Can you stand out in social marketing? There are millions of “experts” right now who want you to think you can.

But can you?

We’ve already talked about how social isn’t cheap or easy, no matter how much the self-proclaimed experts say it is. We’ve made the case that great social is about great creative, not a fundamental shift in how people consume marketing. And we rail against consultants who proclaim how every business must get a social presence going right now, even if they have no idea what it’s all about, or how they’ll make their social presence relevant.

Now, it’s time for a reality check. And the reality is:

1. The 500 million people on Facebook aren’t there to hear from you, a corporation. They are there for their friends.

2. The hundreds of millions on Twitter aren’t there to follow your manufacturing company, they’re there to see what their favorite celebs are doing.

And they already have plenty to keep them occupied. With 120 average friends per Facebook user, their feed is a constantly-changing stream of pictures, location notifications, video uploads, link reposts, commentary and blogs, invitations to events, status reports from games, and a hundred other things friends share with friends.

So, you really think your announcement about your new water softening technology can compete with that?

“Well, yeah, make fun of my business all you want, but hey, there’s WillItBlend! They’re doing well, and they’re business-to-business just like me.”

Yep. And they started before Facebook was open to the public.

Stop. Read that again. WillItBlend started before Facebook opened to the public. When WillItBlend blended its first golf club, or whatever it was, Facebook was only open to college students. MySpace was the big social space of the day. And it wasn’t about your feed. It was about showing off.

The bottom line: WillItBlend wasn’t competing for attention with 150MM YouTube users, 500MM Facebook users, 250MM Twitter users, all yelling at the top of their lungs trying to promote their products.

If they started today, would they stand above the din? Maybe. They have a cool demonstration and people like to see stuff destroyed. But also, maybe not. Maybe they’d never rise above the social overload.

And—you have to ask yourself—would you?

Be honest.

No, really honest.

And when you can look yourself in the mirror, smile confidently, and say, “Yes, absolutely, my product and my content will stand comfortably above the din,” then, and only then, start on social.

The numbers are big. 500 million people on Facebook alone. And they’re so tantalizingly interconnected. It’s tempting to reach out to them with a Fan page (er, I mean a Like page, I guess, these days.) It’s tempting to talk to all those people directly, on the social network they use every day.

Until you do it, and you discover: 8 Likes isn’t enough.

So you look at the social advertising options. And there are some good ones. And Facebook lets you target people who have very specific “likes,” and offers a decent ad-building engine and opportunity for step-up programs.

And, you know what? That’s a really great opportunity to micro-target some very specific audiences. But don’t mistake it for a social campaign. That’s advertising, plain and simple.

Because it’s advertising, treat it like advertising:

1. Put the best possible creative you can into it. Yes, it’s tough to do something cool with tiny photos and static text, but if your creative isn’t up to the challenge, find new creative.

2. Start with more than one ad. Facebook automatically rotates your creative and shows which ones are more effective at a glance. Start with at least three approaches to see how they perform next to each other.

3. Rotate creative. Every week, kill the underperforming ad and rotate in a new one to see how it does against the others.

4. Pay attention to the numbers, and what they mean. If an ad has a 0.5% clickthrough (very good for Facebook), but it isn’t converting to Likes or sales, drop it and try a new approach.

5. Create, and maintain, an effective Facebook brand page. Sure you can drive people outside of Facebook with your ads, but you’ll soon find that the response rate is much higher if you stay within Facebook. This means creating and maintaining a Facebook brand page which includes:

a. Up-to-date, meaningful content about your company.
b. Regular updates on your company’s feed.
c. Tabs that allow people to buy direct from you in Facebook, or engage with your company directly in Facebook.
d. Interaction from fans.
e. More than 8 Likes. Shoot for several hundred at least. Thousands are better.

6. Keep it rolling. Social is a marathon, not a sprint. The longer you’re there, the better the results.

7. Or kill it. If the results of your social advertising are lower than the results of your conventional advertising (cost per sale is higher, etc), then just consider pulling the plug. Social takes plenty of time and energy, and if you have other marketing tactics that pay off better, it’s best to spend your time and energy there.

It’s about this time of year that everyone comes out of the woodwork, looking for a bargain in marketing. Last year it was “Hey, I heard social is cheep! What can ya do for me there?” This year, it looks like it’s back to the basics. So, we’re getting a lot of questions about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. “Hey, I heard SEO is cheep! And it lasts a long time! Can ya get me some good search positions, huh, canya?”

For those of you who have been living in a hermetically-sealed bubble for the past decade and a half, SEO is the process of getting your company, or its products and services, listed in Google (or other search engines) under “natural search results.” These are the results that appear below, or to the left of, the sponsored search results. Which is a whole ‘nother ball game, but since Adwords aren’t perceived as “free,” we don’t get as many questions about them.

The problem is, a lot of people think there is a secret way to get to the #1 position on Google for any keyword in the universe, and we (as agencies) are simply hiding this secret.

To which I reply: “Ha!” If it was that easy, I’d be retired and living in a tropical paradise right now.”

The problem is, there’s no secret to SEO. There’s no simple, easy way to get listed in the top 10 search results for most keywords. There is a process, yes, and there are real, bottom-line benefits you can reap from a real SEO program, but (like everything else in marketing), it’s a long, time- and labor-intensive process. Google isn’t stupid. Google is very, very good at telling the difference between real, helpful content and content that’s just there to shill for your product. It’s very, very good at discerning auto-generated content from stuff made by a real human. And it’s very, very good at telling when you’re blogging just to hear yourself blog, or creating an article by pulling from the wiki, or any of a dozen other tricks that less-competent SEO guys will tell you work for “cheap and easy” results.

