This post was originally published on the Dachis Group blog, Collaboratory.

Transforming your brand’s tone of voice, for the sake of achieving relevance in social, is a fool’s errand. You don’t have to find your brand voice in social, because you’ve already created it.

Brands commonly homogenize their voice when dealing in social – a common mistake. True, a conversational tone is best used when engaging fans and followers; but that universal rule can be equally destructive if it means soft-pedaling your brand’s personality.

Your brand guidelines probably look something like this...

Most companies have brand guidelines, or some kind of fluff piece that goes over tone of voice. One client of mine, in particular, comes to mind. Their tone was crisply defined in a slick-looking and thoroughly thought-out document that was given to us as a reference point when defining their social media content strategy. It’s probably only ever dug out when a new agency partner is hired, which was the case here. But when it comes to engaging in social, it should be your Bible.

In most cases, they’re filled with loquacious, and oftentimes unnatural, language. But it’s meant to be a starting point, not a set of rigid statutes. Your brand guidelines should act as a guiding post for your tone of voice in social; because, if nothing else, they embody what it is you stand for. And in social, you have to stand for something, because it’s that which defines you as a “person” in the space. It dictates how you talk, and what you talk about.

As individuals, we have different personalities — the same should be true of brands in social. Whether your brand’s voice is friendly and conversational, or confident and haughty, your tone should shine through. Anything less, and you’re simply faking who you are; and no one wants to be friends with a fake.

The earlier mentioned brand’s voice in social, as we determined, is a direct lift from its brand’s guidelines. It has an edgy, somewhat self-serving, “I’m who you want to be,” attitude. While speaking with such a voice goes against everything most social marketers tell you, it’s a tone that’s reflective of what the brand stands for; and it’s working. Even as a brand tip-toeing into social, it has already seen significant organic growth on Twitter — rocketing past 1,000 followers in a month and half, and gaining the respect of influential bloggers along the way.

But it’s not just working because of how the brand sounds. A large part has to do with what the brand is talking about. If you’re an authority on a subject, and want people to know, don’t hesitate to express it. It comes down to a delicate balance of talking the talk, and walking the walk. Too much of either, and you become a lot of talk and no action, or simply boring to talk to.

The guy who tells amazing stories, but has never done anything himself, is just as bad as the guy who’s lived the stories, but is a terrible narrator.

That said, talk about interesting things, interestingly. Stick to your values. And be yourself.

Your brand already has a voice. You’ve defined your personality in the form of brand guidelines. Use them to tell charming stories that touch and inspire people. For all of its over-the-top language, if you read between the lines, the key to your voice in social is there. So, dig it up from the bowels of your hard drive. Don’t abandon it. Adapt it. And if your brand doesn’t have a defined personality…well then, maybe you shouldn’t be in social. Because who wants to talk to that guy?

I highly recommend "Hegarty on Advertising". Nothing groundbreaking, but it inspired me to get back in touch with my creative side.

I’ve long written about the uselessness of strategy if proper execution isn’t there to actualize it, and vice versa. I’m thankful for the flexibility of my organization, in that professional mobility and exploration are supported. It has given me a chance to try something different.

I’ve lived my life as a strategist with a streak of creativity (or so I’d like to think), having initially been exposed to advertising through a wildly creative digital agency. Having stayed in touch with many of my old colleagues, I longingly listen to stories about applications and programs built for the sole purpose of inspiring people. Couple this with having just read “Hegarty on Advertising,” and I was eager to create something.

I was bit by the bug.

While I know my way around Photoshop and InDesign, and even fancied myself an amateur graphic designer at one point in time, my primary strength is with words. I went to school for Copywriting after all. And thus, my role was defined: I would shift from the Strategy team to the Creative “department” as a Creative Strategist, with a speciality in copywriting.

Ever since I was in school “studying” the art of copywriting, I felt like there was too strict of a demarcation between Strategy and Creative. The former informs the latter, but it’s the latter which brings the thinking to life. The issue I have is that I want to do both. I want to be the cartographer and the explorer.

I’m excited to live in the space between.

‎”Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs

We love you Steve.

Remember when this counted for something?

It was bound to happen. Although social media isn’t getting the lion’s share of anyone’s media budget, it doesn’t stop the fact that most are scrambling to get something, anything, off the ground in social. This presents great opportunities (especially for my employer) to redefine the way brands engage people. But it also sows the seeds of massive issues down the line.

