Curation Revolution

Why You Must Curate Content
We shocked a SEO Meetup suggesting 90% curation to 10% content creation. This deck explains why you MUST curate content. Content curation is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for online marketing.

Among the 7 Reasons we share content are these three:

* Proof of "Digital Listening"

* Reach
* Costs

Discover 4 more reasons you must curate content at Haiku Deck: https://shar.es/1vwHY8 

Content Director Should Rock Content Marketing
I'm excited that th etalented @Scoop.itteam ( @Guillaume Decugis@Ally Greer@Marc Rougierand many others) are launching a new content curation tool called Content Director. As team Curagami shared in our 7 Reasons You Must Curate Content (http://shar.es/1ohSrO over 5,000 views now) knowing what content is making you money and why is a CSF (Critical Success Factor).

Can't wait for our demo tomorrow PM. Will report back.

Lions, Tigers, Bears & Content Shock & SMB Survival
Small to Medium Sized Businesses are overwhelmed. The clearest message we've received during our first six months creating our Startup Factory funded startup called Curagami is a clear protest. "Overwhelmed" is the most common adjective SMBs use to describe their situation.

Not hard to see why SMBs are feeling overwhelmed. Tactics that used to insure consistent yearly growth are sick. Tactics are drying up faster than ever.

SMB Marketing Tactics Costing More, Getting Less:

* Yellow Pages (near death).
* Print ads (near death).

* Val-u-pak coupons (near death).

* Coupons of any kind (losing relevance with smartphone users)..

* Groupons (blows brands up almost beyond repair).
* Email marketing (sick due to social / mobile web).
* Social Media Marketing (sick and getting sicker fast).
* Content Marketing.(content shock sick).

* Ecommerce (too many stores, same offerings).
* PPC (paying more to get less).
* Retargeting (cat out of bag, so sick efficacy declining).
* Video Marketing (steep learning curve, expensive).
* Viral Marketing (everyone has that cold now & hit or miss).
* Cause Marketing (not as unique as once was & live or die with partner).

* Celebrity Marketing (expensive and live or die with branded celeb).

* SEO (don't even get us started, all but gone, baby, gone).

3 Rays of Hope

1. Content Curation
Discussed by Scoop.it CEO @Guillaume Decugisin Social Media Publishing Is Dead As We Know It ( http://blog.scoop.it/2014/06/18/social-media-publishing-is-dead-as-we-know-it/ ).

2. Community
Banding and binding tribes of contributors, advocates and supporters to your cause.

3. Friends of Friends marketing.
Reaching new customers via WOM (Word-of-Mouth) supplied by fans, brand advocates and social marketing Sherpas willing to sacrifice and help your cause.

Curagami (http://wwww.curagami.com ) is focused on helping SMBs create sustainable community via the Friends-of-Friends marketing community generates.  

Am Scooping Guillaume's post to use in our Curagami board meeting tomorrow and we are working on 3 cool ideas:

* Curagami SMB Survival Guide - one page "action focused" recommendations on the tapestry of marketing tools and tactics needed to know where online "success" lives these days.

* Curagami $25,000 SMB Survival Contest - Help in seo, content marketing and community building to make this holiday online selling season great.

* Curagmai SMB Survival School - 1 day training to support SMBs at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, NC.

Social Media Reach Is Dead, Long Live Content Curation & Cmmunity
@Guillaume Decugis  was nice enough to ask me to weigh in on his blog post. He knew it wouldn't be hard for me to write 1,000 words on something that I feel strongly about - what will tomorrow's marketing look like.

Little is certain OTHER than tomorrow's marketing will be very different than today's and unrecognizable from yesterdays. The post on G+ shares my reaction to Guillaume's post along with as much Nostradamas as I can muster at midnight after a long day.

The core is YES content curation is going to be an integral part of the friends of friends marketing creating community we see at our Triangle Startup Factory funded startup called Curagami (http://www.curagami.com ).

One BIG THING we've already learned is RESPECT, ADMIRATION and enough envy to fuel a train for what Marc, Guillaume, Ally and the Scoopiteers created. The post discusses how any cause moves from passion, through to business and finally into quackery.

That evolution is why all tactical online marketing is dead man walking. The key is winning and keeping hearts and minds. Certainly content curation is going to be HUGE in winning the LOVE any successful brand or online presence will require to be successful in tomorrow's marketing. Are there a few other things? You bet and I tried to share all of the hard won lessons about content, community and love team Curagami is learning.

My G+ Post
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/i1fzgtror51

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.

