When it comes to creating a social media strategy, there is one, often overlooked piece of the puzzle that falls through the cracks. The who is doing what piece of the puzzle.

I work with clients to create communication plans and digital strategies that usually include some form of social media. I often get an objection when the social elements of the program are introduced. Something along the line of “we tried a blog but it wasn’t a success” or “we have a Facebook page, but it isn’t doing anything for our business.”

Who’s Doing What?

Digging deeper into the failure, many times it is because the business did not understand who is doing what. The blog was a failure because posts were not written on a regular basis. The Facebook page was a failure because they were not engaging their audience, they were just collecting names. As my colleague Jay Baer preaches, social media is not about collecting names, it is about activating your fans. That can only happen if you know who is doing what.

It can get complex depending on the size of your social media program, but here are some tips to help make sure you’re managing social operations appropriately:

• If you are blogging, create an editorial calendar. You don’t need to know the what, just the who and when.
• Again with the blogging, make sure your blogger or bloggers want to do it, if they are forced into it, you won’t get your posts on time.
• If you have a Twitter account, set up a CoTweet account to help manage interactions, and define who is responsible for interaction.
• If someone asks a question in a social space, make sure you have an expert on hand that can answer the question if it gets too technical for the day-to-day social listener.
• If you are being badgered by someone that continues to post off-topic or negative comments in your space, what is the plan to engage them, and who is going to do it?
• If you have a Facebook page, know who is responsible for engagement. Who is responsible for adding content? Photos? Videos? It might be different people for each task.
• Who is monitoring social spaces where you don’t currently have outpost? There are tons of free and paid tools out there that help you to monitor the conversations taking place.

Take a look at the Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet we use at the Flint Group. Hopefully it will help you figure out who is doing what.

Social Media Responsibilities Worksheet

I encountered a billboard posted by a reputable national insurance company that said, “For all your insurance needs.” My immediate thought: “Really, that’s the best you can do?”

The statement, “For all your [insert term here] needs” is overused, ignored, and irrelevant yet multitudes of businesses continue to use it. To prove a point, out of curiosity I ran a Google search for the term, “For all your needs.” 1.15 BILLION results! So by using the term, you essentially are saying you are just like 1.15 BILLION other businesses out there… no big deal.

Think your business is unique enough to get away with it? Think again. You can search for pretty much ANYTHING with the, “For all your needs” statement and find millions of results and other businesses just like yours using it to generalize their services… and scoring no points with customers along the way.

How about, For all your fertilizer needs (10.4 million results). Or, For all your filtration needs (7.8 million). Or Logistics (19.8 million), or Catering (10.5 million), or Zoology (7.5 million), or Votive candles (What are votive candles anyway? Seriously, 1.3 million results for all your votive candle needs!).

I once worked with an esteemed copywriter who would bristle whenever he saw or heard the term, “For all your needs.” He would flat out refuse to include it in anything he wrote. He would say, “How do they know what I need? It’s impossible for them to have everything I need!” He had a book where he kept examples of ads that used the term and as you would turn page-after-page the statement would become more and more irrelevant. A wasted opportunity to share a meaningful message with a customer.

Every business is built on some point of differentiation, be it price or quality, service or product line, convenience or style. Every brand stands for something, so let your communications be about your differentiation. In most cases you have likely invested significant time and money to cultivate a point of differentiation for your business, so let it show. Communicate it clearly in everything you do. In your service, your marketing, your direct communications and your advertising.

Make your message meaningful and memorable. Your customers will appreciate knowing what makes you unique.

Colin is a senior strategist for The Flint Group. Follow him on Twitter @colinnclarke or on Facebook at Facebook.com/cnclarke.

I don’t think it would be too presumptuous to say that many of us were drawn to the creative field because of the potential for personal expression. It comes in tandem with the services we provide clients. Our work is not necessarily about us personally, but in the end, our fingerprints are all over it. Like any good craftsman, we take pride in our work. The ideal outcome for any project is where the client is thrilled with the results and we as creatives feel like proud parents sending our child off into the world.

This happens when we get excited about the work we’re doing. Sometimes it’s easy: you get a job that’s right up your alley and immerse yourself in it. Other times, projects can be challenging. It seems like what makes a creative professional really shine is the ability to make incredible things happen from the very constraints that seemed daunting at the outset.

I guess for this to happen you need to embrace the challenge and, somewhere along the way, wait for inspiration to strike. It may come to you in your sleep, it may come from a long intense brainstorm session, or it may be sparked by some existing work you’ve seen. However it comes, I think we all have our go-to places for quick inspiration. 

