Anne Truitt Minimalist Sculptor Stumbled on Anne Truitt's great sculptures today. Was so blown away I creatd a quick (less than a minute) tribute video.
Favorite About Us pages shares an e-commerce master class video on how to create a great About Us page and asks for your favorite About Us Pages examples.
Great About Us Pages:
* Tell A Story. * Share Values
* Outline a Movement
* Help Build Community
Share your favorite about us pages in reactions (on Scoop.it), comments on the Curagmai post or email martin(at)Curagami.com. Thanks, Marty
4 Principles of A Networked World Macrowikinomics author Don Tapscott shares great examples of his 4 emerging principles of our new digital world including:
* Collaboration.
* Transparency.
* Sharing. * Empowerment
Marty Note I found the discussion of the commons and the example of starling flocking behavior (at the end) the most resonant. I'd heard about the gold mine several times and agree with Tapscott - crowds are the key to our web future.
At Curagami we've been working on what it means to create online community. CTSE (Collaboration, Transparency, Sharing, Empowerment) are the table stakes of this new poker. We would add:
* Communication. * UGC. * Gamification.
Communication within and around the hub is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for online community. You need to be able to follow and communicate with me and vice versa.
User Generated Content must be listened to, valued and rewarded with gamification or its a one-time "one and done" thing.
Highly engaging presentation. Gone are the days of Security and Reliability as the principles of a Networked world. The C-generation is pulling us to the CTSE world.
Work and Value Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational a great book for Internet marketers, explains how meaning is more important than money in this excellent TED talk. In a series of experiments Ariely explains the delicate ballet we dance between motivation, meaning and value.
Reminded me of Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. This talk ties to Trendwatching's report on Demanding Brands too (http://trendwatching.com/trends/demandingbrands/ ).
Even Google wants to escape the old SERPs only Google. Mobile, social and community are changing the web's landscape. Google is watching organic search growth slow thanks to social and mobile. Don't get hung out, diversify your Internet marketing.
Funny How Things Turn Out Every notice things rarely to NEVER turn out how you think or plan them? After creating CureCancerStarter.org, one of the first cancer research crowdfunding websites, it felt like the SEC was about to blow crowdfunding UP.
That feeling was so strong I wrapped up my foundation and left my Marketing Director position thinking CrowdFunde.com would be all about enterprise crowdfunding (what is up on the website now).
Yeah, not so much as it turns out.
Yes the SEC & Google is about to put the three kinds of crowdfunding:
* Rewards (like Kickstarter.com). * Donation (like Kiva.org and CharityWater.org and CureCancerStarter.org). * Equity and debt (where you trade money for shares, should be approved by early summer).
Crowdfunding is so VALUABLE to content marketing and SEO I thought "enterprise crowdfunding" was the way to go. The more I worked the problem the more meshing and mashing is the "lean startup" answer as I share in this video with a cameo from Lucian the crazy cat.
While infographics are touted by some as wonderful examples of making information accessible, in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand shows us a very different view of them, making the case for using individual visual assets instead.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Great Rand Fishkinn Whiteboard Friday on why your marketing should think in terms of "visual assets" not infogrpahics.
Fascinating to try to live blog an interview. It is impossible by the way at least for me. I had to stop typing while answering Scotty Mason; Raleigh CBS affiliate WRAL's Tar Heel Traveler's questions.
Scotty is a masterful visual storyteller and I picked up a few tips on this our third session together (Scotty shot a segment about Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer and helped create Cure Cancer Starter's mission video).
Video Storytelling Tips * Don't have questions written down.
* But be prepared and know your subject. * Be open to accident and unplanned ideas.
* Create in the moment on what inspires you.
* Ask great open-ended questions. * If you don't hear what you want ask the same question again later. * Shoot lots of related b-roll.
The Future Is Happening NOW Instead of Future Shock are we suffering "Present Shock". Maybe, but as an Internet marketer I know and can see in our numbers an important trend - real time.
The closer our marketing is to NOW the better it does. Now is the only TIME the web knows and so now is where we will market in the future that is always happening right NOW :).
