/tanaka, which is the firm that inherited The Buzz Bin from Geoff Livingston. She is intensely focused on mobile adoption and medical as it applies to social media. Sure, she writes other stuff, but her interests in these areas shine through with some solid thought, possibly ensuring that The Buzz Bin will eventually retain relevance beyond the originator. Good to see.

33. Chris Brogan is president of New Media Labs and many people in communication fields read his blog. Interestingly enough, though, only one post (though others were close) on the last day of the quarter cut through the clutter. That's not to say the Brogan blog isn't relevant. However, if you have ever heard him speak, you already know that the blog, nowadays, has become Brogan light.

34. Jonathan Fields, at a glance, comes across as one of the growing number of pop marketers that tend to capture some popularity because they are fun. But then the more you read Awake At The Wheel, you begin to realize that pop marketing packaging fuels some bigger ideas if you take the time to look for them, including his tribute to ten dead dudes.

35. Brian Solis truly owns the buzz term PR 2.0. What you'll find in between the self-promotion and his head-in-the-clouds preachiness approach to social media is one of the best comprehensive recappers of other people's research. He takes huge amounts of data and summarizes it without slashing it to sound bites like most people, making those posts well worth wading through the rest of it.

36. Jeremy Meyers is the only social media purist to make this list, but he does so deservedly. He didn't make it for his own content, but rather his uncanny ability to find some of the most important and overlooked content via his feed on posterous. It sets him apart because while many people guess at the future of the net, Meyers tends to find what is already happening.

Targeting Mascots: Corporate Accountability International

In one of the more absurd public relations campaign linkages to date, Corporate Accountability International is making the case that the best way to prevent childhood obesity is to retire Ronald McDonald. According to the release, the percentage of obese children has tripled in children ages 2-5, and quadrupled in children ages 6-11.

"This clown is no friend to our children or their health," said national spokesperson Stacey Folsomof, Corporate Accountability International. "No icon has ever been more effective in hooking kids on a harmful product. Kids have become more obese and less healthy on his watch. He's a deep-fried Joe Camel for the 21st century. He deserves a break, and so do our kids."

According to the release, parents have a growing recognition that the fast food industry is the primary driver, with close to 60 percent of Americans feeling that the industry is responsible for the growing epidemic. The report, Clowning With Kids' Health, analyzes how Ronald McDonald and other children's marketing are at the heart of current trends.

Highlights From The Clowning Study.

• Two out of three Americans have a favorable impression of Ronald McDonald, which is the result of positive branding for 50 years.
• More than half "favor stopping corporations from using cartoons and other children's characters to sell harmful products to children."
• 47 percent support retiring Ronald as a corporate mascot, with 46 percent of those with a favorable impression of him also wanting to retire him.

How My Son Debunked The Study.

Since nobody in our office could find any evidence of children, ages 2-5, riding up to McDonald's drive-thru windows on tricycles to support their habit of Happy Meals and shakes, I asked them how do these kids get the merch? Blank stares. So I asked my son, age 11. He's on spring break.

"The few times we ever go near McDonald's, Mom drives us," he said, then amused. "But the image of Ronald McDonald doesn't make me want hamburgers. I would blame the Hamburglar."

Interesting. Based on his input, we might conclude that parents who drive their kids to McDonald's excessively might actually be responsible for childhood obesity. Or, if you prefer the wit and wisdom of an 11-year-old boy exposed to countless commercials, it might be the dude in the striped pajamas.

More likely, the real curators of childhood obesity beyond parents are school cafeteria lunches. You see, with the exception of schools smart enough to adopt the National Farm to School Network, students seem to be served a nutritional menu that could be below even McDonald's standards. Still, I wasn't sure. So I asked one of our clients, Allen Wong, who manages Kung Fu Plaza in Las Vegas, since Thai food is generally considered the healthiest in the world.

He cited a February 2008 article in Edutopia that compared school lunches in the United States, Russia, and Japan. Americans are eating turkey dogs and tater tots. Russians are eating beef, beet soup, and rye bread. And Japanese students are eating wonton miso soup, spinach and Chinese cabbage, rice, and milk.

Interesting. Based on his input we might draw some other conclusions. First, if Corporate Accountability International really intended to do something about childhood obesity, it might start with school lunches or the candy and snacks some school districts use as rewards. Second, the study proves there is a healthy trend in this county to blame everybody for the purchasing decisions of parents, except the parents.

Of course, if you don't see any of these points as glimmers of truth, then all I can suggest is you better be careful this weekend. I heard that the Easter Bunny is in town and he's ready to force feed children baskets full of candy. Except at our house. He tends to leave coins tucked inside those plastic eggs.

Preparing For Stardom: How To Slam Dunk Social Media

If you clicked on the title to learn more, I already know what you're thinking. You want to be a social media super star, but you're afraid it's too late.

Everybody who was nobody has already become somebody. All the top spots are taken and the good ideas are gone. And all the lucky breaks have been filled by people who have never known anything about marketing before social media came around.

But what if I told you it's not too late?

What if I told you that your lucky break is right around the corner? That you can still rise to the top of social media sophistry and Internet rhetoric. And that you, more than anybody else, could be the nobody you always dreamed about becoming.

Don't laugh. This is powerful stuff.

By following my slam dunk social media program developed by observing the tactics and behaviors of a few super successful social media giants over two decades, you too can become a super social media rock star success story. You won't have to work hard to achieve your goal. All you have to do is follow six simple steps.

Sure, it sounds unbelievable. But it's also very, very true.

