This post first appeared on Fast Company

Between the endless Euro drama and the Bitcoin brouhaha, currency has been much in the news of late. Most people would probably name the US Dollar as the dominant currency in this day and age. While that may be true in one sense, is today’s preeminent currency even still money? Does money allow for a brand to buy trust? Or is it one’s digital footprint? What about social media profiles or properties? Perhaps the dominant currency today is, as smartly noted by Hugh MacLeod, social objects—or as many of us all call it, social content.

The dominance of the web and the human behavior spawned from it as a result has turned social content into a new, increasingly important, currency. Think about it for a second: the web allows for informational exchange—transactions, if you will. In the past, these transactions took place when you went directly to a destination. However in 2013, most of us live in the here and now of the “feed”—our home for content discovery.

We are now entrenched fully in the era of the sharing economy. This sharing is on two fronts. One is the sharing of things or services courtesy of an array of technologies or facilities. The other front is the information packaged and presented as content: thought leadership, entertainment, utility, or whatever else allows us to begin and continue conversation among a group of people with whom wish to engage.

The era of “Like/Follow/Fan” is fading into twilight. Brands will continue to accumulate likes because bigger is always perceived as better, but social acquisition campaigns are doing business and customers a major disservice. Technology is breaking down barriers between brands and customers faster than when social first operated as engines for connection.

Sharing content helps us connect. Connection helps us engage. Engagement leads to a relationship. Relationships lead to friendship and possibly endearment. In the industrial economy, we congregated in front of the TV, read newspapers and magazines, gathered around the radio and saw signage that told what to believe. In the sharing economy, technology has allowed us to connect, engage, question, critique, criticize or concur. Humans are social animals, and we still need something to spur connection. Content acts as that stimulant. Content is our true currency.

Five Reasons Content Is the New Currency:

Here’s David Karp, Founder of Tumblr, speaking at Ogilvy just a few months ago.

Yahoo! to Acquire Tumblr

Promises not to screw it up

Yahoo! Inc. and Tumblr announced today that they have reached a definitive agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr.
Per the agreement, Yahoo! promised not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business. David Karp will remain CEO.

Stats to know from Yahoo!’s press release about Tumblr:

- Tumblr has more than 300 million monthly unique visitors.

- 120,000 signups every day.

- Earns 900 posts per second and 24 billion minutes spent on site each month.

- On mobile, more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app and do an average of 7 sessions per day.

- 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day).

Total consideration is approximately $1.1 billion, substantially all of which is payable in cash. “Tumblr is redefining creative expression online,” said Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer. “On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn’t be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn’t be more complementary. Yahoo is the Internet’s original media network. Tumblr is the Internet’s fastest-growing media frenzy.

“I’ve long held the view that in all things art and design, you can feel the spirit and demeanor of the creator. That’s why it was no surprise to me that David Karp is one of the nicest, most empathetic people I’ve ever met. He’s also one of the most perceptive, capable entrepreneurs I’ve ever worked with,” continued Mayer. “David’s respect for Tumblr’s community of creators is awesome. I’m absolutely delighted to have him join our team.”

David Karp, CEO of Tumblr, addressed the Tumblr community, “Before touching on how awesome this is, let me try to allay any concerns: We’re not turning purple. Our headquarters isn’t moving. Our team isn’t changing. Our roadmap isn’t changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn’t changing.”

Click here to read the full press release

Here’s a quote from WordPress Founder, Matt Mullenweg, who posted a blog post when this was all speculation. He said “imports have actually spiked on the rumors even though it’s Sunday: normally we import 400-600 posts an hour from Tumblr, last hour it was over 72,000.” (All Things D)

We are proud to be an A-List Partner of Tumblr.

This post first appeared on Fast Company

By now, hopefully, we can all agree that we have collectively debunked the myth of manufactured “virality.” Most brands understand they cannot create the magical piece of content that actually helps their business and sparks an avalanche of sharing like Harlem Shake, Justin Bieber, and the latest contraption choreography from OK-Go. If you want to create the most shareable content that remains relevant to your brand–kittens, dance routines, and kicking someone in the junk isn’t really for every business–then there are some clear principles to follow. These are born from behavioral economics, persuasion science, and plain old trial and error.

