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We’ve all been talking a lot about how messy the web has become in recent years. And it’s only getting messier. So much so that simple words will not suffice to describe just how much content is created and uploaded to the internet every minute of the day.
This Infographic was created to depict how “full” the internet is.
While it’s technically impossible for the web to fill up, it is very clear that web surfers are well past our limits of time and patience it takes to find the best information on the topics that interest us.
With a desperate search for tools to help us gather and consume only the best information on any topic, nothing has presented itself as an ideal solution. Except for one thing: the human curated information hub. Looking at the graphic, it becomes clear very quickly why it is impossible for a single algorithm-driven source, such as a search engine, to supply us with everything that is relevant (and of high quality) on a certain topic without all the noise that comes with it.
It is also a great way to demonstrate just how important human curated content has become.
Curation is truly a valuable service to web surfers who have neither the time nor the patience to sift through mountains of links and data to find what they’re looking for and make sense of it.
By Jack Humphrey - http://bit.ly/yNiApo
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What we call "brands" are just promises of an experience ... and content will help you shape that promise. Branding another name for creating a perception
The very essence of brands don’t lie within your brand colors or site design, even though important. The essence of a brand lies within its meaning. And words have meaning. Words matter.
How does the 'brand' inspire people to generate content? To increase brand audience? Hopefully inspiring consumers with brand experiences and publishing great content. Content is currency — something we trade for audience’s attention That currency becomes more valuable every time it’s shared by someone other than the brand. Hence it is imperative to create content worth sharing. How it is shared is up to the consumers. Have a look at this Infographic, Content Marketing Media Matrix For Small Businesses, created by PRWeb, you’ll see an array of content marketing options — each with its own balance of difficulty and value. By Frank Strong. http://bit.ly/Slb0on Source. http://bit.ly/QTutJS
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Are you a digital packrat? Are you in need of a searchable repository for everything you want to recall later? Evernote is an invaluable tool and one you need if you haven't used it before. This Manual will help you get you started and help you use it like a professional.
As information becomes more plentiful, we are bombarded with relentless forms of media 24/7, such as blog posts, videos and photos. Our computer hard drives are also getting bigger and bigger (500GB hard drives are not uncommon). This means we have a huge amount of media material on our computers and no practical way in which to organize it all. Your brain can’t keep up with what it has to remember.
Evernote brings order to that chaos. Everything you need to remember can now be stored in your Evernote account for future browsing and searching. Mark O’Neill, editor at MakeUseOf , takes you through everything you need to know about Evernote: - What are the best apps for Evernote?
- Is a premium account worth it?
- What are the best add-ons/plugins for Evernote?
- All the best tips and tricks.
By Mark O’Neill. http://bit.ly/QqqJ0R Download How-To-Use-Evernote. http://bit.ly/QnmzfB Source.http://bit.ly/P3l0zX
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Growing a blog takes time. It takes consistent sharing of great content for months and months on end. Usually it takes most people about two years to get big. This means that your growth is slow and steady as your traffic coming to your site is slow and steady. While that strategy will work…it’s always nice to get a huge jump in traffic every once in awhile. Apply the following online marketing guidelines: Write ultimate guides Get covered in big media, without spending a dime Suck in traffic with egobait [offer a reward] Create a stampede of visitors with StumbleUpon Paid Discovery Going viral on Tumblr to drive traffic Timing your Reddit submissions and buying traffic Leverage Pinterest like a power user Write a high-quality guest post How even an average Infographic can get you 10,000 impressions These tactics that can drive traffic to your site because they are tactics that anybody can use…and they work! By Neil Patel. http://bit.ly/N2Rhnn Source. http://bit.ly/OSCE7C
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Uberflip have released this Infographic about the rise of content curation as a content marketing strategy, showing that curation can be used to increase visibility, boost SEO, and establish thought leadership – all in a cost-effective way and with limited resources. Key Takeaways:
- Creating original content is the biggest obstacle for 73% of content marketers.
- 75% of marketers cannot justify spending the time needed to create original content for their audience.
- There are a variety of tools developed within the past 3 years that can help marketers and content curators gather the most relevant content, re-purpose it, and present it to their audience in unique ways.
