“We’re all spending plenty of time in our social network accounts,” says Clay McDaniel, co-founder of Spring Creek Group, in an article in DM News (11/3/08, p. 13).

Oh really?

I for one spend NO time on the social network sites — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn — where I have accounts. So Clay is wrong.

My problem is not, however, with Clay being a cheerleader for social media. It’s with his use of the language.

There are very few instances where “all” — which in Clay’s statement is synonymous with “everyone” — can be safely used.

That’s because it’s impossible to know — or prove — that everyone is doing anything … whether it’s social networking or switching to hybrid cars.

Clay might have been better off to say “most of us” … but that still wouldn’t be safe, unless you could cite a reliable source reporting that over 50% of Internet users are spending X number of hours a week on social networks.

The safest statement would have been to say “many of us.”

But when it comes to social media, even that might be challenged.

For instance, another article in this same issue of DM News reports that more than half of Internet users have NOT read a blog in the past year … and only 12% read blogs daily or weekly.

Again, my point here is not whether social networking is hot or not.

It’s that as professional communicators, we (including Clay) must use accurate language when expressing opinions.

Otherwise, we instantly lose all credibility — as Clay has here.

On one of his web sites, Internet marketer Abel Cheng sells a guide to do-it-yourself content creation.

To make the sale, he compares the cost of his product ($17) with the cost of hiring a professional writer.

He says (I kid you not) that the going rate to hire a professional ghostwriter to write a 500-word article is $5.

Not $500 or even $50. But $5. That comes to a penny a word.

The going rate for writing freelance magazine articles used to be a dollar a word, give or take 50 cents.

Now, says Mr. Cheng, a writer is worth a penny a word.

The frightening thing is, Mr. Cheng is right.

I’ve bid out writing jobs for CTC Publishing, my online publishing company, on the Internet — and it’s shocking how little writers will charge to create content.

My question is: who out there is writing articles for a penny a word — and why?

Let’s say it takes you 2 hours to write that article. Your hourly rate is $2.50. Less than half what you’d make wearing a paper hat and asking people, “Do you want fries with that?”

Has freelance writing truly become a commodity?

Or is Mr. Cheng just scraping the bottom of a very deep barrel?

No, according to Garry Trudeau, writer of the Doonesbury comic strip.

In Doonesbury, one of the characters is an older experienced journalist (I am not a regular reader, so I do not know his name).

He has been let go by his paper in a round of layoffs, and to make a living, he has turned to blogging.

When his son asks him how it’s going, the reporter replies:

“Okay, I guess. I’m piecing together a living. But only barely. It’s tough to leverage a byline in a media environment where anyone who can type gets a byline. I’m competing for eyeballs with millions of narcissists, almost none of whom expect to actually get paid.”

This reveals a rule of thumb for freelance writing success that has been in effect for decades: namely, it’s very difficult to make a good living as a professional writing something that millions of amateurs are more than willing to write for free.

This is why things like short stories, poems, and essays pay so poorly.

It’s also why copywriting pays so much better than most journalistic and literary endeavors.

Millions of Americans dream of writing the Great American Novel … but relatively few want to write the Great American Annual Report.

Therefore, novelists submitting novels on spec are a dime a dozen, while top annual report writers are in short supply and command high fees.

I know there are exceptions, so you don’t have to tell me about the rare blogger or screenwriter who made it big.

There’s an old saying: you can get rich in writing, but you can’t make a living.

Those that hit it big in hyper-competitive markets like screenwriting or blogging are few and far between (how many JK Rowlings are there)?

If you want to write for a living — and live well — writing for business customers is the surest road to a six-figure income, for the reasons stated above. (And yes, those business assignments can include corporate blogs.)

LT, a veteran B2B marketer, took me to task in an e-mail he sent me, in which he disagreed with my claim that many consumer marketing techniques can be profitably applied to B2B selling.

According to LT, good B2B copy meets the following criteria:

1–It is completely fact-based — full of numbers, statistics, graphs, tables, charts, data, specs,and whatever other technical content the prospect needs to make a correction buying decision.