When television debuted, it was a game-changer for the advertising business. Soon, everyone was clamoring to produce their own television spots. If you weren’t on TV, you weren’t anybody. And thus, 60 and 30-second spots flooded the airwaves. By the new millennium, television commercials were a commodity, spilling over onto the Internet, disguised as “web videos.”

It happened again in the “digital age” with the microsite. Not to say there’s anything intrinsically wrong with microsites, as Calle Sjonell at BBH argues. But they did become a commodity.

It seems that social is headed for the same fate. And it’s no surprise. As humans, we have a long and terrible history of settling fruitful lands, only to sap the life from them. We milked the television spot to death. We milked the microsite to death. And now we’ve set our sights on social media.

Any brand can get on Facebook and create a page; which they have. And that is problem No. 1. The issue  isn’t with providing accessibility. That’s something I celebrate, as it flattens the world and at least gives smaller brands a chance to shine. It’s an issue of standards.

Conglomerates create pages for every brand they own, but fail to adequately invest in most of them.  It costs nothing to get in on the game. Which in turn attracts a whole lot of people to the table who don’t have the chips to play, or aren’t willing to bet big. That is the commoditization of social media; and it’s only going to get worse as time marches on.

But it’s a dangerous game we’re playing. Because now, more than ever, the work we do has to touch people. It has to inspire them and incite their imagination.

The television spot was about absorption. The microsite was about interaction. But social media is about sharing. And in order to complete that conversion, you have to ignite your audience’s spirit. That’s what makes social media marketing the most difficult form of advertising to master.

It’s a culmination of everything that has preceded it. Good social marketing combines the storytelling of television, the interaction and involvement of a microsite, and the inspiration necessary to encourage someone to share what they experienced with all of their friends.

That’s not at all an easy task. In an era where social sharing makes or breaks a campaign, what you do has to truly capture people’s imagination and arouse their curiosity. And the brands who believe the answer is doing a massive media buy on Facebook, will be in for a rude awakening. That will get you the audience numbers (which, don’t get me wrong, is a necessity), but that’s in no way an indication of your ability to inspire them. Ultimately, that spark is needed to drive meaningful behavior.

This post is for naught. Our history has shown that it’s in our nature to ruin good things that come to us. Social media will be exploited and twisted until it’s as perverse as the microsite and television spot before it. But like its predecessors, a few will get it right. There will be a few gems. There already are. And I hope to help craft some of the ones we have yet to see, before the death knell rings.

If it were up to the semantic web, I would have never discovered Coldplay.

I was having a conversation with a co-worker about what was going to be my next blog post, and something she said inspired me to switch gears and take a slight detour.

Not that I’m an expert on the subject, but I find the semantic web, and its theorized possibilities, absolutely fascinating. Imagine a world where everything is meticulously tailored to you. Not just the advertising. But search results; music and films; and even new friends. THAT is what I think social is here to do. It’s not just a breakthrough in communication. That’s far too limiting, and honestly, I think a bit shortsighted.

We’ve been seeing it for years in targeted ads, Amazon recommendations, and Netflix suggestions. The internet has made enormous strides in personalizing its recommendations based on our connections and experiences. But that’s exactly what scares my colleague about the semantic web. When is the internet no longer connecting us with the things it believes we will enjoy, but instead shielding us from wildly different experiences that we may in fact love?

My co-worker is a Groupon junkie, and prides herself on having no niche. The deals she buys vary far and wide, and if the semantic web were to try to tailor experiences to her it would brilliantly fail.

For most, the semantic web isn’t a problem. But for those who don’t want to be put in a box; for those who never want to do the same thing twice; the semantic web has an ugly side. For all the relevance it promises to bring, an argument can be made that it also threatens to bring an insular view of the world.

I pretty much exclusively listen to Hip-Hop and R&B. And if it weren’t for a conversation between two co-workers I overheard years ago, I would have never downloaded Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”. An album I love, and which led me to buy all of their previous works, as well as discover John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and Jack Johnson. Don’t judge me.

There’s a fine line between what’s junk, and what could be a new, and interesting experience. Where is that line drawn? The more you submit yourself to the wonders of this new way of the web, the more custom-fit your experience becomes. But at what cost?

