We have no criteria for naming these songs the “top five.” If you believe we left a social media parody out that should have been included, please feel free to post it in the comments. This kind of silliness still makes us smile.

“Facebook Lover” by Tyler Ward and Krista Nicole

“My Mom’s on Facebook” by BackoftheClass

“Facebook Song” by Rhett & Link

“Social Media is for Losers” by Emergency Cheese

“Social Media Blues” by Flarfwatch

Here’s the weekly roundup of social media links for work week of Monday, January 14, 2013 through Friday, January 18, 2013:

• GigaOM: Who’s Winning the Race in Social Media? Monthly Active Users By the Numbers [Chart]
• SME: Twitter Marketing – How to Use Twitter for Business
• Harvard Business Review: Look Beyond Your “Social Media Presence”
• SMM: How Social Media Has Changed Politics — It’s Not Just Tactics
• Digital Royalty: First Social Media Incentive Program for Athletes
• SMT: The Importance of Facebook’s New Graph Search

At Mighty Megaphone, we’re commonly asked what is the most essential ingredient of a successful business blog. Most of the time, those asking are looking for information about a magic plugin or a design/layout strategy. When we respond, “the most important thing is the content,” they nod and assume we are part of the “content is king” tribe, a group that preaches loudly about the need to produce better, more useful, more enjoyable content “to make the internet a better place.”

But, most people are wrong in assuming that we feel at home with the “content is king” message. Don’t get us wrong, everyone on our team enjoys good, quality content. We almost never choose to take in content that is poorly presented or edited — the internet offers too many competing sources to waste our time with a source that is not prepared with quality in mind. However, quality alone is not sufficient. We don’t scour the internet looking for the highest quality content, we scour the internet looking for information that is both high quality and useful or relevant to our interests.

Sometimes a little distance helps us gain insight. Here’s a somewhat ridiculous example of how relevance effects readership from outside of the realm of business blogging. For this example’s sake, let’s say, I love the pop-rock music of Meat Loaf and his eccentric writer / producer, Jim Steinman. Unfortunately, the two haven’t worked together for many years. So, I decide I’d like to read lyrics written by Jim Steinman for other artists or the lyrics of other songwriters who echo Mr. Steinman’s style. Given my interests and intent, I’m going to be pleased to find an online collection of lyrics by my favorite songwriter — even if there are occasionally typos, there’s no video, and the layout looks like it was made in the late 1990s. (If you doubt this, please consider that Mr. Steinman’s website is the top “Steinmaniac” resource online and that, in fact, it contains an occasional typo and looks like it was designed in the late 1990s.) On the other hand, a site which contains a beautifully organized and flawlessly presented collected of French lyrical poetry from the 1800s is going to be of much less interest to me, even if it includes video interviews with professors, photographs of relevant paintings, and guest posts from experts. It’s really not the quality, it’s the relevance that keeps me reading. The Meat Loaf fan is going to bounce within seconds from the historical French poetry site — even though the site contains quality content about “lyrics.” Why? Because, regardless of the quality, the Meat Loaf fan is more interested in Bat Out of Hell than Evariste de Parny.

In our opinion, the whole point of business blogging is to identify a business’ real target audience and publish content that is interesting to them. However, we’ve seen hundreds of quality business blogs, which isn’t even remotely interesting to a real target audience that would mean greater opportunity for the authoring business. If you simply search for a blog written by a lawyer, there’s a very, very good chance you’ll find voluminous writing, which can really only be appreciated, if at all understood, by other lawyers. Perhaps, they’ll impress their competitor down the street with that kind of writing, but it is unlikely that they’ll woo a new client before boring them. We’ve know of at least half a dozen business blogs by freelance writers, who regularly write about how to use persuasion strategies to convince unwilling or unwitting buyers into contracting with them. There’s nothing wrong with blogging about this fascinating subject, but a “business blog” should result in more leads and more business, and it’s hard to believe anyone who visits these freelance writer’s websites to evaluate whether they should hire them will be impressed by their perpetual focus on nickel-and-diming their customers.

So, how do you create really good content the Mighty Megaphone way? It’s not just about “making the internet a better place.” Follow these two steps:

• Define your ideal reader.

This is usually a potential customer, but not always. What are they interested in? What problems do they have? What solutions to those problems can your offer in your blog? What do they talk about? How can you participate in that conversation through your blog?

• Write your blog in a way that can be (a) useful and (b) entertaining to your ideal readers as you define them.

Relentlessly refuse to publish anything that is not going to solve a problem they have or connect with them in a way that is genuinely entertaining and interesting.