When speaking with a journalist, choose your words carefully.
– Walker Lamond

Credit: 999"

When you’re building a brand, you have to get your story straight. You have to lay it all out in advance, and stick to it. Because every time you run an ad or PR campaign, you’re  going to be telling that story, so it needs be consistent.

This means choosing your words very, very carefully. It means choosing words that can’t be taken to mean something other than what you want your story to convey. It means being aware of what you’re saying.

But what happens when you’re too consistent? When that story becomes that same old story?What happens when we choose our words so carefully that they just don’t ring true anymore?

When your story is too rigid, it will only fit so many contexts.  You risk crossing the line from being self-aware to being self-conscious, and then you just seem awkward. And that doesn’t fly in an age where we interact with so many of the brands we consume.

You see, the whole point of a brand story is that it helps you connect with consumers. It makes you seem more like something or someone that people can relate to. And people relate to other people — people with personalities, and personalities with depth.

So maybe the trick to branding in an age where consumers have almost as much of a voice as brands isn’t so much to be transparent, but to be responsive. ‘Cuz while neither you nor consumers will gain anything from you sharing what it was you had for breakfast, there is something to be gained from your brand approaching situations outside the sale funnel, accepting them for what they are, and engaging consumers on those terms — on their terms.

This past weekend was Podcamp Montreal 2009 where I delivered a session called Sex, Trust, & Transparency: What Would Donald Draper Blog?

I set out to explore social media, personal branding, and what bloggers and podcasters could learn from Mad Men protagonist, Donald Draper. The audience was great, contributed so much input, and together, we covered so many different aspects of trust & transparency.

"I sell products, not advertising."

Blogging and podcasting are about self expression, about being able to share your ideas without any barriers. They’re  about community: building community and joining community. So the question was: How would Donald Draper use Social Media to build his personal brand today?

For starters, Donald Draper wouldn’t whore himself. He’d define his brand and target an appropriate audience give them what they wanted.

"Everybody else's tobacco is poisonous. Lucky Strikes’ is toasted."

Then he’d start off with his brand’s story. A story about what gives him a personality that his targeted audience can connect with. He’d define what makes him unique. What makes him special. What makes him relevant to that targeted audience.

And then he’d fill a demand for what his targeted audience wanted. Not his friends. Not his “connections.” But that defined, targeted audience.

Because as a blogger, his audience would be the client, and Donald Draper has a very intuitive grasp what his clients need. And Donald Draper is very good at respecting those needs and paying attention to them. He wouldn’t neglect those needs just to be a social media rockstar.

"I don’t know you at all and this is personal and it’s not up for discussion."

He wouldn’t talk about his personal life or what he likes doing on the weekend. And he definitely wouldn’t gossip. Neither of these would do anything to help him fill the demand of his audience.

And this is why Donald Draper wouldn’t be transparent. Sure, he’d share his thoughts about what his audience is interested in. But those thoughts would be calculated and pre-meditated.

Because when it come to building a community around a brand — personal or otherwise — what you call transparency was invented by guys like me to invoice clients for tweets. ;)

Since Donald Draper’s day, brands have transcended the ad industry and extended into our very identities. The idea of a brand has become so entrenched in society that we don’t even have personalities anymore. We have personal brands.

And just as Dick Whitman recreated himself as Don Draper, personal branding let’s us recreated ourselves. So while Donald Draper might not blog, Dick Whitman most certainly would.

"You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex."

So I guess a better question would be: What would Dick Whitman blog? Because let’s face it, as incompatible as Donald Draper’s personality is with the open, transparent culture of social media, he’s just a product.

Donald Draper is the personal brand of Dick Whitman, someone from humble beginnings that wanted to make it big in the big city. And that someone would use any relevant tool available to them, including social media, to create a brand that was relevant to the audience that they wanted to target.