Everything you always wanted to know about one of American Express’ best ideas ever is right here.

I like the HubSpot blog. I really do. There’s a wealth of great information on their site.

But I hate posts like this: Create a Facebook Business Page and Tap 53 Million Users (For Free!).

The implication is that all you need to do is create the page and people will be lined up at your door like turkey-hungover masses breaking down the glass doors at Wal-Mart to buy a two-dollar toaster.

It’s not the case, and it never will be. You might as well say: “Open a hot dog stand in Manhattan and tap into 8 million hungry New York City residents!”

Uhhhhhh … what about the competition? The maintenance? The marketing plan? You get the idea.

A Facebook business page is a tool. It’s a pretty good tool, in many cases, but it’s no silver bullet solution to anything, and it’s not an end by any means. It’s simply one of many, many tools at the online marketer’s disposal. Whether or not it’s an appropriate tool depends on your company’s overall marketing communications strategy.

Please, people, let’s lighten up on the hype, okay?

Takeaway for marketers: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Duh.

How can you not love what P.C. Richard is up to this week?

Newspaper ads (see the image above) and a blog post (which gives you the full text of the ad) noting in part: “It is our opinion that retailers who choose to open on Thanksgiving Day show no respect to their employees and families, and are in total disrespect of family values in the United States of America.” Their Facebook page is racking up likes for the move.

Well played, P.C. Richard … well played.

Marketing Tech Blog has posted an infographic that serves as a nice digital primer for small businesses. Of all the tips you’ll find there, though, I think action item #1 is to nail down your professional email address.

It’s remarkable how many companies use a a google.com or a yahoo.com or a hotmail.com or a (shudder) aol.com email address as their primary business address. It’s wrong. Not that it’s wrong to have those email accounts — hell, I’ve had an AOL account since they were charging by the hour, and I still use it as the catch-all address for mailing lists, newsletters and such.

But if your business is not using yourname@yourbusiness.com as an email address, you need to fix that immediately. Anything else is just unprofessional.

Well, my television is telling me it’s once again that time of the year. Wall-to-wall holiday movies on Lifetime and seasonal car ads in which one spouse lovingly buys his or her better half a new car.

Am I the only one who finds these seasonal car ads so irritating? Given the state of the economy, how many people are buying each other cars for Christmas? Even in the best of economies, how often does that happen? Can’t the car companies’ ad agencies find a different angle? Sure, cars are sold now — just like they are the rest of the year. But I don’t recall seeing as many commercials where, say, one spouse gives his or her better half a car for a birthday; maybe a 50th anniversary.

C’mon, car companies: Keep it real, willya?