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Buzzword overstatement abounds in biz-speak. It’s easy to mock; we’ve all secretly played CEO bingo during an endless afternoon meeting. But we also know that those expressions have communicative value. Going forward, we all know that to think outside the box and stay on a pro-active glide path so that we’re all singing from the same page, correct?

Exclusive environments generate their own language. From the patois of a jazz trio to the playcalling in an NFL huddle, whole conversations can occur where an outsider would be absolutely oblivious to intent. The boardroom is no different.

There’s one huge qualifier in business banter, however, especially among marketing pros: we have a responsibility to ensure client understanding at every turn. A big part of this responsibility is setting and achieving realistic expectations of how any initiative will perform.

A ubiquitous — and dangerous — phrase that permeates marketing pitch-speak is the promise to “exceed customer expectations.”

Hold on a second, how can we exceed your expectations unti we’ve agreed upon what those expectations should realistically be? And once that’s locked down, shouldn’t we concentrate on hitting them precisely? If you order a cheeseburger and I come back with a bacon-wrapped fillet Mignon, you might be happy, but you might think: “Hey, that ain’t what I ordered.”

Like so many client-oriented expressions, “exceed your expectations” is so pervasive that it has become meaningless. And in many ways, it’s just downright dishonest. It presumes that we already understand your expectations before we’ve even begun the fact-finding necessary to shape the most effective strategy. Good communications begins with knowing what your expectations are in the first place, and even (if you’ll permit us) helping you determine what those expectations should be.

So, at the risk of causing paralysis by analysis, we’re going to encourage everyone to right-size “exceed your expectations” right out of your vocabulary. Let’s start by listening to what clients want, identifying and prioritizing the right objectives, and then concentrating on doing the job well.

The thesis: Article marketing requires a serious time commitment and dedication to producing quality content that provides value to both your company and your readers.

Click here to watch the two-and-a-half minute video by SEO pro Nick Stamoulis.

Money quote:

“Content is a major part of any marketing effort. At one point in time, that content was probably a whitepaper, press release or trade magazine article. Today, content starts at the website and entails email, social media, webinars and more. Any analytics that help you understand the people reading and engaging with your content can make the entire content marketing strategy much more effective.”

Summarizes six critical tactics; well worth the read!

Clients have expressed real satisfaction with the results, which we’ve been able to measure in terms of increased website traffic, lower bounce rate, greater time-on-site, a jump in Twitter followers, and several other metrics. In a couple of cases, the connection to increased sales opportunity was evident in as little as two months. So what we’re saying, in not-so-modest terms, is that this stuff works.

But there’s a catch. It only works if you’re on board. Good news? Getting on board is painless. Here are three things to keep in mind (and that we keep in mind) if you want to test out a social marketing effort:

1. Blog post credibility is more important that post frequency

It’s better to put up a single, substantive post once a week than to just reverberate and reference other posts every day. There is certainly value to pointing out existing content, especially if it’s relevant to your audience, but don’t get topheavy with it. That means that you’re off the hook in terms of developing new content every day. Steak is more satisfying than sizzle, so latch on to the big ideas that can spotlight your expertise, instead of thinking you have to inundate with inanity.

2. Re-Tweet with care

Think of this as a microcosm of the blog philosophy. Amplifying insights you find elsewhere is fine, but if it’s the substance of your feed, you’re likely to end up ignored. Here is actually a great channel for directing your audience to existing content. Spot an article in your RSS feed that others will appreciate? A quick tweet and link is just the thing. Sure, scan your followers and keyword feeds for good stories, but take just as much time to find a primary source or two. In the time you take to re-tweet five stories already bouncing around, you could find one or two fresh pieces that are of more interest.

3. Make a modest daily investment in content generation.

We’ll be the first to say you should outsource content development and the associated social marketing. But we’ll also tell you that we need your participation to make it work. Thankfully, that participation threshold is pretty low — like sipping-your-coffee low. Fifteen or 20 minutes ruminating on issues impacting your industry, and sharing a few bullet points by email are often all we need to spin up a worthwhile blog post. And that’s the catalyst for a heapin’ helping of accompanying social media amplification.

When it comes to managing a social marketing effort for clients, we stick to these ideas from the onset. We’ve noticed in a few instances that when a particular facet is successful, we’ll turn up the intensity. Our initial approach, for example, includes one feature-caliber blog post per week. But if the traffic it generates is really strong, we’ve advocated doubling or even tripling that frequency. At the most fundamental level, however, we sustain a strong blog and microblog presence for a fairly modest investment, in terms of both time and budget.

We hope that gives you something to think about.

Don’t be that twerp.

People who only post blogspam, or just hit re-tweet every 15 minutes are the social media equivalents of these playground pariahs — doing zero heavy lifting in terms of content generation, contributing to the conversation at the lowest possible point of entry.

Here’s what we’re seeing in terms of that outreach approach: followers, fans, the community at large — they spot this behavior pretty quickly. If you’re just using your blog to point to other blogs and just re-tweeting without even the occasional link to something of substance you’ve found on your own, people are going to tune out fast.

A little analysis of data we’ve compiled on clients’ behalf reveals that it’s actually worse than just letting those social media properties languish. In other words, you’re better off having a dead blog or inactive Twitter or Facebook presence than if you have one that’s just echoing info that’s already been said.

There’s certainly value to referencing worthy info, but it can’t be the sole substance of your efforts. Content should be a healthy mix of original stuff and what you find courtesy of your social media circle.