- 85% of brands use content curation to establish thought leadership, and 80% say it enables them to increase brand visibility By Uberflip. http://bit.ly/OIRu2q Source. http://bit.ly/Q0zGRB
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Learn the secrets at IGNITION.... Content 4.0 is here That's content worth paying for -- and consumers are buying lots of it. For the preceding decade, content has been available for free online, both legally and illegally. So why are people buying it now? Because technology is making content more convenient, attractive, relevant and emotional. This Infographic By Business Insider is to Kick-Off their upcoming Conference Ignition - The Future Of Digital. http://read.bi/RIiQKP [Two-day conference in New York City, Nov. 27-28, 2012, that explores the successful and emerging business models of digital media.] By Business Insider. http://bit.ly/SuHvS9
Source. http://read.bi/NJNh1j
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The increasing importance of social shares and fresh content in search ranking are only part of why content is now the core of any marketing strategy.
While appearance is important, content is still king. Similarly, in web marketing and everything on the social web, visitors read content, search engines refer to content and determine the ranking of your website. Will it be a hit or miss? The result depends a lot on your web content strategy. Here Are The Top 5 Reasons
1. The Advent of Social Media Social media is crucial in getting your content in front of your intended audience. People now dictate what’s great. They like and recommend on Facebook, re-tweet and quote on Twitter, plus one in Google+, and share links through other sites. They also forward emails, share their RSS feeds, participate in online forums and promote content through word-of-mouse-advertising among their peers. Maximize this opportunity to get their attention. Identify and focus on your niche and target market. Research where your target customers are most active, then respond and address them. 2. Google Algorithm Updates Rather than obsessing over specific tactics, focus on writing high-quality, relevant content for your audience and building links through social sharing. 3. Information Era As the amount of content online has exploded, quality has become more critical. To build traffic it’s vital to keep publishing unique, quality content. Make sure that you deliver what yours customers view as valuable. 4. Competition for Attention Competition is not just about the best product, lowest price or biggest ad budget, but about who can provide prospective buyers with the most compelling and search-worthy content. If your website provides substance, you’ll establish a reputation as a trustworthy source of information. 5. Thirst for Updates Regular content updates give visitors a reason to return to your site and search engines value fresh content. Create an editorial calendar that reasonably reflects your ability to produce new content. Break longer content into a series of shorter posts.
Excellent content requires hard work and carefully planned strategy. Creative content, aligned with your overall business goals, will attract readers and turn them into buyers. By Celina Conner. http://bit.ly/PqthPv Source. http://bit.ly/NMndgP
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Overview of the MyCurator Plugin With MyCurator reading your feeds and finding good articles for you, just click Make Live on any of them and you go to the WordPress post editor with the full text of the article and all of its images in a meta box ready for you to use. You can grab quotes, paste in images and write your insights and comments. The link to the original article is already inserted into the post for proper attribution. When you are ready, click Publish and you are done!
With MyCurator, you can find an amazing range and breadth of articles. The reason is that while a very broad google alert would yield way too many articles for you to read yourself, MyCurator can plow through them, finding the article types you’ve trained it for. In this blog post we’ll outline a few key steps to use MyCurator as a broad content discovery search engine.
- Create a broad Google alert, like WordPress review or content curation or for a business, maybe something like mobile payment. Just a couple of keywords, no phrases. You might use OR such as WordPress theme OR plugin.
- Add the new alert to the sources for your topic (using the Add New Link page). You might also add some very general blogs and news feeds to the source too.
- When you create the topic, leave the Topic Search 1 field blank if you just have Google alerts as your source. If you also have blogs or news feeds, you could add the same keywords that you used in the Google alert.
- Add as many Topic Search 2 keywords and phrases as you can think of. The more the better, as it will filter out fewer articles. Also make sure to check the Use Search 2 Keywords as Tags box, providing a rich set of tags for your articles. An alternative is to leave this field blank too, which will not filter out any articles. Unfortunately, you won’t have any tags on your articles if you take this approach.
- Once MyCurator starts returning articles, train as many as you can as either good or bad on the Training page you have set up.
By Target Info . http://bit.ly/Pdtk11 Source. http://bit.ly/Qu7Qd1
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... Have you ever written a killer blog post or article only to Google the topic later and realize it's nowhere to be found in your search results? You're not alone.
Creating compelling content is only half the battle to the top, literally!
Content strategies are always growing and changing so understanding how search engines and social sites treat your content is key to being found.
