Justin Brackett has a pretty good post over on Social Media Today. I love this bit:

You know why social media marketers get a bad rap most of the time? It’s the ones that act like everything is amazing 24/7, you know the type – they make me want to run for the hills.  Seriously, you can’t be that happy all the time! Act human.

There’s something about professionals who constantly — and I mean constantly — are raving about how incredibly energized they are about the work, amazed by the tiniest little data point, pumped for the newest 87-page presentation, thrilled by the fantastic information they gleaned at the mind-blowing conference. Like Justin says: You know the type.

It’s sort of like watching cable news. Everything is expressed in hyperactive extreme adjectives.

People, people: Can we please remember Cluetrain Manifesto thesis number three?

Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

Seriously. When all you’re doing is raving about how energized you are to work, work, work, work and work some more … well, you’re just not being human. And anyway, who are you trying to convince with all that hyperactive enthusiasm: your customers and potential customers, or yourself?

We haven’t seen the Count since Presidents’ Day, so what say we visit him again? Ready for a weekend’s worth of reading on a Thursday? Let’s go:

10 foolproof ways to earn your landing page visitor’s trust.

9 P’s of small business marketing.

8 ways to offer better customer service on Facebook.

7 bad habits of insanely productive people.

6 things they don’t tell you in business school.

5 tips for running a social media contest.

4 steps to improving your search engine marketing strategy.

3 questions you must ask before you rebrand your business.

2 exciting things about QR codes.

And finally:

1 thing you should measure to guarantee an improvement in marketing ROI.

According to this blog post, which is reporting on a survey of 1 million small business websites by SMB DigitalScape, 6 out of 10 small business websites in the U.S. are missing either a local or toll-free telephone number on the home page to contact the business and nearly 3 in 4 lack an email link on their home page for consumers to contact the business.

Those have to be two of the most appalling statistics I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Takeaway for marketers: If you have to ask why, you need to find a new job.

A year ago I told you that no one wanted ads on their cell phones. The other day, Will Oremus said the same thing over at Salon. I wonder how many more years it’ll be before cell phone companies get the point.

TNT shows how the whole viral ad thing is done.