Do you like cockroaches? Boston was gearing up for maximum humidity as I stepped into the surprisingly cooler depths of a local bagel shop. It was still early. The trains were running quickly and there was barely a line for fresh bagels. Tweeting about beverage choices had given me a hankering for orange juice.

I picked up a bottle of Naked OJ as I chatted with the older gentleman in front of me. He paid for his bagel with a $100 bill and it started a conversation about how he viewed cash as the better budgeting tool while I found a card better for keeping track of spending.

We each paid. As I turned to find a napkin, I found one of these:

The image gives a near life-size representation of what the creature looked like. I took a napkin and reached to capture the roach. It escaped. The man with the $100 bill said, “there he is, next to the napkin holder.” The roach didn’t escape. I tossed the gruesome package into the garbage and remarked to my hunting partner, “welcome to Boston.” He laughed.

That was it. There won’t be a blog post calling out the bagel shop for hosting giant cockroaches. There won’t be tweets arguing for free bagels and as much orange juice as I like (good stuff, by the way).

I’ve never had a bad experience at this bagel shop. The staff has always been prompt, polite, and helpful. It isn’t a dirty place. They just happened to have a cockroach on the counter the day I went in. They’ll never know what happened.

Just like you never know how many car accidents you narrowly avoided during a trip, most businesses have no way of telling how many mishaps go unpunished because they typically do a great job and everybody knows it.

In a world of Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, and review blogs, it’s important to remember that none of those reviews matter if you’ve got a base of customers who truly believe you’re doing a great job. So do great work. The rest always follows.

You’re all psyched about how integrated your next campaign is. You’ve got Facebook, Twitter, Mixi, V-Kontakte, and Tuenti campaigns that all support each other, build your primary contact list, and extend the reach of your paid broadcast efforts. There’s just one little detail missing.

You’re still paying to advertise for Facebook and other favorite platforms instead of your own campaign. How do I know this? Look at your links:

Your paid media includes mentions like Facebook.com/brandtryingveryhard in the copy. That’s great for the platforms, not so great for you.

Leading with something everybody knows about works pretty well for article headlines. “Starbucks Sexual Harassment Fiasco” will gain a lot more heat than, “Sexual Harassment Fiasco” as a headline because many people are already aware of Starbucks. But when it comes to links, we’re dealing with a very different situation.

In most cases, social platform call-outs are offered up as a tertiary call to action below big ideas and major action. In simple terms, that means your audience is seeing the call-out on their way out the door. You’ve only got a bit of their attention and for only a moment.

Giving that attention to a social platform is a mistake you no longer need to make.

Transform “Facebook.com/brandtryingveryhard” which includes your brand in the secondary position without tracking to “Brandtryingveryhard.com/Facebook” which places your brand first while allowing click-through tracking.

Tracking leads to benchmarking which leads to accountability and possibly the realization that parts of your campaign are rubbish. But that’s something you want to know, right?

Thanks to Jeff Lawrence and Khayyam Wakil for reading drafts of this.