This Infographic will help you understand some of the dynamics around search, content optimization, social and content marketing strategies. Included: - Trends in search and social media
- The factors for successful content creation and promotion
- A better understanding of what the content marketing mix should contain
- The relationship between search intent and conversion
Download Report - The Impact Of Real Time Content Optimization - http://bit.ly/QNT3jR By InboundWriter http://bit.ly/NeCc6h Source http://bit.ly/Tior7D
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Ever wondered how many bloggers there are in the United States? How about how many active business blogs there are in the US? Blogging.org has done the research as well as polled over 1000 bloggers across the US to find out the answers that you want to know. In 2012 it has evolved into major publishing businesses and is also used by companies to display their thought leadership and expertise. Blogs are now considered an important part of a company's participation online. The evolution of search engines has also made the creation of unique content in a variety of media vital, to improve brands and businesses online visibility to Google, Bing and Yahoo.
1000 Person Survey: What Blogging Platform Do People Use? - 43% WordPress
- 35% Blogger
- 16% Tumblr, Typepad, Posterous
- 6% Other
What Diversity Are People In The US? - 48% Caucasian
- 38% African American
- 9% Other
- 4% Latin American
How Much Do People Make Blogging? - 8% Enough Money To Support A Family
- 81% Never Make $100 From Blogging
- 9% Enough To Sustain Their Personal Lifestyle Blogging 4-6 Hours A Day
- 2% Make $150K+ Blogging 1-2 Hours A Day
There are an estimated 31 Million bloggers in the US as of July 2012 Businesses Blogging Stats - 60% of Businesses have a Business
- 35% Blog At Least Once A Month
- 65% Haven’t Blogged Once In The Past Year
US Blogging Stats For 2012 - 42,000,000 Blogs in the US
- 329 Million People View A Blog Monthly
- 25 Billion Pages Viewed Monthly
- 500,000 Daily New Posts
- 400,000 Daily Comments
What Are The Common Blogging Languages? - English 66%
- Spanish 8.7%
- Portuguese 6.5%
- Indonesian 3.5%
- Italian 2%
- German 1.8%
- French 1.4%
- Russian 1.1%
- Vietnamese 1.1%
- Swedish 1.0%
By John Rampton http://bit.ly/NdYHVs Source http://bit.ly/NpDtmS
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Frustrated because you write awesome content that nobody seems to appreciate?
This post by Brad Shorr could be helpful.
Everyone talks about the importance of “quality content”. However, an obsession with quality content, however you define it, can actually undermine a content marketing program.
The reason for this is fairly simple, if you consider that content marketing consists of two separate but equal activities: creating and communicating.
Communication is the “marketing” part of content marketing. If all of your time and energy go into creating content, you are likely to run out of time and energy for the equally important job of effectively communicating that content to the right audience. Brilliant content poorly marketed is like the proverbial tree that falls in the empty forest. If nobody hears your content, in one sense it doesn’t even exist – in which case it won’t help you generate leads or establish credibility or accomplish any of the other business goals of your content marketing strategy.
How To Cut Back On Creative Scale back on the creative, which allows you to concentrate a bit harder on the communication side of the equation.
#Pull back on the polish. Rules of grammar and usage should always be followed, but there’s no need to agonize over every word choice. Most online readers are in a hurry, looking for substance more than style. #Don’t belabor the backstory. If it’s true that online readers are in a hurry, tell them what time it is, not how to make the clock. Marginally relevant background information, while interesting, can backfire because it keeps readers from quickly grasping your point. #Stick to one style. A blog post, white paper or Infographic might be editorial or informational in nature; it might be an executive summary or highly technical, light hearted or deadly serious. But it should never be all of the above. Trying to be all things to all people will make your content pretty much useless to everybody.