Tiny Fey's hilarious improv with James Lipton (video) shows how content marketing and Improv's rules have much in common like always start with agreement.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Fey's Masterclass In Content Marketing Fun watching Tina Fey hilariously do Palin again and saw some interesting similarities between rulesof Improv and content marketing.
Here are the "Rules of Improv" I focused the piece on:
Always Agree.
Agree And (add information).
Set time, place and location.
Be specific.
Fun piece to write. I got to watch Tina Fey's too perfect example of every improv rule as she responds to Lipton's questions as Palin (too funny :).
A live blog of the presentations of three incredible content marketing ninjas at the Raleigh SEO Meetup, 26 March 2013.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Great Content Is New SEO Event & Live Blog Amazing Live Blog with embedded video from Google Hangout from my friend @MarkTraphagen from last night's Content Marketing Is The New SEO Meetup featuring presentations from @Casieg, @CommsNinja and @ScentTrail. Raleigh's SEO Meetup created and MCed by another friend @1918 who skyped in from Dallas last night.
My Storytelling Is The New SEO presentation is on Slideshare:
Activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta calls out the double standard that drives our broken relationship to charities. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend -- not for what they get done.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Such an important idea, that we are asking the wrong questions in the wrong way, shared on this heartfelt TED video by Ted Pallotta.
You'll remember this day forever. You'll remember where you were. This day has never been closer. Today, thanks to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society hundreds o...
After being trapped, along with hundreds of others, of rthree days in the nice but desolute Van Horn, Texas stuck between the New Mexico mountins behind and ...
Silo Effect Interview Great Fareed Zakara GPS interview with author and social anthropologist Gillian Tett today. Tett's book, The Silo Effect, sounds like a must read for web marketers.
I ordered my copy today in anticipation of my drive to Columbus in a few weeks. Tett sounds like a web marketer when she explains the importances of THINKING and the value of random collisions.
Efficiency, the mantra of so many businesses today, can speed up the silo effect Tett explains. Successful web marketing takes a village. Silos are your enemy.
As we note in out riff on the interview on Curagami (http://www.curagami.com/silo-effect-fareed-zakaria-interview/?v=7516fd43adaa ) web marketing is highly tribal and easy to judge the wrong thing as important. As an Ecommerce Director I used to tell my team, "We are going to fly the plane right into the side of a mountain and feel good about the entire way in".
That "Marty saying" was a nod to the web's complexity. Best to judge less and randomly collide more. Great interview and we will report back on the book. If you've already read Tett's book The Silo Effectlet us know what you think.
When Google went public 10 years ago, co-founder Larry Page said he wanted to get his search engine's users out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. Today, Google is often doing the opposite. WSJ's Rolfe Winkler reports on the News Hub with Tanya Rivero. (Photo: Getty Images).
Marty Note 10 years old Google is moving from search to a content and commerce portal. Increasingly Google wants to be s destination not simply the world leading sieve. Content is king and the king is beginning to emulate one of their subjects - Amazon.
Amazon has been successful at balancing their business between content and commerce. Many Amazon interactions are "rich search" engagements where we use Amazon's reviews or vast scale to teach us something about an online marketplace.
Look at Amazon's nascent entry into streaming video market. Using their loyalty program, Prime, Amazon has the most addictive and best looking streaming option. Amazon's advantage? They SELL movies as well as giving away what feels like about 1/3 of their titles FREE to prime members.
BRILLIANT use of a loyalty program since it reinforces a key benefit, access, and creates a crack cocaine like addiction. When I want to find a movie Netflix doesn't have Amazon is where I go. Lately I even pay to "rent" or "buy" a title too having plowed through free titles.
Now let's turn back to Google and realize that content, search and content are VERY different things. Amazon's use of prime to improve their streaming option into a viable digital marketplace demonstrates the interconnected synergies a commerce & content player like Amazon can achieve.
Can Google become equally as successful at content and commerce? Perhaps, but one need only look at Yahoo's struggles to be both search and content portal to question whether either is sufficiently difficult to demand full attention.
As we search less and differently Google wants to diversify and protect the kingdom they've built. Entering oceans made red with competition as both content and commerce are is a different gig. Will be interesting to see how the king adapts to being a lowly prince.