IT’S ALL WORD OF MOUTH
When a person tweets a link to Ford’s hilarious response on EW.com to Jeremy Irons’ inadvertent slight of the Ford Fiesta (he was actually dissing Downtown Abbey as the Ford Fiesta of Shakespeare), or when someone emails a link to the cool IBM infographic predicting via social data the rise of Steampunk posted in IBMblr, their Tumblr site, they are sharing by word of mouth. We look at stuff our friends send us. We pay attention when they recommend something. In a world where randomly relevant marketing constantly floods past us, this is often the only way to decide what to pay attention to.

Brand content that comes to us via a friend, a colleague at work, or someone we know online matters more. The question for us marketers is not just how do we create great content, but also how do we get people to share it across their social graph.

The answer lies more in psychology and behavior than in finding the magical recipe for a breakout video. The books and work of Robert Cialdini, Dan Ariely and, now, Jonah Berger all tell us why we do the things we do. The field of behavioral economics has blossomed over the past few years as researchers and geeks have found a willing audience amongst marketers hungry to put their results to work. The biggest problem applying these proven principles is that there are just so damn many of them. Many of them, like ”loss aversion”–the tendency for people to move more quickly to avoid losing something rather than to gain something of value–are more like a bolt of fine, durable cloth than a ready-made suit of clothes. You need to know which ones to stitch together to tackle a particular problem.

Here is a set of word-of-mouth drivers that, when applied routinely, help make any content or experience more shareworthy. While many are adopted from the body of behavioral economics–and all of them have been validated by experience.

VALUE EXCHANGE
Is the content valuable to the end user in some way? Entertainment has value, but so does utility. In either case, you need to understand what your audience values rather than just assuming they have an innate fascination in your brand talking about itself.

DISRUPTIVE IDEAS
We stop to notice ideas or concepts that challenge our understanding of the way the world works. The Museum of Memory and Tolerance in Mexico asked the question “what if tweets that discriminated against races and genders were bullets aimed at the heart of Mexico?” A social media fueled paint gun stained the word “Mexico” every time someone posted a discriminatory tweet. This social data-driven demo shocked citizens around the hate speech going on around them.

GREAT STORY
So many of our decisions are based upon emotional drivers, not the rational features and benefits of the latest widget. Great stories are not only dramatic, they are also emotional. Our team in Amsterdam created a deeply emotional story—for funeral insurance, of all things—when they asked people to share what they would want to tell a loved one before they died. These stories are so emotionally touching, we want to pass them along and reach out to our own parents, favorite aunt, or close friend to tell them how important they are to us.

FRESH INTEREST
What is new or interesting about a topic? Finding that fresh area of interest when you are launching a product that’s not as sexy as the next Tesla Roadster is every marketer’s job. People want news they can share around the vending machine at work or via their Twitter handle.

SOCIAL PROOF
When we see others doing something, we are often more apt to make that same choice ourselves. Why else do we have counters next to Tweet icons or Facebook tallies that tell us how many others have already thought that content valuable enough to share? The beauty of Facebook advertising is that the ads tell me which of my friends find a product interesting enough to “like” it.

CREATIVE PARTICIPATION
I wrote a chapter in the ebook Social@Scale. Since I participated and was able to be highly creative–those were my words and thoughts–I am now far more likely to pass that content along. Nutella has applied that principle to its product label as content. In Belgium and other countries, users can customize the iconic product label with their name in place of the logo and have that product delivered. Customers are invited to participate, and creatively so.

SIMPLE ADVOCACY
When we make it simple and then actually ask people to share, they aremore likely to do so. Reducing the number of button clicks it takes to share a white paper is worth sweating bullets over. And don’t forget the ask.

Like most good suits, shareable content doesn’t come off the rack ready-made. But if you start weaving the fabrics of these principles together, trimming a little length here, broadening the shoulders over there, you can wind up looking like a million bucks.

This post first appeared on Creativity-Online.

For full disclosure, this work has been done by O&M Frankfurt.

In Germany, business to business photocopier machine producer Triumph Adler managed to boost its sales 500% with a Twitter-based campaign through Ogilvy & Mather Frankfurt that boosted awareness of its fast copying speeds. It created a Twitter account, and then copied the tweets of its clients immediately as they appeared, with the message “Copies Faster.” It copied more than 50,000 tweets over three months and got a 10% click through rate from prospective clients, while 20 per cent became followers of the brand on Twitter.

When you think of a job search, your mind will automatically direct you towards a few online sites known to many as job search staples, like LinkedIn, Monster, Careerbuilder; and if you’re creative, you might be hunting on Facebook or Twitter. But if you want to impress a potential employer, use a pin and a board. Pinterest’s traffic has increased tenfold in the last six months to 10 million visitors a month, according to Forbes—but don’t expect employers to discover you on a Pinterest; instead, lead them to you and your personal brand, by directing them to your secret Pinterest board. This will give you a competitive edge and make you stand out.