How To Ramp Up Communication Here are a few suggestions that will help you get better results and will allow your great content to bear fruit. #Do serious social syndication. Too many B2Bs go through the motions, joining every possible social network and mechanically sharing their content without giving thought to when or how or even why they’re doing it. Smart content marketers study metrics and continually refine the timing, frequency and style of their content shares. Better to spend time here than poring through a thesaurus searching for the perfect adjective! #Build relevant social media communities. If a tree falls in the forest and 10,000 irrelevant Twitter followers hear it … you’ve gained nothing. To get a better idea of how tough it can be, read this post about B2B community building. http://bit.ly/SEqRgx #Pay attention to SEO. Great content without SEO is like a sports car without gas. Organic search visibility is critical for B2B lead generation, and today more than ever firms need to stay current on best practices for SEO. Here is an article Brad wrote that provides a detailed rundown on key SEO changes that affect content marketing
By Brad Shorr – http://bit.ly/NxXJFF Source: http://bit.ly/MD6Kej
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Oriella PR Network released their 5th annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study that tracks trends and changes in digital media and publishing over time. Here are four takeaways for PR pros and Communicators: - Credibility is Vital. Simply having a presence in the right places is no longer enough. The study clearly shows that journalists will gravitate towards sources they trust and respect far more readily than they will speak to those they don’t. Social media presents good opportunities for brands and the individuals behind them to build their personal profiles and engage with supporters; with the right support, brands can make the most of them.
- Integrated PR and digital campaigning are no longer solely a feature of communications in the ‘developed’ markets of Western Europe and North America. The extent to which social and digital media are used across the world’s newsrooms suggests such campaigns can work globally. Brands that adopt this approach (albeit with some local tailoring) will be better-placed to win in their chosen markets.
- Deploy the full range of storytelling assets. The Study has found that global public relations can no longer rely solely on the press release – brand stories must be supported with videos, images, Infographics and opinion-led content that sets out a clear point of view. Communications leads should consider adapting their planning processes and workflows to ensure producing these types of content becomes standing operating procedure, rather than the exception to the rule.
- Deliver and execute the message locally; monitor internationally. Given the manifold challenges of international community engagement, we believe the best place to manage this is within target countries themselves. However, procedure, protocol and, above all, monitoring should be managed at a regional or even global level. Real-time tracking and rapid response to emerging issues are vital to protecting corporate reputations.
By Oriella PR Network -- http://bit.ly/PF3vts Source: http://bit.ly/MddOOr Oriella Digital Journalism Study -- http://bit.ly/MddmQf
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This how to guide by Sylvia Jensen, highlights nine tips to ensure a great content strategy: Start with the objective All too often objectives are far-reaching and/or fuzzy Understand your audience Don’t lose focus on who will be reading your content and where possible identify personas Avoid product- and sales-driven content Create content about what you know, not what you sell Invest and market your content Create a unique point-of-view because you are competing with every publisher, bloggers, trade journals, Twitter influencers, and even daily newspapers Create a content calendar The content you create should be planned, yet flexible enough to adapt to inspiration Build a content team Your colleagues are vital to the creation, distribution and socializing of your content, inspire them to contribute Recycle your content Wherever possible repurpose and recycle your content and share across all platforms. Check this great presentation by Scot McKee on content recycling.[PDF] http://bit.ly/SabzgX Find a chief content officer While everyone in a company may be responsible for content, one person needs to be accountable for it Be interesting Content marketing is a new strand of marketing DNA. If you lack the skills internally then hire a journalist or a specialty agency to work with you. By Sylvia Jensen. http://bit.ly/Snc32P Source. http://bit.ly/Q27jSj Graphic and B2B Marketing Summit video presentation. http://bit.ly/SadqlR By Scot McKee. http://bit.ly/SSatGQ
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Instead of doing your research at the start of the week and pre-scheduling your content, a new emphasis has been placed on real-time content discovery. Here are Adam Vincenzini's suggestions to discover and curate content in real-time... 1. Bottlenose.com This combines your Twitter and LinkedIn activity preferences with a continuous scan of trending topics to serve up semi-tailored results in real-time 2. rt.ly (aka realtime from bit.ly) This serves up content with stats telling you how popular it is as the time of searching 3. Sulia.com The tag line for this is the 'interest network' with a most attractive user experience 4. Alternion.com Another service which combines your own social media preferences with some real-time discovery and organisation.
5. Social Buzz (from social-searcher.com) Social Buzz works by taking your keywords, running a search and then adding the analytics associated with those results to give you the most relevant content options.
Why tools like these give you a competitive advantage Real-time discovery of quality content is becoming more important as pre-scheduling older content no longer has the same impact
The Chart explains this in more detail: The best time to find and share content is during the 'real-time content discovery hot spot' which means you're more likely to be viewed by your networks as a news breaker as opposed to a news follower.