Curation Collisions
I've been thinking about where the synchronous and asynchronous meet. It feels like the only art left is to COLLIDE ideas previously thought of as pristine or distinct. Together the active juxtaposition adds depth, information, mystery and hooks.

Hooks are TOUGH. We've been advertised to right up to our last nerve. The net effect of millions of ads is we don't believe much. Our skeptical hide is thick.

When we swing things around like a great Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) and smash them into one another we create the kind of surprise and arrested development that stops frenzied process just long enough to slip some passionate communication about how our parts can exceed our whole.

Can't think of a better idea of creating juxtaposition than the Poetics of Gesture image that pastes Twombly on a Basquiat. Too good!

What about you? Have you collided content creating surprise and arresting images in support of your #contentmarketing or #contentcuration?

Here are 7 Tips From MoMA Curator:

1. Focus on Goals

2. Have Empathy

3. Be Careful, Cautious and Selective

4. Editorialize

5. Provide Attribution

6. Understand What’s Timely and Trending

7. Have an Eye for a Great Title

and 3 From Scenttrail (Martin Marty Smith on Scoopit)

8. Cast A WIDE Net, Curate Disparate Content.

9. Don't Forget OPC (Other People's Curation).

10. Use Rich Snippets to Consistently Theme Your Curation.

Cast a "wide net" pulling seemingly disparate subjects into your curation using our curatorial skills to create connection and synergy. Don't forget the most powerful content on YOUR network is THEIR User Generated Content (UGC) and curation. Rich Snippets don't recreate the content wheel but do them your curation creating a consistent blanket of meaning and value.

Added a comment about putting a title in front of a masterpiece in comments on Scoop.it:
http://blog.scoop.it/2014/02/13/7-qualities-of-highly-effective-content-curators/

Why Content Curtation Rocks SEO
The slide deck from @Scoop.it about how content curation impacts SEO is an excellent SEO & content curation primer (embedded in the post), but let’s do a deeper dive to understand how content curation ROCKS SEO and every site's Uber-Goal of creating sustainable online community.

This Curagami post creates an interesting comparison between Oprah and Amazon. One knows how to create online community one doesn't. Both have great tips to share.

Thanks to @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.comI got into a riff about how #contentcuration is leading a new train. The train's name is community and those who get on, or those who answer the future knocking, will succeed. Those who don't won't.

OVERWHELMED
Overwhelmed Is the word we keep hearing from Small to Medium Sized business. They feel overwhelmed by Internet marketing's ever changing environment and accelerating demands. Yeah, we can help with that

Nothing so motivated as a sinner seeking redemption. We've been marketing online so long, more than 30years combined in team Curagami, we sometimes hear "overwhelmed" after we speak to customers.

As penance we are going to help one lucky company create a plan. See we know something about feeling overwhelmed. When I heard "cancer" and my name in the same sentence "overwhelmed" was the right word. I worked my way out by planning to ride a bicycle across America.

DON'T DO THAT (lol), but do enter our #IMoverwhelmed Sweeps and we guarantee you will begin to feel less overwhelmed NOW. Remember you are not alone and keep turning the crank :). Marty

Want to excel at content curation? Here are 7 tactics for content curation success:

1. Provide editorial selection expertise.2. Add commentary to augment existing information.3. Write attention-grabbing headlines.4. Package your content to attract attention and facilitate consumption.5. Offer curated content on regular schedule.6. Distribute curated content effectively across channels, platforms and devices.7. Track results of curated content to achieve your objectives.

Marty Note
My favorite is the idea of "packaging" your content. Fascinating.

Movements THEN Campaigns within Movements
http://www.crowdfunde.com earned its first paycheck today as we begin to help our friends at http://www.moon-audio.com create an "umbrella" movement to create online community, improve SEO, win hearts and minds and convert more visitors to customers and customers to advocates and supporters. 

This G+ post shares much of what we discussed today about the advantages of creating a movement in a socially connected mobile time. If you love music hope you will jumpin and help us create Music Is A Movement's pieces such as:

* Our ASK for UGC (User Generated Content) such as what is your favorite music? Why? What is your favorite gear? Why? 
* Stories are going to be important. What is best way to ask for them?
* Arresting visuals are going to be important, where to we find them. 
* How can we create CONTENT to support an abstract, personal and short lived (music) to shareable content (vids, pics, stories)?  
* What is best way to connect tribe members.
* What are our KPIs. 

Going to be fascinating to use our new tools for the first time to help Moon Audio change the world a little by developing a MOVEMENT and then positioning their marketing inside the movement's context and ever evolving User Generated Content boundaries.  

What about you? How do you win hearts and minds with your #Interntmarketing.