I hate to admit that this year’s PSFK Conference was not as explosive and impacting for me as it was last year. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to come away from one and not feel even the slight bit inspired. This year was no different. Among the speakers and panels, my two favorites came down to Joe Gebbia (co-founder of Airbnb) and Justin Gignac (NYC artist). Although they talked about two different things, it was the same story to me.

Airbnb started in the pages of a Moleskine. Where's your next project going to spawn from?

Gebbia re-told the humble beginnings of Airbnb (From Moleskine to Marketplace); how it started with the need to pay their rent, and evolved into a viable alternative to hotel lodging. Gignac, on the other hand, discussed his NYC Garbage and Wants For Sale projects, with a particular emphasis on simply going out and doing things; hence the title of his piece: Doin’ It and Doin’ It and Doin’ It Good.

Years ago, an old mentor, who is probably the most qualified to say so, taught me the importance of personal projects. Sometimes they turn into lucrative businesses, sometimes they remain ventures of self-fulfillment. Either way, you should be doing something. Anything. By remaining static, only doing the assignments you’re given, you never really grow. At least not at the pace you could by taking matters into your own hands. In Gebbia’s case, the need to pay rent pushed him to discover how to run a profitable business in three short years.

Oftentimes, on the creative side of the advertising/marketing business, we talk about things like rapid prototyping and iterative agile development for our work. As Gareth Kay aptly put it: “Stop communicating products, and start making communication products.” But we only ever seem to apply that thinking to our work, never to ourselves. I think it’s about time we turn the gun around and hold ourselves to a higher standard as well. What are the things you love? Perhaps it’s photography, biking, or digital art.

Find out what you’re passionate about, figure out a way to express that creatively, and just do it. Don’t do it for a buck. Don’t do it to get seen. Do it for yourself. Do it because it fills a creative void in your life and makes you feel complete. I’m no shining example of what I’m preaching, as this blog is the only up-and-running side project I have, but I do have another in the oven that I’ve been working on for a few months.

Which brings me to my final point: Stop making excuses.

In all honesty, there’s no reason (well, I suppose money is a good reason) that I haven’t gotten further with my project. Like many others, I find excuse after excuse to avoid just getting it done. You’re either too tired, too broke, or you want to go to the gym. Whatever it is, stuff it. Like a relationship, if you really wanted to, you would find time to make it work. Even if it’s only small bits at a time. Gignac closed his presentation with a point I want to share with you: “Making excuses takes the same time as making progress.”

So stop bitching, and start doing.

I get the impression we've forgotten about this.

One of my first blog posts naively focused on the three thing you need in social media to succeed. Surprisingly, I think it still accounts for my most visited blog post, despite its broadness in scope. I foolishly rattled off:

1. Be Human
2. Educate Yourself
3. Don’t Do Everything.Just Do It Right.

I say “foolishly” because I believe, even then, I was clinging to the same bullshit tenets that many other social marketers hold dear to their hearts, and use as fodder for social media strategies. After removing my marketing hat, and “being human” for a moment, I realized that there’s really only one thing you need to be successful in social media, and it has nothing to do with social media. It does, however, have everything to do with basic marketing.

It seems like we’ve become so impressed with ourselves that we overlook the most basic tenets of marketing, like the very first “P”: Product. And we’re so obsessed with “the right messaging,” that we completely fail to ask the question: Is that product any good?

Messaging matters. But the quality of the product is even more important.

Social media has the power to amplify your story, as well as those of your customers’. Your customers, however, aren’t going to be telling stories about your social marketing prowess. They’re going to be telling stories of their experience with your product. Whether they’re happy or dissatisfied. Wouldn’t you rather the former? If so, then don’t look to marketing as the answer to your problems. Look to product development and experience design.

The backbone of social is providing something worth talking about. If you want flash in the pan success, then go for that funny viral video, or interesting microsite. But that isn’t the key to long-lasting conversation and advocation.

I recently joined a new gym, Blink Fitness, which is owned by Equinox. It’s far from having the same level of amenities as Equinox, but it has enough of what I need, as well as the fit and finish of a higher-end gym. Since having joined, I’ve written a glowing Yelp review, posted to their Facebook wall, written a status update about it, told four of my friends, and brought one of them with me to try it out. All in the matter of three weeks. Despite having a Facebook page, which is pretty basic in functionality, the company has little in the way of marketing (social included).

So, what got me so excited to share my experience with everyone? The gym itself.