Because, when you get right down to it, SEO is about content. Good content. Unique content. Helpful content. Does this describe the articles on your website? Are there articles on your website at all? If not, who’s going to write them? If it’s not someone at your company, it’s your agency. Outsourcing articles to people who don’t live and breathe your culture ain’t gonna cut it. So you’re walking right into some very expensive work: either you staff up, or you pay agency rates.

“But what about inbound links?” you ask. “I heard I could create a billion sites and link them to mine–”

Wrong. Good inbound links count. Good links are from sites with a lot of eyeballs, and a lot of good content of their own. An inbound link from Wired is great. An inbound link from Yagattaseethisyoubetcha.com with a grand total of 12 visitors last month isn’t going to count for a thing. So, if you want to create links, you’re looking at pushing real press releases, and doing real PR, to the gorilla sites out there. Which takes you back squarely into the “gotta pay an internal person or agency” thing again.

And, to top this all off, you have to keep up. Did you know you could do a Google Base feed of your products and get listed in product search? Did you know your product photos could show up in natural search and Adwords? The rules keep changing, and again–someone has to keep up with it. It’s either your staff or your agency. Neither is cheap.

So, what’ll you choose? Don’t say “magic.” Because, when it comes to marketing, there ain’t no such thing.

A while back, we deconstructed 5 really bad reasons for revamping your site, in “5 Reasons NOT To Revamp Your Website.” Now it’s time for a companion piece, where we go into 5 very good reasons TO change your site.

Reason 1: The site doesn’t reflect who you are. If your company has evolved significantly, either in terms of message or in terms of product/service offerings, you have a legitimate, solid reason to revamp your site. Your website is the first extended contact that most of your prospective customers will have with you. If it’s not communicating your core messages, showing customers how you are different (and better) than the competition, and reflecting the best of what you do, you’re losing opportunities. So, when you find yourself explaining to callers that “well, you know, what’s on the site isn’t really what we do anymore,” look at a revamp. Or at least a refresh.

Reason 2: The site isn’t producing sales or leads effectively. How well does your site turn visitors to buyers or leads? Are you getting the kind of sales you’re looking for, or the number of leads you want? Do you know how you compare to other sites in the industry? If your site isn’t designed to lead your visitors down a path to sale or path to lead capture, then again, you’re missing opportunities. Oh–if you aren’t tracking your site statistics all the way through to final sale, or through lead capture, get started now!

Reason 3: Your site is confusing people. Do you get comments via email or on forms from visitors who say, “I can’t find this on your site! Help!” This is a warning sign. The major metric for site satisfaction is how many people are able to find what they’re looking for and accomplish their goals. For more information, deploy an exit survey and see how many people are having trouble. If 50% of your visitors can’t find what they’re looking for, you have a problem–think of all the visitors who aren’t commenting or emailing.

Reason 4: You can’t manage the site yourself. Does changing anything on your site mean a bill from the developer? If so, it’s likely you can’t respond at the speed of your market. Even the most basic sites today should be content-managed–which allows nontechnical personnel to make quick changes on some or all of the site content. Posting up new news items, editing a product listing, updating quantity in stock, or swapping an offer on the home page are examples of things that should be content-managed. And if your developer tells you content-management systems can be confusing, look elsewhere–properly designed content management interfaces are easier to use than Word.

Reason 5: You can’t do what you need to do with your site. Let’s say you need to launch a new self-service offering that requires a stepwise procedure that isn’t supported by your current system. Or you have a committed marketing person who wants to blog, but your site doesn’t support a blog. Or you want to add a quiz with scoring to your site. Or you can’t easily embed video. Or you need to add user accounts, so you can better engage with your customers. Or you have a new product that needs to be configured before you buy it, and the configuration doesn’t work with your e-commerce system. All of these are great reasons to revamp your site.

Remember, this is the first extended introduction a prospect will have with your company–make the most of it!

So, the success story du jour in social media is the Old Spice Guy, and his video responses to popular bloggers, forums (and, of course, the marriage proposal.) The numbers are enough to make any social media maven salivate: over a billion impressions, multi-thousand-percent increases in followers, and buzz enough to reach the front page of Yahoo, as well as national news.

And—let’s be totally clear here—it’s a wonderful social campaign, and the numbers are truly impressive. And the Old Spice Guy himself is a hoot.

But social media mavens who celebrate this as a “victory for social” are 100%, absolutely, completely wrong.

And companies looking to replicate this excellent campaign exclusively in social media are setting themselves up for a gigantic failure.

Because without the foundation of Wieden+Kennedy’s absolutely out-of-the-park creative for Old Spice’s television commercials, the social campaign would have gone nowhere.

Yes. Read that again: Brilliant creative on television built a foundation for social success.

People had already seen the ads on TV. They were already watching the ads with friends on YouTube. They were already commenting, sharing, and arguing over the ads, before the social campaign really got started.

And we aren’t talking just any old ads. If you haven’t seen them, take a look at one now:

Now, consider these ads were done in-camera, in one continuous shot.

Now, consider these ads required copy and concept, sourcing a production company and director, finding a stellar actor, building multiple sets, engineering the breakaways, extensive choreography and planning, and days upon days of takes to get the perfect shot.

Now, consider the investment in the associated conventional media buy.

Bottom line? It’s one of the best campaigns of recent memory, whether you’re looking at it from a conventional standpoint, a social standpoint, or both.

But if a social media maven tries to tell you this is a major upset for conventional media, or that social is easy, cheap, and simple . . . run far, and run very, very fast.