Curation Revolution

Buffer's Social "Failure" = Your Success
Make Buffer's Social Failure Your success with lessons from three great web marketing books including Superforecasting, The Silo Effect and The Black Swan. The post builds on a Buffer post sharing their shocking 50% decline in social media traffic. 

The real question is - ARE THEY FAILING.

They seem to think so and that thought may point to bigger issues. Issues well outlined in 3 great web marketing books (note if you buy using the links to Amazon below you make a contribution to curing cancer TY)

SuperForecsting: The Art and Science of Prediction  

The Silo Effect: The Perils of Expertise

The Black Swan:  Impact of the Highly Improbable

How web marketers THINK about what they are doing matters and this Curagami post shares tips on how to THink Like An Internet Marketer along with links to some of our favorite web marketers including several from Scoop.it:

@Guillaume Decugis 
@Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com 
@Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com 

Among others.

Start thinking like a web marketer, read this Curagami post
http://www.curagami.com/buffers-social-failure-your-success/?v=7516fd43adaa  

How To Make $30M Online
When people ask me how teams I've managed made more than $30M online I say it's simple - find your 80:20 Rule, double down on winners, leave laggards and hire great people.

None of those things are nearly as "simple" as they sound, but you must know what NOT to do. Any website has an enduring and constant fractal called the 80:20 Rule. This post includes a video about the importance of your 80:20 Rule, how to use what you find and a link to an earlier post on how to find your 80:20 Rule. 

http://www.curagami.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fractals-cover-image.png 

 

High resolution music player maker Astell & Kern and Bluenote created a a cool new music & technology mashup that may point to music's next big thing.

This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Story may be the most important but least understood online marketing word there is. Understand why storytelling is "beyond important" for web marketing.

If you are serious about growing your Google Plus following -- and actually gaining some clients from the platform -- you should be doing these seven things:

* Share Great Content.
* Interact with Others.
* Forget your listings.
* See out those with authority & influence.
* Expand your content offerings.

* Join Real Estate communities.
* Build a business page.

Marty Note
My friend Bill's post about how to create a G+ Real Estate following apply to anyone needing to build a following for anything. How we sell stuff is different now and getting more so everyday. Bill is a leader in real estate, content marketing and social media. He took to Scoop.it like a duck to water.

Clash Crowdfunding Lessons
Crowdfunding may be the ultimate "in your face" DIY (Do It Yourself) disruption. Much like the CLASH's "punk ethos", so well described in The Future Is Unwritten the biopic documentary film about Joe Strummer, marketers must create content and community with authenticity and awesome, daring and original content.

Working on a companion Curagami blog post too. Here is link to HaikuDeck:

http://shar.es/11YHo2

There are no "right' or "wrong" ways to use social media, but there are ways to grow your following faster and get more return from your social efforts.

Group boards on Pinterest can be your secret to increased followers, improved engagement, and reaching a larger audience with less effort.

Marty Note
Great Curation Revolution suggestion from my friend Bill Gassett (@MassRealty). I love group boards too because they crowdsource great Pinterest content. My Group Board include:

King of Pinterest (2,047 followers, 121 contributors)
http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/king-of-pinterest/

Queen of Pinterest (3,290 followers, 325 contributors)
http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/queen-of-pinterest/

Love these boards since the share GREAT stuff and my work load GOES DOWN even as they get better. One caveat is Pinterest can be strange about allowing you to invite contributors. I could easily have 1,000 contributors to both boards if Pinterest didn't have such a tight and strange grip on the invite reins.

This post shares a story, a story of a piece of content written for @ janlgordon curatti.com. How did Startup Trends 2014 II go from being a laggard at social shares to outshining its brother post (Startup Trends 2014 I)?

Ongoing curation and GPlus provide the answers and proving why we are all content curators now. The piece also shares some "down the SEO rabbit hole" content curation and creation perspective.

Promise to write more "down the SEO rabbit hole" content soon.

