I learned a lot about marketing in a recent class -- I absorbed the things my instructor was teaching, but I also found myself reflecting on a bunch of things he wasn't trying to teach at all. I listened to what he was saying, but I also paid attention to how he was saying it, to what he wasn't saying, and to what was happening around me.

TerraCycle's unusual business model has enabled us to develop what we call negative-cost marketing. The goal is to to create marketing content that promotes the company brand while also generating a direct payment that more than covers its cost.

In two columns for the New York Times -- "The Problem With Public Relations" and "Do P.R. People Have To Like The Food?"--restaurateur Bruce Buschel ignited a firestorm with his criticism of PR firms he worked with. The problem is that he (and the firms he hired) didn't understand the difference between public relations, media relations, and publicity.

If you tell your dinner guests their meal will be cooked by a celebrity chef and then instead serve them a high-sodium, chemical-laden entree and dessert, you have lied to them.

A&F sent out a press release recently revealing that they had offered money to Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino of "Jersey Shore" reality show fame to stop wearing the company's clothes. That crosses a line and can only hurt the brand.

Brands big and small rely on outside firms to help with their marketing. At the same time, social media marketing is all about finding and using your authentic voice, about putting a personality to your brand. How do you reconcile the two?

Sales, advertising, customer service, HR, and IT all want control of the digital media budget. I understand why they would ask for it, but I don’t think they’re as well-equipped to head the effort as PR pros. Here’s why PR should lead your social media efforts.

The word "marketing" encompasses a bunch of good activities and a bunch of bad activities; a bunch of useful philosophies and un-useful philosophies. The question is which specific marketing activities and philosophies are productive and useful and which are a waste of time and money.

A ghost-written blog is not a blog... it's really PR and needs to be renamed as such and moved to the appropriate area of the site.

After an exercise in which they sat in a group and discussed where they could cut expenses and re-invest the money and resources into other, more efficient ways of doing things, some healthcare CMOs came up with a list of five marekting tactics and tools they thought they would move away from in 2011.

In my experience, almost every marketer who insists on measurement is ultimately quite satisfied with pretty charts. There are a few reasons for this dilemma, but much of the onus really rests with the client to do a good portion of the systems implementation, tracking and analysis.

I've spent far too many years rewriting generic press releases and crappy ad copy when I paid good money expecting something I could actually use -- and don’t even get me started on marketers who think product specs are the same thing as customer benefits. Here are the Top 10 Stupid Lazy Marketing Tricks I've seen from inept marketers.

The "father of public relations" sold pianos by selling the music room -- creating conditions for the pianos to sell themselves -- pharmaceutical marketers now sell drugs by selling the diseases that they treat. The buzzword is "disease branding."

Tylenol — despite multiple product recalls, FDA criticism, and mistakes in handling its crisis — scored twice as high as BP on characteristics like "honest and trustworthy" and "acts in the customer's best interests." Why the difference?

The distinct discipline of Public Relations no longer exists. With rare exceptions, PR was conflated with "Media Relations," whose standing as a standalone practice is driving towards extinction.

Of course, you already know all about “branded entertainment.” While that can be an expensive, hit-or-miss proposition, at least one company has adopted a relatively low-cost, high-value approach that’s better described as “branded journalism” -- hiring journalists to produce content for a company-run site.

An end to tobacco advertising could paradoxically be something of a boon to cigarette companies, as it would absolve them of the charge that their ads were the cause of people's addictions.

You'd expect big-name consulting firms would be all over social media, but this experiment in trying to get attention with a tweet showed that very few of them are up to speed.

What can we learn from all this tomfoolery? Branding is now completely crowd-sourced. Any attempt to control the message is so last year. Get on board this cluetrain before it departs the station for good, as BP found out.

Different types of agencies bring different skill sets to social media. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your agencies are helping you effectively manage your social marketing.

Don Bartholomew, vice president of digital research at Fleishman Hillard, shares some of his thoughts, and his firm's approach to measuring social media and public relations. Fleishman has a different way of looking at metrics for communications and makes a pretty interesting argument for their points.

For many, Page 1 in search has become the new holy grail of business owners and SEO practitioners alike. That being said, here are some specific observations the folks at marketing firm Vocus made about news in blended search.

Just what does "public relations" mean anymore? It's lost its focus. For example, Jay Deragon of the Relationship Economy says a major pitfall arises when corporations use social media to manage PR. He suggests a few ways companies can change their PR practices to focus on the real needs of the public.

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, you name it are by far the fastest and most effective ways for an any individual or a company to build a thought leadership footprint, according to Edelman’s Steve Rubel.