Here are a few I use regularly:

The Web: This one’s obvious, but the Internet is our direct line to what’s going on every day in the creative universe. These are some sites that I’m on almost daily: Behance, Abduzeedo, CardObserver, and Motionographer.

Books: I love books. In my opinion it’s impossible to replace the tactile experience of a good book with a digital screen. Here’s a couple I like:

How to Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul by Adrian Shaughnessy

Green Graphic Design by Brian Dougherty

The Record Store: We’re lucky to be located right across the street from the only existing record store in town, the Electric Fetus. I go there on my lunch break from time to time just to look at album covers. It’s not the type of work I typically get to do, but it gets me jazzed nonetheless.

Music: Music and creativity go hand in hand. Sometimes it’s good to block out distractions and just get into a rhythm with your iTunes library.

Inspiration is a personal thing and it’s different for everyone. For some people it may be a good cup o’ joe and that perfect yacht-rock song, while for others it’s peaceful silence and a favorite quote. Whatever it may be, that inspiring thing plays a crucial role in the creative process.

What gets you motivated to do your best work? My perspective is that of a designer, but it would be interesting to hear what works for you.

After a year of struggle, she’s back.

If you attended the 2009 Hatling & Flint Circus party, you may have heard the horrible news that Barbie was launched from the cannon and got trapped in a tree.

Original footage has been lost. This is not the actual Barbie.

Despite our efforts, she could not be rescued. We tried and tried with no avail — we had to count our losses. We watched autumn turn into winter, winter to spring, and now, spring to summer.

She has been through turbulent wind, pelting rain, bitter cold temps, freezing blizzards, blinding snow and scorching heat. She survived plagues of bugs, threats from squirrels and cuttings from territorial birds.

We’re still not sure how she got out of the tree. With thoughts of another winter on the horizon, she may have been a jumper. The birds may have grown tired of her purple tutu and big smile. Maybe the tree grew tired of her constantly perfect posture. Either way, she was back on solid ground. Once on the ground, she had the ants and a riding lawn mower to contend with. Luckily, Bill saw a purple ballet costume and stopped the mower just in the nick of time. We don’t know the events of that Thursday in July, but we do know that she landed on the padded lawn with that expression and pose that only Barbie could hold.

An excited Barbie. Once on the ground, she had a hard time leaving her tree.

Through all of this, she hasn’t lost that sparkle in her eyes or that big, genuine smile. Her clothes may be a little tattered and sun bleached, but by golly, her hair is still perfectly coiffed.

WestmorelandFlint’s newest employee, Joel Wescott, talks about his transition from California to Duluth and how inspiration is like soup.

Email is one of the most frequently used forms of communication in the business world. The more we use it, the more it seems we stray from formal writing. The following list includes tips to writing more professional and effective emails. Feel free to add your own tips to the list.

1. Keep your message short and sweet. People don’t want to read unnecessary information. If it can’t be summarized easily, it might be worth a phone call or face-to-face conversation.

2. Use proper spelling, grammar and punctuation. Write an email as if you are writing a formal letter, especially if you are writing to someone outside of your organization. Always reread for typos and to make sure your point is clear. If you feel you have spent a lot of time editing, save it as a draft and go back to it later. You may catch things that you previously scanned over.

3. Keep your emotions in check. People sometimes find it easy to say things in electronic communication that they would never say to someone’s face. Avoid “flame mail”—if you receive an email that concerns you, have a conversation with the person. You may find that it is all a misunderstanding. Remember—once you hit send you can never take it back.

4. Use the high importance button sparingly. It’s kind of like the boy who cried wolf. If you use it too much, people will think that none of your messages are important.

5. DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS. This gives the feeling that you are yelling at someone.

6. Include contact information in your signature. Some things are not easily solved by email, and there may be instances where people need to call you or even mail something to you.

7. Include a subject in the subject line. This makes it easier for people to reference your emails. If you are emailing someone on a different subject than a previous correspondence, open a new email to avoid confusion. 

8. Keep formatting simple. Avoid using fancy backgrounds and crazy fonts. Some email systems only recognize simple text, so they may not be able to recognize the font in your message, making it impossible to read.  

9. Keep attachment file sizes to a minimum. If you are worried the recipient’s system may not be able to receive large files, make arrangements to send them a disc or post to a sharing site, such as www.yousendit.com, to avoid server problems.

10. Don’t send anything that you wouldn’t want your grandmother to see. People have been fired for inappropriate emails. Even if you delete it on your end, the recipient will still have it. If there is any question as to whether your message is appropriate, it probably isn’t.

How can a book first published in the 1940s still be relevant to today’s creative professionals? By answering a question that inspired Chicago-based Advertising Executive James Webb Young to write it in the first place. How do you get ideas?

