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.

Let me preface this by saying I don’t write these posts simply to be contrarian. I just think that some perspective is in order.

I’ve said this before. My larger interest is in technology and how brands can connect with people through things that whirl and buzz. Taking a step beyond that is my interest in integrated advertising. So, count me as a member of the school of thought that no one medium can do the job of every other. That goes for social as well.

Too many social marketers believe that social will eventually take over the world. And for all intents and purposes, I agree. I agree that applications and experiences that are socially enabled and contextually aware is the future. The Internet of Things and the true semantic web are years away. But I do believe they’re on the horizon. Experiences that change and mold to fit who we are as individuals is the Holy Grail of advertising. Think of the scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise’s character enters Gap. We’re already seeing it with Facebook’s Open Graph and the rise of hyperlocal information.

The use of technology and the internet has become so commonplace that anyone can do it.

Social and contextual advertising will, in my belief, reach a level of ubiquity that pervades every facet of advertising. And with that ubiquity, comes widespread learning and understanding. In an age where the internet has become inescapable, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who, at this point, has never at least Googled, or checked email. Using the internet is no longer a luxury of the technologically savvy. It’s a place anyone can access, and the cost of entry is as little as a standard cell phone.

That said, social marketing is not rocket science.

Too many self-proclaimed social experts feel the need to justify their jobs, pointing down at digital and traditional advertisers/marketers, claiming they don’t get social and that they’re doing it all wrong. But it begs the question: Why do you think social is so far outside of their scope of understanding? Social is human. And last time I checked, humans ran all the other agencies in this industry.

Advertising—good advertising—is based on understanding human behavior. It’s about either tapping into, or in some cases, creating culture. So, while I admit that most advertisers are accustomed to talking at consumers, it’s a time tested truth that they are no stranger to indoctrinating thoughts, ideas, and beliefs into the minds of the masses. They simply have to learn how to do it in new ways. And as was the case with the widespread adoption of the internet, it’s only a matter of time.

“The Last Advertising Agency on Earth” video suggests that remaining relevant requires agencies to understand that times are a-changing and we need to change with them. Most agencies know this now, and are taking the necessary steps to stay connected.

It’s grossly naive to believe digital and traditional agencies don’t get it and never will. Sure they’ll stumble. But haven’t the social agencies stumbled as well in proving sales-driven ROI? An agency is only as good as the “agents” it hires. And if the BDA’s hire people who “get” social, what makes them any less capable of kicking our collective asses? Not only do they have the client roster, but they have the funds, execution/production resources, and greater leverage for true campaign integration.

Digital agencies doubted traditional agencies the same way. But then what do you say about agencies like SapientNitro? And even then, I think the argument isn’t the same as the one social agencies make. Digital and Traditional advertising are two very different disciplines, and require vastly divergent skill sets. We, on the other hand, sit in a place that is primarily based on common sense rhetoric. As a colleague of mine says, we do a lot of talking.

Few social agencies can execute, let alone on the scale and with the refinement of a digital agency. Honestly, any programmer/designer team worth their salt can create custom tabs in Facebook. And even the strategy that leads a good social program can be developed by a digital agency that has at least one person who understands the best practices.

Understanding social, and properly executing against it, is not something reserved to the “great thinkers” of a space that is barely 10 years old. It simply necessitates that you behave more like an individual, and less like a brand hocking your wares. The foundations of good account planning and strategy were carried over from the other disciplines. But polished execution, I’m sorry to say, is something most social agencies just can’t do because they don’t have the production resources and expertise.

That said, thinking “socially” isn’t necessarily hard, it just requires you to think differently; but it doesn’t require an entirely new skill set. So, who’s more likely to emerge when the dust has settled? Social agencies who do a lot of talking about Facebook and Twitter, but lack the skills to execute against programs larger than a custom tab; or digital agencies who have the expertise to develop deeply engrossing experiences, but need to brush up on the (very elementary) do’s and don’ts of social marketing?

Here’s a hint: Social agencies; hire some digital creatives.

