It's just that now there's an easier and more powerful way to get the point across: the Internet. Ruben Navarrette, of CNN.com, on Millenials,

They were raised in a world where grownups did everything possible to shield them from adversity and disappointment. Everyone got a trophy just for showing up; even red marker pens were banned from some schools because the color was considered too harsh and judgmental.

As a Millenial myself (1984), I of course get defensive when I see something like this. History tends to repeat itself with each generation; each one bad-mouthing the next. Rock-and-roll was the Devil's music. Hippies just hang out and do drugs. You're never going to amount to anything playing with computers.

Funny thing is, it never turns out nearly as bad as everyone says it will. And actually, doesn't it get better?

A couple of Navarrette's negatives are positives, when you think about:

They worry about the national debt, and they think government should cut spending rather than stick them with the bill.

Sounds about right.

They also care about the environment and human rights, and they are generally more accepting of gay marriage and multiculturalism than older American.

I call that progress.

They are free with their opinions, and don't take orders, criticism or direction well.

Give me someone with opinions over a drone any day of the week. As for taking orders, I like to know exactly why something has to be done. Why? To see if it can be done better or more efficiently.

...and put family and friends before work and career.

The nerve of us to feel that way.

This basically comes down to feelings about work itself. A whole generation is finding out that work doesn't have to be a boring 9-5 desk gig, or a mindless factory job. Ask anyone, regardless of their age, what they would like to get out of life. Part of their answer will be doing something they love

And because many got stuck doing something they don't love, hating their jobs, their bosses, their time clocks, their 30-minute lunches, they like to take that out on others.

 

This is a post I wrote on the Moontoast blog a while back. Thought it would work well here.

Sharing links on Facebook is one of the primary ways people use the social network. Instead of just showing the full URL, Facebook will pull data from the linked page to display a title, description, image, and domain name.

This “real estate” is extremely valuable and optimizing it can mean the difference between a few clicks and a few hundred. If someone shares a link to your content on Facebook, will other users know what your site is about? Are you doing enough to get a Facebook user to click through? Think of this shared link as an opportunity to drive a potential customer to your site.

Lately we did some experimenting with the Moontoast Distributed Store and how a shared link to a store appears on Facebook. By using Facebook's Open Graph protocol, we were able to dictate how the store looks when shared to Facebook. Breaking the shared link down into its components, we tinkered with things like image size, calls-to-action, and different forms of copy. What did we find? Athlon Sports' Custom Covers campaign is a great example of a successful shared link:

The Four Elements of a Shared Link

1. Title - The title of the linked page (or store in this case). Facebook pulls this from the "og:title" tag on the shared page. Instead of titling the store something generic, Athlon Sports used the title as a call to action to increase clicks to the store.

2. Description - A description of the linked page. Facebook pulls this from the "og:description" tag on the shared page. Athlon Sports used the description as a way to get potential customers interested in the product - "Passionate about college football? Learn how to get Vanderbilt Commodores on the cover of America's #1 Sports Preview magazine!"

3. Image - An image pulled from the linked page's "og:image" tag. The shared image is the first thing that will grab a Facebook user's attention, so finding the right type of image is crucial to success. Since the Moontoast Distributed Store can be opened inside the Facebook News Feed by clicking the PLAY button, Athlon Sports used an image of the promoted school's cover with a call-to-action to help potential customers know where to click.

4. Domain Name - The domain where the linked page resides. This is automatically generated by Facebook based on the shared link's URL and lets users know what site they are visiting when clicking a link.

What We've Learned

Compared to previous Distributed Stores that had default shared images and messages, we saw click-throughs increase 75-100% across all Moontoast client stores when shared to a Facebook Fan Page. Needless to say, giving our clients the ability to customize the title, message, and image specifically for sharing to their Facebook Fan Pages made a huge impact and drove even more qualified leads to their stores.

Probably not.

So why would they allow ads like this online? I see the "Fat Belly Rule" and the "Acai Berry Myth" ads everywhere, even highly respected news sites.

If you wouldn't run it in print, don't allow it online. I know it's an ad network and they aren't literally running the ad themselves, but if you aren't getting quality ads from your network you need to change it.

Fill it with a house ad, subscription box, anything.

Today was my second day, and first full day at Moontoast. In a nutshell Moontoast helps brands sell products where their fans are, taking traditional e-commerce and making it social. My title is Client Services Manager, meaning I am the direct point of contact with our customers, leading clients through strategy, troubleshooting, and putting out fires. Being a startup, this means I'm also a jack-of-all-trades, uploading content, creating demos, and trying to figure out ways to add value for our customers.

I'm really excited about where Moontoast is headed and I think we are at the forefront of the next wave of commerce online. Check us out and I'll keep you posted!

I was checking out my public LinkedIn profile today and noticed something new (to me at least): the use of my name in each sub-heading on the page.

"Matt Sullivan" appears 22 times on my LinkedIn profile page.

The SEO reason for this is obvious: LinkedIn is trying to make sure that someone searching on Google/Yahoo/Bing for "Matt Sullivan" will find my, or another Matt Sullivan's, LinkedIn profile instead of other website profiles on the Internet. While search engine algorithms are pretty in-depth, they still rely on keyword phrases found on the actual page to help rank sites for given search terms. By placing my name next to things like Contacts, Education, Experience, Interests, Groups, and Honors, LinkedIn is shooting for a high ranking when someone searches for "Matt Sullivan's education".

Granted, few people in the world will be searching for my specific educational background, but potential employer's are always looking for information about you online, and with LinkedIn's user base they are battling with sites like Facebook and Twitter to become the defacto "user profile". Facebook's default privacy settings keep user profiles blocked fairly well from search engines and Twitter profiles only provide short summaries and a link. LinkedIn is definitely looking to use search engines as the primary driver of traffic to its users' profiles.

I have mixed feelings on social media profile SEO as I would prefer my personal site to be the top ranking site for a term like "Matt Sullivan Internet Marketing." If a site like LinkedIn has more SEO "juice" that mine (which it naturally does), then over time it may outperform my own site for terms I want to show for. And with a name as popular as mine, I'm essentially competing with other Matt Sullivans when someone searches for me online.

I think this is an opportunity in the future for people with "personal brands" to really take over their online identity and how people find them. The work is in making sure you can be found in multiple places but that your primary "brand" sits on a personal domain name that you can control.