I recently read this book in its entirety in about an hour (it’s all of 48 pages). For those of you who only have a few minutes, I will summarize it here.

Step 1 – The Gathering of Raw Materials
While it seems like an obvious first step, it is often overlooked or not taken seriously enough (probably because it looks like work). The work you put in is extremely important as it is the base for any ideas to come. Far too many people sit around waiting for inspiration to strike.

For this step, Young recommends using 3×5 cards and writing down any information gathered so that it can be spread out, categorized, and filed easily.

The materials which must be gathered are of two kinds: specific and general. In advertising, the specific are those relating to the product and to the people whom you wish to sell it to. General materials are of equal importance as ideas are nothing more than a new combination of existing elements. In advertising, an idea results from a new combination of specific knowledge about products and people—with general knowledge about life and events.

He likens it to a kaleidoscope. Every turn shifts bits of colored glass into a new relationship and reveals a new pattern. The mathematical possibilities of new combinations in the kaleidoscope are enormous, and the greater the number of pieces of glass in it, the greater the possibilities of new combinations.

When gathering information, dig deep. On the surface there often appears to be no differences at all, but if you go deep enough you will nearly always find that between every product and some consumers there is an individuality of relationship, which may lead to an idea.

Step 2 – The Working Over of These Materials
This part of the process is harder to describe in concrete terms because it goes on entirely in your head. Take the different bits of materials you gathered on your 3×5 cards and feel them all over with your mind. Take facts, turn them this way and that, look for the meaning of them, bring facts together, and see how they fit.  

What you are searching for is the relationship, a synthesis where everything comes together like a puzzle. When looking for meaning, don’t scan them too directly or too literally; facts often reveal their meaning more quickly this way. Like the winged messenger who’s wings could only be seen when looked at obliquely. It’s this part of the process that the truly creative excel, and the part in which they often earn their reputation for absentmindedness.

As you go through this process, two things will happen. First, tentative or partial ideas will come to you. Write down ANY that sprout. Never mind how crazy or incomplete they may seem.  

The second thing that will happen is that after a while, you will get very tired of trying to fit your puzzle pieces together. Keep trying. Your brain, much like the body, also has a second wind.

Step 3 – The Incubating Stage
When you feel you’ve reached a point of hopelessness and everything is a jumble in your mind with no clear insight anywhere, drop it and walk away. Do something that stimulates your imagination or emotions. Listen to music, play with your kids, go to a movie. You’ve gathered info and masticated it well; now it’s time for the digestive process to kick in.

Step 4 – Eureka! I have it!
If you have really done your part in the first three stages of the process, you will almost surely experience the fourth. Out of nowhere the idea will appear, sometimes when you are least expecting it.  

Young sites an example from Mr. Ives, the inventor of the half-tone printing process. “While operating my photo-stereotype process in Ithaca, I studied the problem of half-tone process. I went to bed one night in a state of brain-fag over the problem and the instant I woke in the morning saw before me, apparently projected on the ceiling, the completely worked-out process and equipment in operation.”

This is the way ideas come: after you have stopped straining for them and have passed through a period of rest and relaxation from the search.

Step 5 – The Final Shaping and Development of the Idea to Practical Usefulness
In the final step of the process, you have to take your little, newborn idea out into the cold world of reality and see how it holds up. Many seemingly good ideas are lost when trying to make them fit into the practical exigencies in which they must work.

If it holds true, a really good idea will have self-expanding capabilities. It should stimulate those who see it to add to it. Possibilities in it which you overlooked will come to light and grow into form.

Saying technology has changed the way we live is an understatement.

I bet once upon a time you would have never dreamed of checking your email during lunch with a friend. Or dinner with your family. It would have been not only rude, but incredibly inconvenient. Today, in our “always on” culture, social norms and expectations are changing.

According to recent studies, so are our brains. You might have thought your ability to chat, text, surf the Net and make dinner for your family meant you were adept at multitasking. In fact, studies show that people who identify themselves as multitaskers are in fact the worst at it. Researchers believe our relationship with technology has actually changed the way our brains work. As reported in the New York Times series Your Brain on Computers, technology provides sudden bursts of information to which our brains respond with a release of dopamine. In other words, digital stimulation can be addictive. And it compromises our ability to focus and switch among tasks. (You may want to check out the series’ two interactive tests in which you can see how you measure up in these areas.)

Many of us have been feeling the technology creep for awhile as it invades more and more areas of our lives. New devices have eliminated the “where” of  being connected—you don’t have to sit at your desk to check email—but, perhaps of more significance, it also eliminated the “when.” That puts the burden of turning off on you.  

How has technology impacted your life?

Some define play as the opposite of work. The Flint Group says otherwise.