At the end of the day, what gets people talking, what gets them fired up and itching to share the news, is a cool product. Not the marketing. Not the number of fans or followers. The product. If you want to see success, instead of spending your money on a social media agency, spend it at a service/product design firm, and give them the keys to the kingdom. Make sure you’re providing the absolute best experience, and THEN worry about spreading the word. I guarantee you’ll achieve better results.

Note: I was recently pointed to an article by Rick Webb from The Barbarian Group that champions these thoughts and figured it would be of interest.

Who's more valuable left or right-brain people? Trick question.

I joined the hordes of tech geeks down in Austin last week for my first SXSW. Between the countless parties, including one full of steam punkers (go ahead and look it up), I found myself at a number of interesting speaker sessions, mostly about advertising, technology, and innovation. One of the sessions I attended, however, was about the necessary balance between technology and creativity.

Speaker John Davis asserted that the argument over who delivers greater value to an assignment or task, tech heads or creatives, is a divisive one that needs to be squashed, given the need for both to create quality work. It’s an old debate, but it’s especially prevalent today in social marketing, where the desire for measurement and analytics is seemingly greater than the desire for interesting creative work.

No single person is good at everything, Davis said. It goes without saying, but he urged that everyone needs to work together in order to produce the best work. As a strategist, I personally fall on the side of creativity and bigger picture thinking. And while I’m analytical in nature, ANALYTICS is admittedly not my strong suit. But there are plenty of people within Dachis Group for me to defer to and collaborate with should I come across a problem I can’t solve alone.

To that point, although corporations could certainly use our services in the area of social business design, I think there are plenty of agencies, which are hired for their interdisciplinary skills, that could use our services as well. I have a lot of friends throughout the ad industry, and the ones in larger, “more established,” firms say they run into many of the same political and cultural issues that our clients have.

Companies come to us (agencies) for solutions. If they only knew how broken and mechanized our own internal workflows and processes were, they wouldn’t hire us, simply based on assumption that we’re no better off than they are. At no other place, short of maybe Apple, is the combination of technological and creative expertise as necessary as within an agency. We live and die by our ability to effortlessly collaborate with one another to get the job done. But are we all really walking the walk?

The short answer is no. Many of the most fabled agencies in the space have gotten so large their cultures have stagnated, and their employees have become cogs in a massive machine. How are these supposed change makers, cool hunters, and futurists supposed to solve their clients’ problems, when they can’t solve their own? It seems like everyone, from the pews to the pulpit, could stand to be a little more social.

The 4 archetypes that guide Dachis Group's social business design are Ecosystem, Hivemind, Dynamic Signal, and Metafilter.

Powered, the social media agency I worked for, was recently acquired by Dachis Group. Through this new venture of his, Razorfish co-founder, Jeffrey Dachis, is trying to validate a concept that has grown a pair of legs over the last few years: Social Business. It’s a relatively new concept to me, having spent all my time working on the consumer engagement side of social media. In a nutshell, however, it’s the process of internalizing social media ideals and applying many of those same consumer-facing archetypes to internal communications, policies, processes, and corporate culture, ultimately leading to a better company that makes better products.

My views and beliefs about social media have been called contrarian and I’ve frequently been labeled a devil’s advocate. But the truth is, I never saw myself falling into social in the first place. I didn’t touch social media, professionally, until my last internship in college, when I was doing blogger outreach for the launch of Dirt Candy. The reason for my skepticism stems from my belief that most social media programs are inherently digital campaigns cleverly dressed in Facebook fan pages and YouTube profiles. I think it’s naive to believe that the majority of the industry doesn’t lump social into digital, and for good reason. We, as marketers, fail to draw significant lines between the two.

Then again, should we be drawing lines at all?

I’ve written about the pervasiveness of social, and how the lines between media are becoming blurred. What I don’t hope for, however, is everything to be powered by Facebook Connect. If the future of social is to be determined by sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, then my skepticism about its future is well-founded, and it will fail to escape digital’s sphere of influence to become a ubiquitous force that knows no departmental bounds.

But I have hope; and it comes from social business design.

My antithetical attitudes towards social are born out of a desperate belief that it’s so much more powerful than what we’re currently doing with it. We talk about how disruptive a force social media is, and how it’s changing the landscape forever, but what are we really doing to drive that grandiose change? Surely it isn’t Twitter races.