There’s something I’ve thought about for some time, and was perpetuated by Zach Lieberman, a speaker at the PSFK Conference last week. Lieberman, who is a creative technologist, had a talk about Engaging the Human Element, and “making deeply engaging, entertaining and meaningful interactions” through art and technology. He talked about the power of individuals, and touched on a trend of the shift from DIY to DIWO (Do It With Others); an interesting notion that speaks to to the heart of social.

Joseph (Jaffe) would say that social’s purpose for brands is to Acknowledge, Incentivize, Dialogue, and Activate (AIDA as opposed to ADIA) its customers who would then act as advocates for the brand, bringing new customers into the fold. That’s one way of looking at it, and a legitimate way to use it.

Many others in the industry see social is an opportunity for brands to go to where their customers are (online), in order to listen and engage in dialogue. And if there’s a real opportunity for it, act as a unifier, bringing like-minded people together around a common idea, belief, or hobby through a branded community.

But when I had a conversation with a peer of mine, a third angle came up; one that speaks to the point Lieberman made at the conference. Is social capable of being more than just a response/support/inducement tool? What is the purpose of launching a branded community? Are we facilitating conversations for the sake of having conversations? What is the end goal? Lieberman’s work, such as the Eyewriter and Drawn, is about leaving the screen behind. He talked about the “Open Mouth Moment”, when a person drops their jaw in amazement at something they just experienced. He described this as “the pathway to someone’s heart.” How do we create these social experiences? How do we move beyond the Facebooks, Twitters, and YouTubes of the world and get people talking again?

The advent of social media did not mark the beginning of people talking to each other, or about brands. It merely facilitates conversations, but it isn’t the reason why people talk. People talked about Lieberman’s Drawn because it was an “Open Mouth Moment”. It’s about a strong message or idea that’s worth sharing. Most self-proclaimed “social media experts” are internetologists (a point I won’t contend) who rely on incentives over emotions. Dare I say it, this is something social marketers stand to learn from the Big Dumb Agencies (BDA), as George Parker would call them. Whether it sits well with you or not, before Facebook’s founders were even born, these agencies rose to prominence on the backs of people’s emotions. And even then, people talked about and recommended brands.

An "Open Mouth Moment" at the Draw art installation by Zach Lieberman

Griffin Farley, a Strategy Director at BBH and author of Propagation Planning, recently discussed something missing from social media that has long guided traditional advertising: Brand Mantras.

“Good creative briefs can do a great job of inspiring advertising but recently I have discovered that they don’t do a great job of grounding social media actions. I think Brand Mantras do a much better job of this because they describe an emotion, a theme, a writing style that can be used as the guide for the voice of the brand in social media.”

He went on to cite a Brand Mantra in the form of a poem written for CNN. Guess who wrote it. Mother New York; Creativity Magazine’s pick for 2009 Agency of the Year.

“Agency” shouldn’t be a bad word. It’s only begun to take on negative connotations, but we shouldn’t equate the term to immorality. We should instead take hold of it, reshape it, and bring it back to a point of distinction. There are many things BDAs do well, and there are many things that they do poorly, like thinking small. But that same point can be turned around and said about smaller boutiques; most especially social shops. Logistics aside, like the inability to scale, social marketers have forgotten the pathway to people’s hearts. They’ve embroiled themselves so deeply in “Activation” strategies that they’ve forgotten human strategies.

Social media is missing its soul, if it ever had one. Strong ideas and “Open Mouth Moments” are all the reason people need to propagate an idea; not free shipping offers and discount coupons. The tools are merely there to help spread the word, but they shouldn’t be the idea itself. The Obama campaign had one strong, succinct idea that used the tools simply as a way to circulate it: “Change”. It was simple; but it’s that simplicity which made it stir the collective emotions of a nation.

Lieberman said “The process of creating art is in many ways an R & D department for humanity”. I implore this industry to remember back to what made us smile and cry as humans. To capture that raw emotion, and recreate that pathway to people’s hearts.

I think it goes without saying that Facebook and Twitter are huge. Taking a quick glance at their usage statistics, you’ll see they’ve grown into behemoths in the social space.

As a disclaimer, I’m well aware that Twitter’s advertised user base of 75 million is grossly inflated, being as only 21% of its users are actually active, according to a brand new study by Barracuda Networks. But that’s neither here nor there, and doesn’t change the point of my argument.