Think Like A Web Marketer
We revised our Haiku Deck to share 5 secrets every web marketer should know including:

* Start With Why
* Diversify & Gamify
* Double Down
* Become A Nowist
* Baseball not Football

Learn more about how to become a digital marketing pro:
https://shar.es/1uVaFD  

Future of Content Marketing For Online Merchants
Online merchants are learning hard lessons about content marketing. Mainly that it takes a lot of time, effort and money. What if you could increase your customers engagement, support and loyalty without spending an arm and a leg? Interested?

This Curagami post shares tips on how to think like a magazine editor - at least an online magazine content editor. It shares five tips including:

• Find 3 – 5 content groups that interest your visitors.
• Decide your schedule (we recommend monthly updates at first because that is a big commitment that must be kept to gain trust).
• Curate content from trusted sources such as brands, manufacturers and even competitors.
• Automate at least one of your content groups with feeds.
• Find and nurture free visual media sources such as Haiku Deck.

 
Read more about evergreen content and why thinking like a magazine editor can help your online store create TRIBE and MONEY on Curagami:

http://www.curagami.com/ecommerce/magazine-ing-content-5-tips/?v=7516fd43adaa  

Burn Down Your House
Talking Heads know an important internet marketing truth – sometimes you need to put on a big suit, jump around and burn down your web marketing house.

Watch David Byrne carefully. Everything happening is practiced but not stale, choreographed but spontaneous and crazy & planned. If there is a better example for where our near real time, content, community and commerce online world is going we don't know it.

Marty Note
Great post by Scoop.it team. At our cool tools for ecommerce merchants startup http://www.curagami.com we see all six of these mistakes. Here are some of the ways we've helped clients fix reasons their biz blogs sucked:

1.  No Subscription Form
   Agree with this mistake being #1 since it cuts off your Internet marketing nose to spite your face. BUT adding a subscription form can be tricky. If a client has a vast archive we always locate a large search box in their header. If NOT we  cross our fingers and put a subscription from up there.
   We HATE subscription forms in footers since it since the WRONG message. Footer forms say, "Sure you can join, but we don't care." Best location is left rail somewhere below your hero (largest image on the page is a hero) and that means your left column should be navvy (i.e. about 200 - 300 pixels and have other nuggets like social in there too). We don't like being forced right either since we read left to right so stuff on the left typically gets more "eye time". WE HATE popunders those annoying requests to join that must be cleared BUT they work with enough people that most online merchants use them. Our answer to that is if everyone jumped off a cliff would you too and then we realize we are sounding like our parents so we shut up (lol). If you have to popunder use http://rocketbolt.com/ as they are the least obnoxious popunder we've seen.
   
   
2. Content Is Skinny & Stale
   Blogs are a commitment. The deal you make is you WILL be blogging several times a week. Break that commitment and your biz blog will suck, never receive links and so you may as well stay home and watch TV for all the good adding less than 300+ posts a year will do you. Blogging is a discipline, a habit, your routine must incorporate if you want your content marketing to mean anything to visitors not related to you. Daily blogging gets easier the more you do it, but do it you must as fresh content is a huge part of the bargain you are striking with Google when you put a website into its view. Google is important, but your customers are even more important and they believe in QDF too (Quality Deserves Freshness), so blog it out. 
   
   
3. No Relevant CTAs
   Boy this is one of our HUGE pet peeves. If you don't have a BUTTON or LINK on your site that says the equivalent of CLICK ME THERE IS COOL STUFF HERE your biz blog sucks. CTAs are important, but you can have TOO MANY too, so strike a balance and ask for attention HERE and HERE.
   
   
4. No Related Links
   Blogs are NASTY bad at building relevant next links. Without a plugin your blog will be backwards. Most default WordPress themes publish "archives" in reverse publishing order (most recent first). BTW, that sucks. You are better off to have related links at the bottom of a post AND create Top 5 lists across several dimensions such as popularity, most shared, most commented on, staff favorites and even bottom 5. Creating a priority list does wonders for content because it brings the MOB into play. We want to know what OTHERS think is interesting or bad or amazing. Lists work so USE 'em.
   We think of content as products. We want to merchandise, combine and suggest content just like an ecommerce merchant creates cross-sale and up-sale.
   