I’ve always been a firm believer in the notion that people don’t develop affinities for brands just because they have a fan page, or tweet 3-5 times a day. People ultimately grow closer to brands because of the benefits they render in our lives. I used to be a hardcore Microsoft and Windows user. That is, until the iPhone came out, which led me to a MacBook, which led me to an iMac, and soon enough an iPad (com’on 2nd generation). I got caught in Apple’s famous halo effect; but I’m not ashamed.

I was introduced to many of Apple's other great products following my original iPhone purchase.

That transition didn’t happen because Apple had a YouTube contest or an elaborate fan acquisition strategy. It’s because they create wonderful products. It’s as simple as that. You’ll be hard pressed to find a direct connection between a company’s social media marketing and long-lasting effects on their bottom line. What you will find is a direct connection between the creation of better, more innovative, products and increased sales and demand.

It’s believed that social business design has the power to transform a company into an environment where free-thinking and innovation can thrive, theoretically leading to better ideas and better products. Corporate process change may not sound as sexy, but I believe that what we’re currently doing with social media, as an industry, is only skin deep. We have merely scratched the surface of what I think is possible through the democratization of these tools; at least I hope so. Because if this is it, then I might as well go back to my digital roots.

I don’t think this is it, however. I believe there’s a long road ahead for social; and thankfully it doesn’t lead to marketing more effectively on Facebook. We should aspire to more. We should challenge ourselves to find greater purpose for an idea that can potentially change the way business is conducted forever. We simply have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and believe that we’re on the cusp of something much larger and much more powerful than what we initially set out to achieve.

Note: The views expressed on this blog are those of mine alone and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer, past or present.

Something I have noticed, both through observation and firsthand experience, is the obsession brand marketers, as well as agencies, have with turning to Facebook to resolve their social media challenges.

Jim Carroll (Chairman, BBH London) recently weighed in on a subject he calls Wind Tunnel Marketing. The idea is that we’ve become so committed to becoming “relevant” to our customers that we’ve forgotten the importance of being different.

Oftentimes, we look to Facebook as the solution to our problems because we have all come to believe that’s where our customers are. Where I find myself at odds with marketing in Facebook isn’t so much the idea that we all think our customers might be there. That very well may be true. It’s our “drive to identify best demonstrated practice, to codify it and coach it.”

An excerpt from the Labs post really stood out to me:

Few noticed, as we learned to lean more heavily on our norms and pre-tests, that expertise and judgement were a devaluing currency.

And few noticed, at least at first, that the measures designed to raise the floor of communication output were at the same time lowering the ceiling.

I believe there’s a place for research and best practices; but there’s also a place for gut instinct and dissension. The problem with everyone measuring themselves by the same yardstick is that we end up looking and acting the same as well. I hate to break it to some, but following the common best practices aren’t the key to solving your social media woes. Having the best Facebook page within your competitive set is not the answer.

You’re preaching to the converted on your Facebook page. And I can tell you now, they aren’t fans of your page because you update it 3-5 times a week, consistently reply to users, or follow any number of other Facebook best practices. They’re fans because they have always liked your brand, and only represent a fraction of the people who do.

Turning those few fans into advocates for your brand will not come as a function of following the best practices. It will happen because you decide to do something different. Or, more appropriately, it will happen because you decide to do something worth talking about.

Everyone these days likes to point to Old Spice as a good case study. The campaign’s success online had absolutely nothing to do with its Facebook page, which happens to follow all the best practices, or its blog, which most definitely does not. Instead it had everything to do with providing content so interesting, so creative, so different, that people felt compelled to spread it through their social graph, whether they were a fan of the brand or not.

There are two ways to build advocacy. You can preach to the converted and hope they evangelize the message out; or, you can focus on new acquisition and attempt to bring people into the fold. Either way, you won’t get there by reading from the same book as everyone else. Dr. Gregory House isn’t entertaining to watch because he follows the rules. Likewise, people aren’t going to talk about your brand to their friends if you aren’t doing anything noteworthy, regardless of how much they like you.

Carrol holds that, “Wind Tunnel Marketing is turning communication into a numbers game, a game where scale of resource wins every time – whether that be media budget, distribution network or sales team. The cost efficiencies of brand differentiation are notable largely by their absence.”

If we all march to the beat of the same drum, the ones to finish line first will be those with the most money to spend. But recent history has shown that by innovating in your communications whenever possible, the necessity to buy attention becomes needless.