1. Create, Pin and then Search and Pin Some More

To kick off your job search, you’ll want to create a public board on the industry/career you’re curious about. Use the search box to enter key words and phrases to pull up relevant pins. Having a board solely dedicated on a new career or industry will increase your job search motivation, because having direct access to job “eye candy” will super-charge your visual cortex.

2. Shh, and Keep a Secret

Discover and maximize the use of the three secret pin boards Pinterest gives you access to. Log in, go to your boards’ section, and scroll to the bottom and activate your imagination. You’ll want to dedicate one board to the specific company you’re targeting. (Three boards = three different companies.) And don’t worry, it’s called a secret board because only people you give the link to will have access—just make sure you don’t give the wrong link to the wrong employer, as you will not be deemed a creative super star, but instead be seen as confused.

3. What to Pin?

You want the focus to be on you, your personal brand and your experience. Pin your resume, and make sure it links to your LinkedIn profile, but that’s just the beginning; you’ll want to dissect your background in order to inspire the “ooh” factor in potential employers and recruiters. Pick your resume apart and pin your past employers, your educational institution and past volunteer experiences. For each item, use the description box to add a little spice and flavor to your pin, describe your experience at each company, a memorable project, or the reason you left.

Don’t forget to pin certifications or awards you’ve received. And to inspire the “aah” factor, pin projects you worked on that reflect your leadership style or contribution. Make your descriptions count, instead of pinning a picture of your last company and inserting text like, “I worked here for five years and I was promoted twice,” make your description accomplishment-based, “In the five years I worked at company X, I increased sales by 20%, had a close-out rate of 18% on new business, and was recognized by senior leadership with two separate promotions.”

4. What to Pin, Part II

Once you’ve defined your experience through the appropriate pins, it’s time to show off your social media acumen by pinning information about the company, to prove you’ve done your research. Pin some of the company’s greatest accomplishments that have inspired you—and in the description, add text that reflects your reasons why you’d like to work for that company. You’ll also want to pin social causes the company participates and/or believes in—this will show alignment all around.

5. Don’t Keep Your Secret Board a Secret (well, sort of)

Once your have created your board, work the link into your cover letter (if you’re still in 1955), job application, or even in a follow-up to an interview that you didn’t have the opportunity to showcase any earlier.

If you follow all five steps, not only will you be showcasing your brand, experience, and value, you will be as tasty as a deep-fried Twinkie.

The following excerpt is by John Zogby, founder of the Zogby Poll and Dayna Dion, Cultural Strategy Director for Ogilvy & Mather. This post first appeared on Fast Company.

Tribal Analytics reflects the complexity and multidimensionality of human nature. Allowing people to describe how they organize themselves and who they see as their peers, opens the doors to new levels of segmentation and empowers marketers to find language and symbols that speak to people as members of tribes.

In total, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than six thousand U.S. adults in order to discover seven neo-tribes organized around shared interests and common aspirations.

• The God Squad – this large group is principally, but not exclusively, defined by it faith and belief in God.
• Land of the Free – they are an amalgam of the most traditional values of duty and responsibility, perseverance, simplicity, and optimism.
• The Happy Hedonists – optimistic and adventurous, this small but mighty tribe is chiefly characterized by its focus on material possessions.
• The Adventurists—rebellious and adventurous, members of this tribe love new challenges and energetic activities.
• Go With the Flow – Zen, balance, and leading a personally fulfilling life are their top priorities.
• The Dutifuls – this tribe includes people who are, above all, modest in everything they do. They place extra value on authenticity, honor, compassion, and trustworthiness.
• The Persistents – tribal members see themselves through the prism of dealing with life’s struggles, perseverance, the determination to move on, even against all odds.

Click here to view the full article on O&M’s Fast Company channel

The following excerpt is by Marianne Pizzi, Executive Group Director, Ogilvy & Mather, and the global lead for Fanta. This post first appeared on Fast Company.

Is this all just a game to you? For Fanta, that’s the whole idea. For full disclosure, Fanta is a client.

Those of us who work on Fanta, a brand that sees playing as among its most fundamental attributes, have always believed in the power of play, and in today’s world, that power is only growing. For millennials, gaming is the currency of their lives. Games are key connection points, tools for learning in schools, at work and at home, and important social vehicles, fostering communities of both the virtual and flesh-and-blood variety. They provide a channel for talking to friends and the lens through which they experience life.

