A colleague and I just wrote a piece for Digiday called “How to fix social media and banner ads.” It’s pegged to the twentieth anniversary of the first banner ad and a reflection of brands’ insistence on shoving their products into conversations where they don’t belong, a topic I’ve written about before. Our central thesis is pretty well summed up here:

…Banner ads have lost most of their usefulness in an environment that trades impressions for engagement. At the end of his piece, McCambley says banner ads need “to get back to asking customers: How can I help you?”

Marketers seem to be repeating these same banner mistakes with social media. What began as an opportunity for one-to-one conversation with people is now driven by like-based metrics that only satisfy the needs of a brand’s messaging strategy. What users really want and need runs second to the scaled-based approach that killed the value of the banner.

Read the full piece at Digiday.

If the above resonates with you, check out Social Media Strategery, a blog maintained by my former boss, Steve Radick. His thinking has been a huge influence on me over the past year. As a starting point, read his post on the dangers of becoming what you measure in social media.