Marty Note Great meeting today with our Triangle Startup Factory mentor Kirk Owen (@RKirkOwen). Kirk is a Jedi Master Mentor and Internet marketer. He is working with VC Firm Intersouth Partners (@intersouth) to create an online site to help teach music with a combination of VIDEO and "live" via the web instructors.
COOL idea for ecommerce merchants to adapt especially given results of this study showing higher engagement and more money when video marketing is supplemented by a "live" instructor.
So imagine you are the Bass Pro Shop site. You are learning about new lures from videos and waiting for the Bass Pro to come explain how he matches lures to weather, water and other conditions. Videos helped you learn some features but the "live to the web" presentation via a G+ Hangout or via a streaming service increases engagement and conversion.
Oh, Time on Site goes up to since I bet Bass Pro Shops would find a large audience consuming videos immediately before and after the "live" presentation. Kirk is an amazing IMer, entrepreneur, coach and mentor. Follow him on Twitter and if you are in the Triangle area of NC ask him to lunch and guarantee you will be smarter for it.
Fires happen to every website no matter how careful their overseers. Fires destroy value. Today's online marketing fires are complex and intertwined requiring specialized cross functional teams to extinguish. These teams are called Hellfighters.
Fires happen to every website no matter how careful their overseers. Fires destroy value. Today's fires are complex and intertwined requiring specialized cross functional teams to extinguish called Hellfighters.
Twitter’s video service, Vine, has been around since early this year, but lately it has been getting more attention than ever.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
I'm new to Vine and Instragram, but this great KISSmetrics article outlines why one is better for business. I won't spoil the mystery, but Vine's looping puts so much presure on the creative process I'm betting you can figure out the winner.
This morning's conversation was seriously awesome! Coming together, telling stories, and having a purpose is extremely inspiring. Check out the video to watch the entire talk!
Fun to talk about my favorite topics (Internet marketing, community, saving the world) with such dedicated and smart fellow travelers. Appreciate the invitation and the company : ).M
Know thyself is great Internet marketing advice and this post helps explain how to define your Unique Selling Propositions and Unique Customer Aspirations.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
How To Tell Your Brand's Story This post is a hands on tutorial for creating brand stories by developing UCAs (Unique Customer Aspirations) and USPs (Unique Selling Propositions). Includes a video explaining USPs. Can't create great Internet marketing without these branding building blocks.
Experiences Are The New Luxury Goods When Will Dean, CEO of the $100M Tough Mudder obstacle race franchise, made that statement I stopped everything I was…
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
The Maslow Thing This idea of our movement from hard goods to experiences is beyond important. Think about it. Your car lasts 5x as long as twenty years ago. The recession has us asking hard questions about the circular nature of consumption.
Most things we buy DEPRECIATE in value.
Will Dean, the CEO of the suddenly $100M Tough Mudder "experiences" company can teach every marketing team an important idea. Your product or service isn't about features and benefits anymore, or not so simply and only about features and benefits.
Your product or service, no matter how boring and removed you think it is, turns on the experience it creates the memories. Dean notes how experiences create memories and memories APPRECIATE in value.
Maslow believed in a "hierarchy of needs". Once base needs were more than satisfied we would work up to the ladder to focus on self-actualization.
Maslow's Time is NOW.
When people pay $100 to race in mud under barbed wire we've arrived at the moment in time when base needs have receded far enough (for most) that our lives are about THE BIG QUESTIONS. Big Questions such as hope, faith and love produce a wandering spirit looking for a muddy hole, a bunch of barbed wire and a tribe to share it all with.
The implications of The Experience Economy (need to take Pine's and Gilmore's book off the shelf again) are vast. How does your company, brand, products or services create memories, chronicle memories, share memories? Knowing the answer to these questions will determine what kind of future your enterprise will create, what kind of memories it will shape, form and share.
A beautiful look at the value of creating memories. Most costs and some investments deprectiate with time. Investing in memories will "appreciate" in value and build bonds between people who you care about. It ends with some nice questions to ask for how this applies to customers and/or employers.
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