At some point in your life, a moment comes that breaks you. It’s a break that you can hear. It echoes through your body like the metal gears of an old clock suddenly snapping loose from its tight wound precision. It’s the sound of a mind coming apart. It’s the swan song of idealism, the undoing of a lifetime of beliefs, the disassembly of romantic notions, and the silent surrender of the last of your youth.
The moment before this sound, you were presented with a choice. Not an everyday choice, but one of those choices that sneaks up on you in a moment of opportunity. It’s a panicked choice that gives you only seconds of consideration, praying upon the weak and flawed curious nature of your fears. It’s not enough time to battle the selfish advantage that opportunity brings—and it has little regard for even the most principled of minds. Good… just needs more time to battle evil. And so sometimes, weakness wins.
The moment you’ve made the choice, you can never undo it. Regret and shame settle in like a new blanket of skin, and a profound loss battles your guilt for centre stage. The consequences of your choice seep deep into the nooks and crannies of your thought centers, like the silent flow of lava cementing the dry, cracked plains of the earth. It traps you. Crippling you from the inside out.
And that’s when you hear it. The grinding gears of an old clock.
Suddenly quiet. Void of animation and life.
I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.
If you think writing a series of acclaimed supernatural thrillers, which get made into a successful television show and sell thousands of books, would be considered a job well done, think again.
Magazines were the original social networks. They filled a void for otherwise isolated individuals and the content transported them outside their community. Brands promoted their products through this early network with static advertising placement that shouted “LOOK AT ME. BUY ME. LOVE ME.”
With that in mind, let’s use Coca-Cola’s 70/20/10 content rule. 70% of your stories should be the low-risk, solid useful content your audience expects—appealing to all audiences. 20% of your stories should be higher-risk, solid useful content that is directed to specific segments of your audience—your loyal consumers. The last 10% of your stories are where you can set your hair on fire. It’s the content that reaches out to the edges, or comes at your idea in an entirely new way. Your audience might not be there yet or they might be right there with you. It’s the crazy, never-been-done-before-and-might-fail ideas. This is high-risk, but it has the potential to achieve the highest share rate and is also where your future 70-20% will come from.
A good example of a Brand leading their story through innovation is the grocery retail chain, Longo’s. They are telling you their brand story—quite literally. They are exercising their 10% and pioneering into new content configuration frontiers. They are bringing journalistic blogging together with traditional publishing techniques for a compelling story that is fun, engaging, and worth the attention of their audience.
The first thing I do when I get in the car is unravel the twisted, mangled wires of my headphones from around the rear-view mirror, and then I jam the earbuds into my noggin’ good and deep. I plug in, baby.
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