Stephen Booser sent me an e-mail today in which he notes that GM has pulled its advertising program out of Facebook due to lack of results.

“Could this be the beginning of a realization by those who have things to sell that they have been sold a bill of goods by the young marketers most of whom, it seems to me, have never asked a closing question in their lives?” he asks rhetorically.

He suggests that “social” is not a synonym for “sell.” I believe the trendy marketing imperative of “having a conversation” is not the same as “selling  a product.” In fact, having a conversation may be the fall-back position for those marketers who don’t know how to sell.

Your thoughts?

Many people believe  newspapers are an antiquated, soon-to-be-dead medium.

But if so, why did Warren Buffett — arguably the world’s savviest investor — just buy 63 newspapers for $142 million?

“Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t fool around,” said analyst Edward Atorino. “I don’t think Berkshire Hathaway does anything where they’re going to lose money.”

“We may buy more newspapers,” said Buffett. “I think the economics work out OK.”

According to an article in Direct Marketing News (5/12, p. 12), General Electric has more than 200,000 Facebook friends and more than 50,000 Twitter followers.

What does GE post on the social networks? Photos, questions, and jokes.

What do they get out of all this activity? Hundreds of “likes,” comments, and mentions.

Getting Facebook “likes” doesn’t seem like an impressive achievement to  me, but apparently GE thinks it a worthy expenditure of time and money.

Do you?

A recent headline on msn.com read: “Why are teen moms poor?”

Is this a serious question? They’re poor because they are teenagers who have children. Children are expensive, and most teens earn and have little or no money. Mystery solved, right?

A TV commercial for the new movie “Snow White and the Huntsman” dramatically proclaims — “This is no fairy tale!”

It reads well and sounds dramatic.

The only problem: it’s not true. Anything about Snow White is by definition a fairy tale. So the copy is  one big lie.

Am I being a nitpicker here? Or am I right on the money?

In The Writer magazine (6/12, p. 15), my favorite novelist, Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini), writes that “Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.”

He continues: “It involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear. If the writing is good, then the result seems effortless and inevitable.”

This sounds nice, but do you buy his claim that good writing is really the hardest form of thinking? I think for most people, the hardest form of thinking is mathematics.

My youngest son is a freshman at Carnegie-Mellon. He took a course in “calculus in three dimensions.” I would wager that calculus in three dimensions is more difficult for most students than English composition.

What do you think?

One area of uncertainty among service providers is how often to follow up with prospects.

Not often enough and you may lose an opportunity to another vendor who is more visible.

Too often and  you risk being an annoyance.

One technique that helps is to make sure you are NOT being a pest when you follow up.

Whether I am following  up by phone or e-mail, the first thing I say is “I don’t want to be a pest, but … ” followed by a brief description of why I am calling.

This works amazingly well. Almost without fail, the prospect replies, “You’re not being a pest — I am glad you followed up!”

I don’t know what about “I don’t want to be a pest, but” works. I only know that it works like magic.

Today I received an e-mail from a semi-famous business author. In it, he announced that he was working on a new best-seller.

Not to nitpik, but I beg to differ. He is working on a book that he HOPES will be a best-seller. But to describe the book-in-progress as a best-seller in the present tense is silly.

He may think his book has a good shot at  making the best-seller list. But it certainly hasn’t yet.

In his e-mail, he also refers to the book as “a guaranteed best-seller.” Again, NO ONE can guarantee that their book will be a best-seller, even if their previous books have been.

This is a good example of hype  that in my view goes a little too far. It is dishonest and not credible.