To prove it, I'm going to give you the first five steps free, with no strings attached. That's right. Absolutely free. Are you ready? I hope so. In fact, if you're not already sitting down, you might want to right now.

Six Steps To Slam Dunk Social Media.

1. Proclaim blogs dead and start on social networks. It worked three years ago and it works today too. All the real action is happening on Twitter and Facebook.

Start with Twitter because it's especially easy. With a commitment of only 140 characters or less, you can tweet about virtually nothing. And the more nothing you tweet about the better. What is important is the number of tweets. You need at least 2,500 tweets to be taken seriously about the nothing you write about.

Don't have any ideas? No problem. Retweeting what other people tweet about counts. It's called generosity. Better yet, the more you retweet other people, the more people will retweet you, even if all you do is retweet other people. As your reciprocal retweets grow, so does your following.

2. Build that following. No experience needed. This is when the heavy lifting kicks into overdrive. Search for people who autofollow and set your account to autofollow. You don't even have to have anything in common. Sheer mass is a measure that people pay attention to. More followers equals more followers.

This tactic will get you the followers you want, whether you deserve them or not. Companies are especially good about this. Their social media experts have to demonstrate more followers each and every week. So, they are willing to follow just about anyone who follows them. But you can look for lists too.

You don't have to like the company. You don't have to buy from them. You don't even have to read their tweets as long as you have Tweetdeck to filter them out of the very few people you will actually talk to.

Once you reach a good number of followers, target people within a range of 500 followers less than you or more than you. Why? Those 500 under you will be grateful you noticed. And those with 500 or more than you are looking for followers too. (Bonus: this works for bloggers too.)

But that's not all there is to it. When you reach about 5,000 followers, turn on Auto DMs to direct them to your Facebook page where they can find the same content you post on Twitter. It's the easiest most effective way to inflate your following there too.

3. Start a blog and write about other people. It doesn't matter if you proclaimed blogs dead on social networks a few months ago. Nobody reads old tweets anyway. You simply need to say that your followers compelled you to start a blog. And what kind of creep would you be if you didn't listen?

I know. Starting a blog seems like such hard work, but it doesn't have to be. Just rehash old topics covered by other bloggers with a new twist. Most of them won't even notice. And those who do will probably write about you writing about them. Memes work too.

Sure, your teachers used to call this collusion or even plagiarism. But online, things are different. Social media experts call it reciprocity. Or in other words, the less original content at this stage the better for you to become a guru. Make it about them and they will lift you to the stars.

Feeling lightheaded yet? There's more. When you have enough traffic on your blog, start writing posts about how you were one of the very first bloggers. It doesn't matter when you actually started. Just pick a date when you can say you started something like a blog. Maybe it was a junior high school diary. Or, it could have been letters to your grandma. Or, if provided your parents did it more than once, there is nothing wrong with calling your ultrasounds your introduction to life streaming.

4. Lift the ladder and start to cash in. When you have about 10,000 to 40,000 followers, it's time to lift the ladder. You don't have to make your blog about them anymore. And you don't have to read their blogs. It's all about you or who you want to be.

You can even write a sappy blog post about how everyone still matters to you, but you just can't keep up any longer. This is also the right time to turn off your autofollow, chastise people who use autofollow, and dump at least 75 percent of your following. Just don't forget to tell them how very, very sorry you are to have no choice but to unfollow them.

The good news is that your influence will suddenly shoot through the roof! And that is much more important than a few broken hearts. Besides, if they want you to pay attention to them, they now need to earn it. Tell them to join your new Facebook fan page, blog group, or super secret newsletter about nothing.

The cool thing about the newsletters is that you can sell their names to junk mail houses and telemarketers. It is the first stage of cashing in on social media. Woo hoo! Sound too good to true? We haven't even scratched the surface yet. By now, you will be in the prime position to receive blogola (freebies for favorable reviews), paid posts (but never on your primary blog), and maybe even sponsorship ads anywhere and everywhere possible. Foreheads are especially lucrative. Just ask Seth Godin.

5. Surprise everyone with a pay wall. When you finally start to hit the big time and you are the nobody you always dreamed to be, it's time to give up on free content about nothing. People need to pay for the nothing you offer. Not only is it good money, but making people pay for it reminds them that you, and not they, are the expert.

If you do this really well, you can even convince people to volunteer their time to help you create content that they will then pay to read. How cool is that? Just remember to include a disclaimer that any idea, comment, or conversation they post on any of your social media assets is owned by you, forever and ever.

Even better, you can also start charging companies hundreds and thousands of dollars in consultation fees even if you have never had a client before. You don't have to show a portfolio, case study, or degree in anything. Your super fantastic online presence is proof enough. And if they don't like it, tell your followers to write bad things about them.

6. The super secret sixth slam dunk step.

There is only one more thing to do in order to achieve a level of success that rivals Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, and John Chow. Do you want to know what it is? Do you really?

I would be happy to tell you for the very modest price of $499.95. That's under $500.

Now, I know it seems like an awful lot of money. And normally, I would just give it away for free. However, I am afraid if I just gave away this secret without charging a nominal amount, you just wouldn't value it. Studies show that people value things that they have to pay for much more than anything they received for free. I am sure you understand.

If you would like to order the sixth step today, send me an e-mail in the next 14 days because this super secret step will only be offered for a limited time before I close the book on it forever. So don't delay. Just make sure you read the last line before sending in your payment that will guarantee you will become nobody twice as fast as you ever thought possible.

Happy April Fool's Day. All my best. And thanks to all those mentioned for being good sports.