2–It appeals to logic and rational decision-making. Business prospects are professionals, and to pander to them with emotional consumer appeals insults their intelligence.

3–It is short … as short as possible. Business prospects are busy and have too much to read. The less there is to read in your copy, the greater your response rates will be. Long copy in B2B gets tossed in the trash.

4–The style should be “professional,” not the “conversational” style we advocate for consumer direct response. “These are eduated people and you must talk to them on their own level, which is high,” says LT.

5–You should liberally and deliberately use jargon. The prospects use it, and you want to speak their language, not yours.

In your experience, is LT right? Is brevity, directness, jargon, and heavy technical content the best way to sell to the B2B market?

Or do the same appeals that work so well in consumer direct response — e.g., curiosity, flattery, fear, greed, guilt, exclusivity, human emotion, and a me-to-you conversational style — also boost response in B2B?

What say you?

When I took his direct marketing course at NYU back in the early 1980s, Milt Piece taught us that “the ideal mail order product is one that is not available in stores.”

But the catalog company Harry & David sells mainly fruit (also chocolates and cakes) through mail order … all of which are also available in stores.

An article in the October issue of Catalog Success notes that Harry & David has annual sales well over half a billion dollars a year.

Why do you think they are able to generate these huge revenues selling mostly pears, apples, grapes, and other produce you can get at your local supermarket?

What’s the secret of Harry & David’s success?

Anyone?

JJ, a marketing consultant who is an advocate of social media, confided in me that to get significant results takes 10 to 15 hours of participation a week — EVERY week.

For most of us, that’s time we don’t have to spare.

So I’m wondering: do you think a company or solopreneur can PAY someone to handle all of their social networking for them?

Could someone like me or you hire a consultant or freelancer to answer all the “join me as a friend” e-mails, spend the necessary hours reading and responding, keep Facebook and other profiles updated as needed, and otherwise outsource our social media marketing?

If we had to pay someone $1,000 to $2,000 a week or whatever to do this for us, would you spend the money — or would social media’s ROI suddenly become less appealing?

Would it even work? Can a “ghostnetworker” genuinely represent a client in secret and still have social media be effective — or would it be transparent and ineffective?

What say you?

A sin to be avoided in copy is using words that remind the prospect you are in actuality selling a product, not just educating or helping him out of the kindness of your heart.

One of the words on my forbidden list is “product.” Today I heard a radio spot for Joint Flex, an arthritis supplement, that repeats the word many times.

The announcer says: “Doctors love the product, patients love the product, you will love the product.”

Why call it “the product”? Why not be more specific and use the name?

My rewrite: “Doctors love Joint Flex, patients love Joint Flex, you will love Joint Flex.”

A yacht salesman refers to his top-of-the-line model as a “yacht” or “she.”

A car salesman refers to a sports car as a sports car, automobile, or “a beauty.”

You never hear a good salesperson say “our product” or “my product.”

Neither should a good copywriter.

“Product” instantly breaks the spell of enticing copy and says to the prospect, “Don’t forget, we want your money.”

In his October 2008 Fast Company column, Robert “Odd Bob” Scoble says he will never buy another physical newspaper again in his life but instead subscribes to more than 600 news feeds in Google Reader.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to look at 600 of ANYTHING — let alone RSS or Google feeds.

I was thinking of telling Robert to do what I do: look through a daily newspaper for 10-15 minutes each month to find items of interest, and supplement with Google searches for facts and news you need right now.

Advantages of a real newspaper over Google Reader:

1. You get to read nice large type in print instead of tiny type on a screen.
2. It’s portable. You can carry the news with you without a power supply or gadget.
3. You can rip out articles of interest for passing along or filing.
4. It’s fun, entertaining, and relaxing. Do it while you eat breakfast or lunch.
5. It gives you clear coverage at just the right level of information density of what happened within the last 24 hours (for news in real time, I go to cnn.com).
6. The newspaper is delivered free to my front door every morning.

One newspaper — or 600 news feeds? Which would you prefer?