When work excites and inspires you, it’s play. SimmonsFlint shared some playfulness on May 20 at our annual client party. Our theme this year: baseball. We became The Sparks, the newest baseball team in Grand Forks.

Nice lineup, eh? (Notice our catcher?)

The evening included a batting cage, live music, a client Hall of Fame and traditional baseball fare – chili dogs, popcorn, nachos with cheese and beer (but, unlike a baseball game, it wasn’t flat). Best of all – we got to play outside of work and share a great evening in celebration of our clients.

Manager Susan Mickelson keeps her eye on the ball (as usual).

Clearly, we work passionately and play seriously. We play with messaging and strategy, traditional and social media, words and design.
Play is proven to work.
Some insights from Leo Babauta at ZenHabits.com:
When work feels like play, we can accomplish so much more:
+ Unleash creativity for higher productivity levels
Creativity is essential. And not just in the world of marketing, but in any career. The ability to think differently can solve myriad issues in the workplace. Play encourages us to open our minds to new ideas.
+ Revitalize the mind and spirit to regain focus
Does sitting at a desk all day long ever get to you? Running away for two minutes to get an icy cold beverage can do wonders for our mental clarity. So can play. Shutting off the computer (and your mobile) and playing at night gets us recharged and revved for a brand new day. Tomorrow, bring it.
+ Eliminate stress and worry for a fresh outlook
Of course there’s stress in any job. Finding a playful way to relieve built-up stress is not only healthy; it’s fun. Doing something that takes little thought can help you recharge and solve problems.
+ Attract and keep talented employees
Talented employees are not only drawn to fun companies; they stick around longer. Companies who not only work together, but play together, make cohesive teams.
Long ago, Plato said: “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” He had a point.
+ Sweep out mental cobwebs and sharpen our thinking
Suffering from jumbled thoughts, hazy memories and anything-but-eloquent speech? Feel like you’ve drunk more than your share of work? Take time to relax and rejuvenate. Your brain will thank you by working smoother and clearer.
+ Discover what brings the most joy
In other words, play helps you find your passion.

The main reason we do the work we do is because we’re passionate about it.
We realize how important all of these things – peak creativity, focus, problem solving, mental clarity and passion – add up.

You’re always welcome to play in our world. It’s bound to be a good time.

As social media strategist for Flint Group, I’m often asked how I can keep up with the rapid pace of social media. By myself, I certainly can’t. So besides relying on Josh, Andy, Jen, and the rest of the Flint team to help me stay on top of the trends, I rely on my Google Reader full of social media blogs. Let’s take a peek inside my nerd arsenal:

Convince and Convert • Social media marketing
These days you can’t throw a rock at the Internet without hitting a blog from a social media “expert.” But among the so-called experts, Jay Baer stands out from the crowd (and I’m not just saying that because Flint Group works with him). On Convince & Convert, Jay lives up to his promise of being a “hype-free” social media consultant with brilliant insight into social media strategy. Not to mention, he’s a really nice guy.

Nielsen Wire • TV and online statistics and reports
I started my advertising career in the media department, so I have a deep respect for numbers and metrics. Nielsen Wire regularly publishes useful statistics, from the top TV shows to the leading websites.

Mashable Social Media • Social media news and marketing
As the most all-encompassing social media guide online, Mashable is not where I’d send beginners to get an overview of social media. However, it’s an excellent place to search for specific information, and they have written a wealth of case studies, guides, and how-tos. Looking for a conference or social media event in your area? Check the weekly Mashable Social Media Events Guide.

Advergirl • Advertising and branding
Leigh Householder (better known as Advergirl) doesn’t post often, but when she does, it’s worth reading. She pumps her blog full of thought and insight, especially the series she has written on Getting Interactive, her Social Manifesto, and Advice for Newbies. Leigh contributes to What’s Your Digital iQ, which specializes in digital healthcare marketing. She’s also an incredibly kind person.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics • Statistics and commentary on all things digital
Dirk Singer of Rabbit keeps this blog full of the most recent social media news and statistics, along with commentary about why they matter. I especially appreciate the mobile/smartphone data he posts, and the commentary on news articles such as Time’s inclusion of Foursquare in their “worst inventions” issue.

Smart Brief on Social Media • Social media headlines in daily e-newsletter form
I guess this might be cheating, since it’s not actually a blog. SmartBriefs deliver the headlines daily to your inbox. A few seconds of headline skimming alerts me to trends and new campaigns from major players.

I also regularly read The Social Path, Social Media Explorer, Dim Bulb, the New York Times Media & Advertising, AdAge, AdFreak, and over 100 others. What are your blog must-reads? Please post in the comments.