   
5. Don't Leverage Analytics in PUBLIC
   I'm sitting at a Panera Bread writing this and there is a big sign sharing that the owners shared $19M with charity last year. Public feedback loops such as Top 5 ordered lists and Most Searched summaries help your visitors know you, your content and your tribe.
   
   
6. No Social Shares or BAD Social Shares
   Wow we could write a mile on this one, but we will give you the quick version. 1. Make it easy to share every page 2. Remember you want some shares for your SITE and some for the content people are reading now and those are two different things and need two different social widgets. 3. ALWAYS include your @name in your auto-tweets and shares. 

Great post by the Scoop.iteers. Hope those ideas help you know how to fix six reasons your biz blog sucks. Time and web attention are way to valuable to ever SUCK. That is not to say we've never SUCKED (lol), but we try not to stink forever. Blog on :). M

Biggest challenge to great web marketing may be learning to THINK like an Internet marketer. Here are 5 Secret Tips to help you become a great IMer.

Over Planning Can KILL Your Content Marketing
We see a lot of experts, gurus and people who should know better sharing yesterday's advice. We've read thousands of words about the importance of goal setting, planning and objectives for content marketing.

People talk about creating content marketing calendars and planning everything to within an inch of your life. Good luck with that. Might have worked 3 years ago, but today's social / mobile / connected world means you need to become a NOWIST.

This Curagami post embeds the influential Joy Ito TED talk about becoming a Nowist by pulling from the network to meet demand. Your content needs to do the same.

AND You need to digitally listen. We riff a few paragraphs about what it means to digitally listen such as FOLLOWING those who follow you, Retweeting and curating content from your customers and brand advocates.

Next time you read 1,000 words on planning your "content calendar" STOP and read this Curagami post so you don't over plan your content marketing.

Movement Marketing With Orate.me
Why startups create movements & community from organic fuel such as narrowing focus, winning hearts, minds & loyalty and building online community.

Connection, our human ability to listen, share and respond, is the new ecommerce. This Haiku Deck is in support of Marty Smith's Keynote talk at FedEx Connection Conference 7.30.14.

Is you digital marketing talking to itself about itself? Here are 10 Tips so your online marketing wins hearts, minds and loyalty. On Curagami & Curatti.

@Jaana Nyström is a great curator and she just beat me to the punch :). When she shared her EPIC journey of using G+ to move from "nobody" to "somebody" I planned to blog about her amazing journey. The content and message was too good to be trapped in comments.

Read this post CAREFULLY as you may recognize where you are on Jaana's timeline of personal brand development. There are several "inside baseball" tips to pay particular attention to including:

* Don't worry about perfection, start publishing.
* G+ is an AMAZING and vastly under used tool (start there add more social nets later).
* No matter what, keep turning the crank (keep going) since the only sin you and your personal band can't recover from is NOT PLAYING.

Great stuff from an amazing curator. What lessons did you learn from Jaana Nystrom? What similar lessons have you learned as you create a meaningful personal brand?

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/

What is content curation and how can it help SEO? This post shares how content curation creates more reach faster and protects your Internet marketing.

Note
This post is a response to Your Guide To Conent Curation for SEO by @jaysondemers (Jayson DeMers) for Search Engine Journal. Jayson's post is dissonat to my content curation experience in several important ways.

Your Guide To Content Curation For SEO is brilliant, includes orginal thinking and cagegorization I haven't thought of or about and gets more right than wrong.

That said, it felt important to sit on the ground and discuss where my content curation experience over the last three years differs from Jayson's declarations.

I linked his post and be sure to read mine and his, comment and share your thoughts since understanding what content curation IS and how it relates to SEO feels important :). M