By Adam Vincenzini. http://bit.ly/QErqXP Source. http://bit.ly/PpVKG1
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They say that content is king...the Yin to social media’s Yang. Most marketers understand the need for high quality content and they know that businesses today are being asked to become publishers. With demands for such content, make sure you have the right people in place that can create content. If you are a smaller company, then one or two people could suffice. But a larger company really needs a team of content creation. Because content marketing roles are relatively new to B2B marketing, a lot of marketers don’t know where to start. Marketo’s Content Program Manager, Dayna Rothman, gives us some tips on where to start: What does a content marketer do? What should you have your content marketer working on? - Creating thought leadership pieces (from initial copy development to asset production)
- Definitive Guides
- Whitepapers
- Checklists/Tip sheets
- Partner eBook co-creation
- Blog management, curation, and contribution
- Webinar program planning and production (this is key, since webinars spin off so many other forms of content, including Slideshare presentations, podcasts, videos, and sometimes blog posts and eBooks)
- Copy editing all contributed content
- Ensure all content is on-brand, consistent in terms of style, quality and tone of voice, and optimized for search and social promotion
By Dayna Rothman. http://bit.ly/O18VZs Source. http://bit.ly/QmWnlu
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In this comprehensive article Mustafa, outlines various methods to create compelling content to gain targeted traffic that converts. Here is the Table Of Contents that breaks down his recommendations: Table of Contents I have focused on "Content Curation" as this category is dear to most: 3.1 Embrace Content Curation The information age has brought in a lot of clutter. And the junk on the Internet is only contributing to it. People online are tired of wading through useless information. They don’t want to waste time anymore. What they want is knowledge they can use. No wonder “content curation” (the process of discovering, organizing and sharing information) has gained such traction. Proper curation helps you give your readers useful content in a structured and systematic manner. In other words, it takes away the ‘clutter’. Man has always craved organization. Because organization gives clarity. And clarity leads to action. By embracing curation, you’ll be able to create resourceful content. Build a stronger foundation for your website. And of course, impress your readers with your organizational skills. However, quality content curation isn’t about collecting a bunch of related links and putting them in one place. It’s not even about copy-pasting parts of other articles from various sites or blogs. It’s about curating the most relevant content and adding your own valuable insight to it. If your curated content is the meat (no offence to all you vegetarians) then your opinions or ideas form the bread that goes around it. Which makes your content tasty and appealing to your readers. By Mustafa Khundmiri. http://bit.ly/SWp0Vs Source. http://bit.ly/SU8XZF
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By now, blogging is far from a fringe marketing activity. 65% of B2B marketers used blogging last year, the third most popular tactic, according to the Content Marketing Institute.
Blogging may be a preferred means of communicating with and engaging leads through the entire – often lengthy – sales cycle, but many in the B2B space struggle with it. They struggle with how to write a good post, one that will get read. Mark Schaefer wrote the just published “Grande Guide to B2B Blogging”, he detailed his formula for crafting the perfect B2B marketing blog post. Here are his four steps. 1. An Eyeball-Grabbing Headline
This is the first thing your readers see when it pops up in search results, their email inbox, on social and their RSS feeds. It should be short, sweet and make the person want to click on it. 2. Illustrative Photos and Video
We’re visual people by nature. (The meteoric rise of Pinterest confirms this.) To grab and keep your readers engaged, provide visual elements like video or photos. Just make sure they actually tie to what the post is about. 3. Keep it Short
Remember, your audience is full of business folks. They’re pressed for time. So keep your posts short and to the point. 600 words or less is a good measure. Bullet points and subheadings help organize the post in a business-friendly manner. 4. Make it Shareable
If you want to expand the reach of your content, you need to make it easy to share. Social sharing and email buttons allow readers to quickly push your blog to their network. Plus, widgets like tweet counts and Facebook “likes” provide social validation. Follow these tips, you’ll be on your way to B2B blogging perfection. By Jesse Noyes. http://bit.ly/OdISAs Download The Grande Guide To B2B Blogging. http://bit.ly/RWB2QQ Source. http://bit.ly/SPScgJ
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Content marketing productivity takes more than creating great content. Here's how to track your favorite content ideas on an idea dashboard. Content productivity or Curating Content involves tracking and applying the good ideas you find in the blog posts you read each week. These contain a staggering amount of information and good ideas. A lot of information to absorb and catalog for future reference. When you add ideas you find across the web, social communities and other media, your information management tasks can quickly become overwhelming. Roger Parker has come up with this solution to track the consuming tsunami of valuable ideas, strategies, and tips. An easy way to increase comprehension of individual posts plus a way to quickly and easily relocate important posts in the future. Roger C. Parker's idea dashboard helps you monitor ideas worthy of further study and should satisfy the following criteria: - Relevance: Your idea dashboard doesn’t need to list every blog post, just those you’re most likely to want to revisit.