When you get a new client and they want to go social, what’s the first thing you think of? Odds are, most of you raised your hand for Facebook. I’ll give it to you that Twitter isn’t for everyone, but let’s focus on Facebook for right now, a name that has basically become everyday diction for us. Do you realize that we all seem to immediately snap to Facebook? As if you’re retarded if you’re not on it.

I’m not saying that it’s not without good reason. It’s a stellar social network. It’s got everything from profiles, to photos and videos, to status updates, to corporate fan pages and groups. And it’s only getting better. The mobile site is brilliantly designed, and has grown to become the most visited mobile social network . So, I’m not here to say shame on you for looking to Facebook, but I do want to challenge you with the question: Why? Is it because all your other clients ended up with a Facebook Fan Page? Do you have a genuine argument as to why it’s the first thing that comes to mind, or is it because that’s just “what we do” nowadays?

Twitter, on the other hand, has reached a status that to me is quite different from Facebook. Because of the nature of the two services, I feel that Twitter took a different path, one towards channelization. Facebook is a social networking site. Twitter is a medium. I could be getting ahead of myself here, but the fashion in which Twitter has grown and is used, has led me to believe that we could be thinking about it all wrong. I don’t think Twitter is a social networking platform anymore; it’s transformed (not transcended) into something instrumental.

I think on some level it’s become as ordinary and unremarkable as the telephone, or email. We talk about not focusing on the tools, and I wholeheartedly agree. But isn’t that argument used to make the point of putting strategy ahead of tactics. What if Twitter really is just a tool. A tool like my iPhone, or my Samsung/TiVo combo. What is Twitter used for? Communication. It’s only a communication, and sometimes entertainment, tool; no different from the telephone or television. And the way we’ve instructed clients to use it, reflects that.

We measure our clients’ customer relationships in Facebook fans. We measure their “address book” in Twitter followers.

Sure it’s because of their mammoth size, but does anyone else realize that we’ve turned these two sites into the “Break Glass In Case of Emergency” social media services. They’ve become ubiquitous with the term Social Media. When you explain your job to your relatives, what do you say? I’d be surprised if neither Facebook nor Twitter came out of your mouth. When did “social media” become synonymous with these two sites/services/tools?

It’s a hackneyed term, and the vast majority of us don’t deserve the title, but why aren’t we called Digital Anthropologist or Ethnographers? Regardless of how many people may hate the usage of that title (and rightfully so), those same people (I’d hope) also understand that at the end of the day our job is about human beings connecting with human beings. Aren’t we all just digital social workers, hopefully making some kind of difference in peoples’ lives through smiles, laughter, or tears?

When did Facebook and Twitter become the masters of the universe, which have come to define our professional existences? And when did we become tools ourselves?

But if the past month has taught me anything, it’s been that it’d be nice to chronicle my life. I’ve had about three journals in my lifetime. Each of them lasting a few months before coming to an abrupt end. I’m sure many of you have had journals/diaries suffer the same fate.

I thought to myself that I seem to be doing a terrible job of keeping up with this blog, but even if I wasn’t, the point of it isn’t to tell my life’s story. Then I thought of starting a tumblelog. It’s quick, it’s easy, and I can post from just about anywhere thanks to its presence technology capabilities. But every time I told myself I’m going to sit down and create my tumblelog, I never do it. I don’t know if it’s lack of motivation, daily exhaustion, or otherwise.

I was never really into lifestreaming to begin with. It all seemed so voyeuristic. Hell, I think Lifecasting with Ovi by Nokia is a bit much. It’s tracking my position every ten minutes? Do I really want people to know exactly where I am at all times? It just sounds a little too…exposed. But then I thought about it. I’ve already exposed myself. I’ve already embraced lifestreaming to the nth degree. And that’s by being an avid Facebook user.

My Facebook account has been riding shotgun in my life for years now, having kicked Flickr, this blog, and the prospect of a tumblelog, to the side. I’m already uploading all my photos and videos to it, and tagging my friends. I express how I feel through status updates. I share cool links on my wall. I find out about parties through the events application. I reconnect with old friends, and make new ones. And ultimately, I’m living my life, all the while, it’s being quietly chronicled for safekeeping. It’s my life’s digital scrapbook.