Setting up the channels is just the start. You need to be mining your company’s expertise, generating original content and getting it in to the mix. Do that, and your credible fans, followers and site visits are sure to increase. Don’t do that, and sooner or later someone’s going to shake you down for milk money.

Standing up this site presented several interesting challenges. FocusPTF serves a range of clients, from people contending with workplace injuries to hardcore athletes looking to maximize physical performance. We needed to respect that audience range, creating a site that was both reassuring for someone recovering from trauma and highly credible for competitive types.

Ongoing interaction with the client throughout the design, development and content creation phases ensured that we produced a site that adhered to our messaging and interaction fundamentals while always respecting Rich’s vision. We think we nailed it.

Rich, between Mike’s quest to break par and Jay’s jiu jitsu tournament prep, you can count on seeing us in the Focus waiting room with some consistency.

On one side, we have fellow marketing pros, many of whom maintain that measuring social media ROI is at best speculative, if not simply impossible. Why, goes the collective logic, is there this obsession with ROI in the first place? Does every marketing effort have to be extrapolated to the balance sheet? There are countless components in any business that don’t carry the same demand. Who, for example, contemplates the un-opened box of paperclips and wonders whether or not it will be good for the bottom line?

On the other side, we have profit-minded clients who, understandably, want to know how much marketing muscle they’re getting for their investment. Whether it’s traditional advertising or web-presence awareness, most business owners feel justified in asking for some way to measure impressions, and in turn determine if those impressions translate to income.

So who’s right? Personally, we refuse to take sides. Not because we can’t commit, but rather, because we think both perspectives have merit. For marketing pros, determining just how effective influence efforts can be is a definitive challenge. You can spend millions on a campaign that flops like an Eddie Murphy movie. And then you can take thirty seconds to send out a cute tweet that catches fire and brings you more site traffic than adding the words “barely legal” to your service description.

If pressed, we have to admit that, of course, marketing efforts need to demonstrate effectiveness. The hard-boiled business reality? Dollars are the unit of measurement in the marketplace. That said, we embrace, rather than retreat, from the idea of social media ROI. But how do you make the connection?

We’re testing a slew of strategies. One of the most successful thus far is a combination of measuring increased engagment (site visits, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, etc.) and using set benchmarks to adjust efforts. When a client hits a certain threshold (say, a few hundred followers on Twitter) then it’s time to supplement informative tweets with special offers and service incentives. Let’s just see if this growing audience is ready to pony up, so to speak.

We’re still studying the results of several efforts, but the effectiveness is promising. The idea of good content driving any social media effort isn’t going anywhere. But we want to match it to smart, business-focused outreach that provides a faster route to our clients being engaged beyond their expertise. We want to see a boost in requests for services — the most direct route to fresh revenue.

That, for us, is the start of honest social media ROI measurement.

A side-effect of this push? A few folks have noted that while our Twitter feed is fairly active, our blog doesn’t get updated a whole helluva lot. Why, some wonder, don’t we practice what we preach? Why aren’t there at least weekly if not daily posts on Off Piste?

There are two key reasons:

• Our field, web presence/social media/content marketing, is saturated with experts (both self-proclaimed and credible) who inundate us with good content. We’ve found our time a bit better served monitoring feeds and skimming posts/articles for info we like, then Tweeting it. This creates a steady visibility pulse, rather than more erratic surges of richer yet redundant information.

• We want to put our energy and effort into better understanding our clients’ industries. We already know about the techniques and issues of our industry. We know what strategies we want to implement, how to customize campaigns for clients, and refine our efforts. Do our clients need to know this in painstaking detail? Prolly not. They’re more interested in results, and results come from our learning what’s happening in their fields. We’re better served keeping up with software development, healthcare, lead generation, cloud computing, consumer electronics, etc.

That said, we know it would be foolish to overlook at least semi-regular blog posts. Generating original content is imperative, but people don’t need another Top Ten list explaining why social media is important, or guidance on how to pick a logotype color scheme. What they need is greater visibility and credibility, so that’s where our muscle goes.

Believe us, when we’re hit with what we think is an insightful idea that adds something new to the conversation, you’re the first to know!

So it’s official, the holidays are upon us. Let loose a barrage of seasonal greetings and gift-giving you hope finds a slice of attention in the midst of all the Black Friday-to-New Year’s Day static. By all means, don’t abandon your plans for polite, professional holiday outreach. Do consider, however, being a bit more selective with major announcements and big kickoffs. This is a time when many of us are AWAOD — Absent While At Our Desks. Our minds are on the next party, our screens are secretly clocking shopping sites, and everyone’s work ethic is essentially swimming in eggnog.

What does this mean for your marketing efforts? We certainly wouldn’t suggest stepping away entirely, but you do need to prioritize. If you have a major announcement in the wings, consider whether it will get lost in holiday hubbub. It might do better waiting until after the National Championship Game.

In the meantime, you can maintain steady, if less-intense visibility efforts — lighthearted blog posts that make easy reading for those with nano-second attention spans, or perhaps an end-of-year eNewsletter that recaps 2010, thanks clients, and alludes to forthcoming efforts. At the very least, a quick holiday eCard blast can express best wishes on your behalf.

If you have news especially relevant to the holidays (e.g. you’re pushing something that would make a great gift, or you have an irresistible end-of-year incentive for your services) take the time to craft messaging and time delivery so that, again, it doesn’t get lost in the swirl. If there’s one thing folks are looking for in this economy, it’s a deal, so your one-time discount might be right on time.

Long story short: However you plan close out the year, keep in mind that the calendar is just as important as the content when it comes to messaging.

And to all, a good night . . .