GM just pulled its ads from Facebook, because they don’t work. Studies show that Google has a far higher click through rate than Facebook, and that their ads have far better reach than Facebook’s. Here’s a good article from BusinessInsider about it, although this stuff is now all over the interwebs.

One of the points of this particular article that I hope everyone notices is that advertising on Facebook is actually FREE. If you create compelling content.

Well, well, well. So here we are, a few years after everybody got all hot and bothered about tweeting and status updates for their brands, and put all their money into building social media “presences” instead of creating quality content. The tide has begun to turn, as businesses realize that getting people to talk about your brand only matters when you have something cool/fun/useful to say, and which leads to actual purchase decisions.

Finally, content is king, again. If you’re smart.

If it sounds like I have a love/hate relationship with social media, you’re right. I love how social media can connect us and keep us involved in each others’ lives. But I hate how most of it has been vapid claptrap nobody cares about, and that goes triple for corporate presences in social media. Too often, it’s just noise. And noise sucks. In the end, Facebook is one of many tools a smart business can take advantage of and use to build and communicate with audiences.

Let’s get back to work, people. How to do that?

First, create cool, killer products and services that matter. Then, hire an agency like mine to craft compelling stories that help sell your awesomeness.

As for Facebook’s IPO, and the effect of corporations finally wising up to reality and refocusing their efforts on Facebook’s bottom line: I really don’t care. The billionaires and insiders will get richer (especially that Facebook founder who just renounced his U.S. citizenship to save millions of dollars in taxes), and the poor saps who invest at the wrong time will get taken for a ride.

Like a lot of businesses, we get a ton of spam emails. From phishers trying to get you to put your account info into a phony site, to that crazy Nigerian prince, still trying to get that $8 million out of his country, which he could, if you’d only give him your bank account information. But one spam tactic that’s been a bit more than annoying lately is “SEO consultants” sending emails offering their services.

These aren’t real SEO consultants, of course. It’s just spam. But they send messages claiming that your site isn’t performing well on Google, and promising 1st page results if you only give them your information.

Many businesses probably fall for these spammers. After all, everybody wants a great ranking in search results on Google, right? Here’s a sample from today’s email:

“I think you should know that your site isn’t being properly promoted on Google. I don’t know if you’re satisfied with your current results, but it appears that not enough is being done (almost nothing, to be frank) to make sure you reach the top 1^st page results. I’m promoting sites in much more competitive markets and have promoted tens of sites with excellent results. (First results for extremely competitive keywords). In addition, I’m the owner of a global Internet-marketing training center, which you’re invited to view and form your own personal impression of, available at www.eMarketSchool.com. I can assure you with all confidence that I can promote your site on Google better than its current position, and I’d love to show how you may significantly improve your rankings. -David Moore”

Scary, right? But not to worry, David Moore of eMarketSchool.com has the solution!

Too bad it’s all bullcrap. First of all, we pretty much own the keywords that matter to our business on Google. First page results all around. Secondly, perhaps more importantly, David Moore’s eMarketSchool.com has, itself, an absolutely terrible Google search ranking. Abysmal!

If I didn’t have a policy against working for nitwits and spammers, I’d say we should help Mr. Moore market his failing site.

And for those reading this, hoping to learn something about how to actually get a better search result on Google, there’s no real trick to it. Just create and publish relevant content for your audience, through a well-structured blog and website. The search engine love will follow.

I’ve always wanted to say ‘afoot’ in a post title. Some loyal readers (hi, Mom!) may be wondering why we haven’t posted in a little while. Well, it’s because we’ve been very busy with several nice projects from clients new and old.

We’re in the end stages of launching a very cool new website and promo video for a technology startup in the healthcare arena, I’m working on a cutting-edge video project for a major university, we’re doing multimedia work for an organization, I’m working on a film for one of our UK clients, and I’m composing the music to my film “Unlaced”.

Oh, and we’re doing a redesign of our client truckaccidents.com, too.

For a small agency, that’s pretty busy. We’re still accepting new clients, but I am getting a lot more picky about the ones we choose. That’s a nice place to be, and the work is much better because of it.

Great things are definitely afoot.