So, what’s the point of having a tumblelog at this point, if my Facebook does it all (and offers an iPhone app to boot)? I don’t have the full answer, but I think it has something to do with the fact that a tumblelog, even if publicly available, is more personal. Like your own secret garden to silently place your thoughts, and share the more intimate aspects of your life that you may otherwise be uncomfortable broadcasting out to the wonderful world of Facebook. Because let’s be real, Facebook has become the new broadcast channel (could that be a blog post?).

I work on the internet. I play on the internet. I’ve found romance on the internet. It’s basically become my home, for better or worse. And I’m starting a tumblelog because psychologically it offers me a small crevice of (voyeuristic) privacy in a life that I, like so many others, have willingly handed over to the masses.

Don’t treat your work in social media like you treat your work on a TV spot. They’re not the same. In many ways, social media is a living, breathing creature. If you really want to “get it,” incorporate it into your everyday life. Don’t just keep a “business account” on Facebook. Really dive in. Put yourself out there. Make a personal account and share videos of your family, or photos from poker night with your real friends. Stare awkwardly into your mirror with your camera phone in an attempt to capture your next profile photo. Get on Twitter and find your friends and co-workers. Trust me, you’ll look cooler for doing so.

The reason why my generation has taken to social media like a fish to water while you flounder on the shore, isn’t because we’re cleverer than you. Not by any means whatsoever. It’s because it’s not a side-dish in our lives. We don’t see it as a obligation because Seth Godin says we should be doing it, or because it’s what our clients want. It has become the centerpiece of our social experience, for better or worse. We keep in touch with our family, friends, and acquaintances through these mediums. We’re on them all the time because they’ve become instrumental in facilitating our relationships with one another.

If you want to understand social media, beyond what you read online and in books, adopt it the way we have. If you want to understand social media, you have to EXPERIENCE it. Don’t just read about it and fumble trying to apply what you’ve read to practice.

It’s a lot easier than it sounds. You can start by friending me:

Twitter
Facebook
Flickr
YouTube
MySpace
Lala

However, I will say that I think there’s just too many people (read marketers) who have clung to it like it is the second coming. Last week, Morgan Stanley’s 15-year old intern, Matthew Robson, wrote a report that shook up the marketing world. Why? Because in it he said that teens just aren’t into Twitter. First off, it wasn’t a real, full-fledged research report in the traditional sense, so, why people acted as though the apocalypse was upon us is beyond me. Even with that aside, however, why is this news? This kid wasn’t the first to look into the massively overhyped impact of Twitter.

You have Robson saying this, but if you go back not so long ago, The Harvard Business Review did a study that showed that more than half of all Twitter users visit the site less than once a month. And even though nearly half of all Twitter activity comes from the various desktop/mobile applications available, I think it’s safe to say we all send at least one tweet out a month using the site. Furthermore, the study found that the median number of lifetime tweets per user was only one.

Taking another step, Participatory Marketing Network conducted a survey on 200 18-24 year olds and found that only 22% of them use Twitter. And iMedia Connection’s Jason Clark published a piece that did a great job of calling Twitter out. He pointed out the 30% retention rate, which translates to 7 out of 10 users who use it once and stop.

Above and beyond all that, what really upsets me is how some people will defend Twitter to the death, as if it is their child. Why is it so outrageous that not everyone is into Twitter? Is it because it proves that the tremendous amount of hype surrounding it is just that: hype?

Social media platforms will come and go. Yes, Twitter is one of the big ones right now, but who’s to say that it’ll still be around in 5 years. We need to remember that it isn’t the tools that are important, it’s the philosophy behind them. And the underlying theme for all of these sites is social interaction. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. Biz Stone and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t start Twitter and Facebook, respectively, for the sake of starting them. They did it to facilitate what we naturally do as human beings: communicate. And just as human communication evolved from carrier pigeons, to morse code, to telephones, to email, and now to Twitter, it will continue to evolve. They’re all just tools ultimately serving the same purpose: connecting people.