Here's what we found: unlike Twitter and Facebook, where brands drive their content through official accounts and pages, Pinterest is all about users telling the brand story. In fact, 70% of brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users versus brands. The research also pinpointed the optimal pinning day and time for three industries: fashion/retail (3:00PM, Fridays), automotive (12:00PM, Fridays), and electronics (10PM, Mondays) industries.

Get a more in-depth look, along with an infographic, at the research here.

Enter Digitas’ “Silicon V/Aalley” as part of the 2013 NewFront.  The event featured seven partners who introduced new ways to help B2B marketers explode the value of their content and thought leadership without the need to take on the additional burden of becoming “a publisher.”   Highlights included:

-The Economist demonstrated how they leverage their researchers and journalists to write both rich and snackable content that is commissioned, shaped and owned by a brand. 

- Skyword demonstrated how they can commission a stable of independent writers who have a credible and influential online following that can be commissioned to write content on topics relevant to brand’s audience.

- Newcred demonstrated how they can help brands license the worlds most influential content from both large and small publishers, which in turn be contextualized for the brand audience and used on a brand’s own property.

- Thinglink demonstrated their ability to take a single image and embed multi-media content (slide shows, video, photos, text), and functionality (social posts) – thus expanding the value and function the content offers to audiences. 

- Demand Base demonstrated their ability to use personal and firmographic data to target and retarget business audiences with the most relevant brand content, thus enabling brands to follow though on initial engagement s and bring the prospect further through the funnel

- LinkedIn and Google:  Introduced new features to their already explosive platforms enabling brands to publish more compelling content that reaches relevant business audiences. 

B2B marketers left the room with a burden lifted and innovative, new ways to look at their challenges, and practical ideas to go back their teams with.

Written by Dennis Reilly, SVP, B2B Practice Leader, Digitas

Joe Levy (@RealJoeLevy) from Billboard Magazine just interviewed Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) who told us the story of why he joined Twitter.  Tom Hanks told him that he can tell his fans about his next film and connect with them.  So Steve Martin jumped in but was puzzled by the hashtags and @ mentions and decided to write full, complete thoughts to his audience.  He quickly amassed millions of loyal followers who got his jokes (even some who don’t).   His audience ultimately became contributors, responding to his open ended jokes and he published a book of his favorite conversations.  Collaborative, social story-telling at its best.    

This year’s NewFront wrapped up with an incredible live banjo performance by Steve Martin.  

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit

The Organizing to Win panel gave everyone a look behind the Taco Bell brand and engagement strategy.  On stage were Amy Kavanaugh, VP Public Affairs & Engagement, Taco Bell and Juliet Corsinita, Senior Director of Media, Taco Bell. 

Taco Bell set out to be the most relevant brand in the world.  Below is how they work internally to make it happen:

First, integrate and collaborate. They truly put the consumer first understanding they do not differentiate between screens, they don’t differentiate between Paid, Earned and Owned.  Taco Bell created a Fish Bowl, newsroom environment to bring together all stakeholders to look for a signal and work together to help their customer understand why they are so relevant.  “Live Mas Live” is what they call this platform.

Second, be relevant in the Moment.  The Taco Bell customer or “friend” is an explorer and Taco Bell knows what drives them.  “They view access to our brand as currency”, says Kavanaugh.

Third, authenticity rules. This team strives to always be uniquely Taco Bell.  That means talking to their customer like they are their friend.  Don’t turn off, listen and be prepared to respond with something valuable.

Lastly, measure and optimize.  Make decisions based upon testing and learning.  Identify the attributes to best inform the decision-making process.

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit

Blake Shaw, Data Scientist at Foursquare just shared beautiful moving maps based upon check-in data.  A new trail of digital data has emerged now that we’re carrying around our mobile phones and sharing information in real-time.  Foursquare has amassed over 3.5B check-ins; 5MM check-ins every single day.  In aggregate, we now see and feel the pulse of what is happening around us: how people are moving, what they are doing.  We’re able to study patterns of human behavior and how people relate to places.  Brands are now able to use this data to predict where their customers will go, when they’ll go and what other places they may visit.  This amounts to a context strategy – what is valuable to someone after they land in a new city, after they visit the grocery store or visit a city for the first time?

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit

Jason Spero Head of Mobile for Google just joined Richelle Parham from eBay and Bob Kupbens from Delta.  The conversation was about Mobile and the brands on the stage have focused on engaging and serving their customers on the device their customers live and die by. 

Mobile is extremely important shopping experience for eBay and they expect to exceed $20B in mobile revenue this year.  Their app has over 120MM downloads that allows their customers to quickly share items for sale and items to shop.  They find that their customers flip between desktop and mobile and so they are always thinking about their end-to-end customer experience.   

Delta has identified ways to meet their customers where they need them and mobile is central to that strategy.  So how do they measure success?  They are using Net Promoter Score to measure how their digital/mobile offering impacted the brand.  eBay measures everything and they do and rely on pilots and testing to learn how to maximize the experience for buyers, sellers and the buyers who are also sellers. 

Mobile is no longer just a marketing conversation but mobile impacts operations, the retail stores, infrastructure.  Done well, your brand can own their customer relationship wherever that customer may be – at the park, in the store or in the terminal.  

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit

Eric Hippeau from Lerer Ventures discussed how the CMO is the new CTO.  The average CMO tenure is only twenty-three months.  Why so short?  It is too hard to prove ROI.  The other compounding factors include having lean staffs and depending on outside vendors for the bulk of the work.  Technology has driven consumers far ahead of marketers.  With two-thirds of marketing dollars today still spent in the analogue, slow-moving world while the majority of consumers have moved on to a real-time, mobile, social world, marketers are the first to adapt.  In fact, today the largest buyer of technology is the CMO.  Hippeau shared some important lessons: build a team of experts (coders, hackers), listen to digital natives, measure and test and learn against an ROI model that you can explain to executives and investors.  The CMO, tomorrow's  “Consumer Technology Officer” should lead the organization forward.  

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit

Arianna Huffington, Founder & Editor-in-Chief Huffington Post “We are all publishers.  Participation and engagement drives sharing.  Self-expression is the new entertainment."  It’s all global now and as a brand you have to be part of global conversations. The Huffington Post have been doing ongoing content around stress because they tuned into the needs of their audience.  The most buzzed about feature on the iPhone was the Do Not Disturb feature – people are looking for ways to unplug. 

Tony Weisman joined Arianna for a join announcement.  HuffPo will be a key content distribution partner for Digitas’ BrandLIVE real-time marketing platform.  Brands can now not only create content in real-time but distribute it within two hours through native advertising across the HuffPo network. 

With this, we’re excited to announce an exclusive partnership between The Huffington Post’s “Brand as Newsroom” and Digitas’ BrandLIVE. Starting now, they’ll be a key content distribution partner within our BrandLIVE partner suite. In as little as two hours, we’ll be able to publish relevant content for millions of readers on The Huffington Post, from articles to slideshows and more in the form of native ads.

Today’s New Front live-blogging was done by Digitas’ Amie Green.  For more insights from Amie – Follow her on Twitter @Smit