The term “onboarding campaign” resonates with me like fingernails on a blackboard. Even so, Chris Marriott’s article over on iMedia Connection, “3 Steps To Stellar Welcome Emails,” is excellent reading.

Takeaway for marketers: You might be missing out on one of the best relationship-building opportunities out there.

The 2009 edition of Marketing Sherpa’s Marketing Wisdom Report is now available. Always a good read … and it’s free.

Takeaway for marketers: Download it. Read it.

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Fonzie is warming up the motorcycle where Twitter is concerned.

One sign that the jump ramp is being pushed closer to the shark tank is the plethora of articles about how to increase the number of followers you have on Twitter. Here’s one from Kevin Rose. Here’s one from DoshDosh. Here’s one from TwiTip. I could go on for hundreds of column-inches, but go ahead and fire up Google and see for yourself: The Interweb’s lousy with this sort of advice.

I’ve read my share of these articles, and they all pretty much amount to conventional Twitter wisdom: Tweet links. Add value. Ask for retweets. And so on. Good tips as far as they go, but they’ll only take you so far.

No one’s giving you the real story about how to catapult yourself into the Twittersphere stratosphere, that rarefied air of five-figure followers that is one of the most coveted inhales of today’s geekerati.

Till now.

Pay close attention: If you’re jonesing to break through to the Twitterholic 100, these surefire tips really, really, really work. Promise.

1. Host This Week in Tech. If you can’t convince Leo Laporte (82,424 followers as I write this) to let you take his place as leader of the #1 podcast out there, an alternative is to become a guest on TWiT and pimp your Twitter name whenever possible; many of the 300k+ listeners on Twitter are bound to follow you.

2. Establish an influential global news presence. Like CNN Breaking News (129,833) and The New York Times (59,227), take a multidimensional approach to news dissemination, because you never know: Twitter may still be here long after your network collapses or your newspaper folds.

3. Become a cultural touchstone. Develop a persona that has the paparazzi stalking you 24/7. Win a Grammy. Pose nude on the cover of Harper’s. Hang out with Paris Hilton. Hey, it worked for Britney (59,388).

4. Sell shoes. Okay, I don’t get it, either. But the Zappos.com CEO has 49,242 followers. Go figure.

5. Become President of the United States. As I write this, Barack Obama has 230,551 followers. In your face, Vladimir Putin.

If it all sounds like too much work, you may want to forget about Twitter entirely and wait for the next wave of microblogging and/or hypernetworked instant messaging to take hold. Personally, I think 2 is the next 140.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re on Twitter, it’s going to take a lot more than whatever it is you do on Twitter to get you some followers on Twitter.

(By the way: That cartoon up top is from Geek and Poke, a great site you need to check out.)

That’s the interesting question that was asked by Jim Lodico in the Marketing & PR Innovators group over on LinkedIn.

It got me thinking, which got me responding, which gave me today’s post:

The rules of professionalism haven’t changed any more than the Golden Rule has changed … truth is timeless.

What has changed, though, is that the social media tools that facilitate communication have made it easier for crappy marketers and lowest-common-denominator ideas to dominate the conversation, which in turn makes it harder for quality talent and ethical ideas to get noticed.

Here’s an example:

LinkedIn has a reputation for being a business networking site. Indeed, groups like Marketing & PR Innovators attempt to serve as focal points around which professionals gather.

Someone with relatively little online marketing experience joins an online marketing group on LinkedIn looking for information and guidance. Let’s say they want information on email marketing. They post a question, or maybe read through the existing discussions (if they can find any amidst all the junky threads).

The prevailing view of the posts they see tells them: Buying third-party opt-in lists is the way to go! Spamming has a bad reputation; it’s really nothing more than advertising, the same as direct mail.

(By the way, this is pretty much the way it went on one recent LinkedIn thread I saw.)

Maybe there are one or two dissenting voices, but any relative subtleties of the issue — the legal definition of spam vs. the perception of spam on the part of the email recipient, for example, or the idea that attempting short-term gain can have long-term negative consequences — are lost in the din.

So the prevailing view is taken as industry expertise … and the industry descends another step toward the seventh circle of marketing Hell.

I think it’s a real problem.

Takeaway for marketers: Are your contributions to the conversation raising or lowering the bar?

A coupla months ago, I blogged about the new Monty Python Channel on YouTube and noted that “the Pythons genuinely get it. (Media companies: Take note.)”

What does “get it” mean? It means that media companies and copyright holders and music companies and all the rest need to embrace the digital revolution, not fight it. Commerce will follow.

That’s a philosophy that causes many companies to scoff and cringe.

Now back to that Monty Python channel: Fast Company reports that all that free content resulted in a 23,000% increase in DVD sales.

Not 23% … not 230% … not 2,300% … 23,000%.

Media companies: Take note.

Takeaway for marketers: Take note, too.