- Brevity: Enough information to summarize the post and its key ideas, providing a reason for you to click the link back to the original post.
- Ease of use: Easy to update. Ideally, you should be able to add references to new posts in under 10 minutes.
- It includes a visual component. Must be “scannable;” i.e., able to select relevant posts at a glance.
- Search-ability: easily search, or filter, your dashboard to locate the information you’re looking for as quickly as possible.
- Flexibility: Must be easy to rearrange your dashboard to reflect your changing interests or priorities.
With these criteria in mind, there are three steps involved in setting up and maintaining your idea dashboard. Step 1: Choose your key categories Selectivity is the key to success: Selectivity involves self-curation — identifying topics that are most relevant to you. Step 2: Choose the right format - Your two primary options are spreadsheets (like Excel, or Google Docs) and mind maps. Step 3: Update daily - Part of your daily ritual. Consistency is extremely important By Roger C. Parker. http://bit.ly/NJmM83 Source. http://bit.ly/R21UIr
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Everybody multitasks, but what most people don’t realize is that, in fact, multitasking doesn’t work. And with today’s technology, everyone multitasks more than ever—from using smartphones in class to tablets while watching television, there are always multiple things to be doing at one time. While multitasking may make you feel like you’re accomplishing more things in less time, in actuality trying to multitask does more harm than good: Focusing on more than one thing decreases your productivity by 40% and lowers your IQ by 10 points, according to Harvard Business Review and that only 2% of people can multitask effectively. As for the remaining 98%? They’re actually lessening their productivity without even realizing it. Check out this Infographic from OnlineCollege.org on how often we confuse multitasking with actual distraction. By Online College. http://bit.ly/NdStHK Source. http://bit.ly/P9z0JV
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Marc Meyer has put together some thought provoking questions summarized below, which may help you align your content or curating efforts with those of your audience "Being a content producer is brutal, it’s hard and it never ends. Sometimes it sucks. Why? Because content, in and of itself, is constantly being redefined and producing it is constantly a challenge. Content for the consumer, is like crack, the more we get, the more we want. Good content keeps raising the bar for all content producers to strive and push out there something that will be consumed on a large scale and in a sense, will go viral." No longer is average content acceptable. It’s no longer up to you. Content is what keeps companies and organizations in the public eye. Multiply the ability to consume what is created times two. As device proliferation increases, so does demand for sites, apps, content curators and content creators. Collecting and curating content is damn hard and just because you have resources and access to Google or Bing or Yahoo or whatever, doesn’t mean that you know what will work for your company or a company when it comes to compelling content that will drive eyeballs and sales. Here are a few questions you need to ask: 1. Can the intern help you with good content? 2. Can we just automate the process? 3. How well do you know what your customers want? Helping you understand the difference between search and intent. 4. Does it matter if your brick and mortar customers are online? 5. Does it matter that your customers are social? 6. What will it take to create and curate compelling content? Test what works and what doesn’t. You have to know what drives traffic and what get’s clicked on and what doesn’t. 7. Can we outsource it? Do they really know you, your product or your customers? Consumers are going to continue to demand content that “fits” them. As well, that content not only needs to fit their niches and demands but it also needs to be accessed at anytime and anywhere. It will start and end with the content you create and curate every day and every night. If you don’t get it right, chances are that your competition will. So How Good Is Your Content?