At their best, games provide the chance to enter new worlds and make decisions about how to interact and how to work and play together. That’s in stark contrast to the role they played in previous generations: Back in the 20th century, games were largely frivolous–prevalent in the daily newspaper’s Jumble puzzle and the rattle and thrum of arcades, but never much more than a pleasant diversion.

Today’s gamified world represents a welcome mat rather than an obstacle for us. It’s a chance to join consumers in a deeper, more engaging form of storytelling and to stretch ourselves into new creative arenas. With “Play Fanta” we’ve done exactly that. It is the world’s first wholly playable franchise. Every element involves a game of some kind, from the interactive graphic novel that forms the basis for the content to the TV spots to the player-driven content that bridges across all digital platforms.

“Play Fanta” is, in the argot of The Coca-Cola Company, “liquid and linked”–everything is connected and seamlessly flows across all platforms globally, easily translating into other media, languages and cultures and adapting to every level of digital infrastructure. And all the different layers of games work on their own and can be played in any order and shared amongst friends.

Click here to read the full post on O&M’s Fast Company channel

The recent hack of @AP and subsequent Wall Street panic slash Dow plunge has once again showed how an alarming event in social media can have a damaging effect.

All sorts of social media crises are on the rise – not just brands seeing their accounts hacked, but errant four-letter words uttered in official tweets, ill-thought hashtags used as “bashtags” by critics, mistreatment of highly vocal highly influential customers and tone-deaf communications during natural tragedies – just to name a few. Sadly, the majority of these sort of #fails could have been prevented with proper preparation on the brands’ part, according to research by the Altimeter Group.

We’ve witnessed first-hand the growing risk brands now face. We’ve seen how social has empowered everyone from the consumer watchdog to the “vocal minority” to the socialized activist group. Try picturing “United Breaks Guitars” or Motrin Moms or “Artic Ready” without social media and you simply can’t conjure the same effect. Social media has transmuted the news cycle – local news swiftly becomes a global story and the iPhone-wielding bystander spawns tomorrow’s front page.

Stories have always had a deep impact on our hearts and minds, but social media has evolved the art of storytelling and many brands now see how content gives them new ways to connect emotionally and earn belief with their customers – in good times and bad.

So what is a brand to do when faced with a crisis? More importantly, how should a brand prepare for a crisis?

We set out to answer these questions and ended up writing “Our Playbook for Digital Crisis Management 3.0.” Born out of our global experience preparing for and responding to brand and corporate crises, it’s now part of our global training program.

We wanted to understand how social media was fundamentally changing the way we approach crisis management. We wanted to marry established crisis practices with the most evolved thinking in social media marketing and social business practices. We also wanted to be highly practical – today’s experts need a suite of apps they can quickly access when a crisis threatens to break.

Check out a “Preview” of our playbook here (or below).

You’re about to see the movie that holds the Guinness World Records™ record for the World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film. The ability to move single atoms—the smallest particles of any element in the universe—is crucial to IBM’s research in the field of atomic memory. But even nanophysicists need to have a little fun. In that spirit, IBM researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of atoms, all in pursuit of making a movie so small it can be seen only when you magnify it 100 million times. A movie made with atoms. See how the world’s smallest movie was made at youtube.com/madewithatoms and learn more about atomic memory, data storage and big data.

For full disclosure, IBM is a client. Feel free to check out more IBM work on IBMblr.

This work has been featured on Mashable, Adweek, BuzzFeed, USA Today, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, and many more.

The following excerpt is by Abigail Marks, Director, Strategy & Operations, OgilvyEntertainment. It first appeared on Fast Company.

“Innovation Uncensored” brought together the most creative minds in business for two days of idea exchange.  Here’s what they talked about.

I walked ten blocks north from my office, along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s west side, to get to Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored New York conference.  It’s a lovely walk—particularly on a spring day—and it knits together different threads of the city.  The river is on one side, industrial facilities, some decaying, loom over the shore, while the occasional loft conversion drew my eye like an early flower. Walking back, after a day of high-test inspiration, the landscape recalled the nature of innovation itself.  Refreshed by a flow of new ideas, innovation happens amidst the life we live now.

Here are 7 memorable themes that bubbled up at Innovation Uncensored.  Not one of them is entirely new.  But like a loft in a hot neighborhood, they’re some of the most valuable things you can hold on to.

Click here to read the full blog post on Fast Company