By Marc Meyer. http://bit.ly/QjS9F4 Source. http://bit.ly/Nr7eED
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Create vs. curate? They aren't mutually exclusive. According to Mark Sherbin, some of us are still trying to wrap our heads around what exactly content curation is. How does it differ from content aggregation? Should it be a higher priority than building your own content? He makes the argument curation as a strategy is divisive and even states: " Who the hell should you believe? " Continuing ... Curation doesn’t require you to replace content creation. Instead, curating content eases some of the editorial burden. As a result, your role as content strategist consists of one part creator, one part curator. So What’s the right way to curate? Curation doesn’t require you to replace content creation. Instead, curating content eases some of the editorial burden. As a result, your role as content strategist consists of one part creator, one part curator. To curate content the right way, experts suggest best practices like these. Explain why the content is important to your audience
Rather than simply posting content, it’s important to put your own spin on it. That way, you can imprint your brand on an article without claiming full ownership. It also builds reader trust by clearly showing you actually read the article, raising the value of the pick in the eyes of the audience. Include clear links and credit for the original content
The way to avoid morally dubious curation tactics is to clearly identify the original writer and the source of the content. That way, audience members find information through your site, and publishers, if they take any action, will thank you for sending traffic their way. Post snippets of content
Curating content doesn’t require you to post articles in their entirety. Instead, it’s important to post snippets of content. Curata’s Curation Habits Report 2012 finds that medium snippets (141-1,200 characters) get a 20% higher click-thru rate than small snippets (<=140 characters). Pickiness is encouraged
Most marketers will tell you that producing too much content is almost never an issue. Aided by software, curation offers the temptation of posting as much content as you can get your hands on. But experts say it’s better to be picky — your audience can only digest so much content. In fact, Curation Habits Report 2012 finds that email newsletters featuring curated content average 12% list growth when they publish less than 50% of articles they find. In comparison, curators that publish more than 50% only average 5% growth. “Your search for relevant content may return 200 to 300 useful articles,” Kolowich [Rich Content Daily] explains. “But the closer you can get to those 10 absolutely vital articles — the cutting-edge ones that advance your audience’s understanding of their jobs — the stronger your readership will be. Respect your readers’ time and they’ll repay you for it.” Find a unique voice
Again, you want to associate your brand with the content. In order to accomplish this, you should find ways to stamp your flair on the content you share. According to Steve Rosenbaum [Magnify.Net], “Curators have a voice. If you’re a company that produces a consumer product, you need to figure out not just what you’re going to say, but also the kind of content you’re comfortable drawing in around your brand and how you’re going to contextualize it.” Following best practices clearly requires time and effort. Deciding whether content curation is right for your business So how can marketers at mid- to large-sized companies reduce that burden — especially when they’re spending time to create content as well? According to Pawan Deshpande [Curata], marketers should evaluate three crucial points before deciding to implement a curation strategy: 1. Is there a dominant publication in your market? 2. Does your topic of focus align with the interests of your audience? 3. Is there enough content to curate out there? By Mark Sherbin http://bit.ly/QzFH8r Source http://bit.ly/Ng4qMg
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Over 100,000 new WordPress blogs are created every day, there’s 40 hours worth of video uploaded to YouTube every minute and there are 5,340 new websites created every hour.
“Content Curation” is providing the answer! Find a good curator of a subject and follow their activity. You can trust them and rely on them to find the good stuff online, saving you time and effort.
It can also provide a way of reducing information overload amongst your potential customers, thereby giving them a reason to stay loyal to you and make it more likely they will buy from you.
Equally, if you curate content in specialist areas relating to your customer needs, you will gain reputation, visitors, followers – all the things you need to ensure your online presence is high.
#1. You can add your content to your own blog #2. Set up a new blog just for curated content or #3. Add the material to a curation service
Whichever system you choose, the mere fact that you are curating content will help your business because in the explosion of information which is happening right now, people are looking for clarity.
The people who provide that will be the winners.
You can make your mark by being a content curator.
By Graham Jones http://bit.ly/PgUhxD Source http://bit.ly/SLdSJU
Resources Free Content Curation Tools http://bit.ly/Qg5p2D
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Sometimes trying to get people to share your content feels like pulling teeth. If you’re finding that your content isn’t being shared, these are most likely the reasons why: 1. You only talk about yourself Everyone has been around constant self-promoters before—they aren't fun to talk to. Part of the reason they aren’t interesting is because they don’t involve you in the conversation. To increase your site’s shareability, start addressing the topics your readers want to learn and talk about. People will then view you as a resource and be more likely to promote you. The Golden Rule prevails here: talk about others as much as you would like them to talk about you.
2. You pick topics that aren’t timely In the age of the 24/7 news cycle, the pressure is always on to write timely content. People like to share content that is relevant to what’s going on in their community at that moment, not content that was “so two days ago.” Use an editorial calendar to help plan out your post schedule and ensure your posts are timely.
3. Your headlines aren’t catchy You don’t have to have gimmicky headlines, but you need to them to be interesting and relevant enough to capture the small attention span of your audience. Keep your headlines less than eight words to make them punchy and memorable, just like your favorite tweets on Twitter. See the criteria for a great headline: It’s exclusive and specific. Keeping your headlines short and sweet will make it much easier for your readers to share your content
4. You write huge blocks of text Now that everyone is used to reading online, people have tiny attention spans. Most people want to scan your post before reading it so they don’t waste their time reading something that isn't relevant to them. Having a few bullet points with multimedia will help your readers take home the main messages and easily share them with others.
5. You don’t make it easy to share Do you have sharing buttons in an easy-to-use location on your site? Choose the right social media sharing buttons for your audience and place them where your audience can easily see them. Ginny Soskey -- http://bit.ly/LLCwWX Source: http://bit.ly/NdQNfl
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Much time and effort goes into the actual work of raising web visibility--it’s an ongoing process that will require you to generate content and build relationships.
Defining Terms In general, we understand that content marketing is usually considered different from social media marketing. Content marketing is about drawing attention to the content on your website; social media marketing is about encouraging engagement on the various social media forums out there in cyberspace. We tend to blur that line between content and social media marketing.
Every strategy developed includes both. Valuable content--blog posts, Infographics, videos, whatever content type aligns with you or your client’s goals--forms the foundation of any web marketing effort. Once you’ve got the value, utilize social media to get the word out, engage, build relationships, and ultimately brand awareness. See the blurring?
The label matters less than having a deliberate and intentional strategy to provide something of value on an ongoing basis, because content and social media marketing ultimately work together to build: - Value in your company or organization (or on behalf of your client)
- A personality and brand that people know and trust
- Sustainable relationships
- A supportive online community
- Domain authority and desired rankings
The Solution To that end Mack Web Solutions developed an approach that clearly explains and delineates the process, step-by-step. It spells out who does what and when and how and just, in general, makes the whole thing both more manageable and more palatable to our hesitant clients. The Mack Web Approach - Organic web marketing process includes three stages: - Stage One
SEO & Local Search (research & implementation) - Stage Two
Link Building & Social Media Strategies (research & development) - Stage Three
Ongoing Implementation & Measurement (which never, ever ends)
This graphic depicts Stages Two and Three.
By Mackenzie Fogelson -- http://bit.ly/MTd6JH Source: http://mz.cm/KZzlOp
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You know they’ve got to be right to attract the audience you want. Writing less and styling your text so it’s easy to read could be all you need to do to attract and hold attention. Impatient searchers Jakob Nielson’s seminal web usability study from 1997 showed that 79% of web users scan rather than read. Think about how you use the web. You’re in search of information. And if you don’t find it on the page you’re visiting, you click away and look elsewhere. What can you do to engage your readers so they lean into your content, stay on your pages and interact with your information? Make it snappy To write successfully for the web, you need to forget some of what you learned in English composition class. Accept that people scan web pages rather than reading them in detail, and work with this reality rather than fighting it. Structure your paragraphs in the inverted pyramid style. This means stating your conclusion first, then supporting it with the sentences that follow. This helps scanners to move from point to point, and decide where they’d like to dive in deeper. 1. Embrace the line break There are few easier ways to make your content more readable. And try writing some paragraphs with one sentence only. 2. Break up your content with compelling subheads One technique taught here at Copyblogger is to write your headline and subheads first. Make your subheads intriguing, but informative, too. Web readers have well-honed BS meters, so don’t exaggerate or you’ll lose credibility. “Compelling” is not the same as “hypey.” Is there a compelling story? Will they get the gist of your information? 3. Use bulleted lists - They create fascinations your readers can’t resist
- They’re an easily-scannable way to present multiple points
- They look different from the rest of your text, so they provide a visual break for your reader
4. Use deep captions Studies have shown that image captions are consistently some of the most-read copy on a page. Try pairing a strong image with a “deep caption.” Deep captions are two to three sentences long. That’s long enough to intrigue your reader to dig in to your whole article. 5. Add highly relevant links Internal links back to your own cornerstone content will keep people on your site and reading your best material. External links demonstrate that you’ve researched the topic and want to highlight other experts. Good content uses both to expand your reader’s understanding and add value. 6. Use strategic formatting Add emphasis to your web copy by bolding important concepts. You reader will be able to scan through and pick out the most important information at a glance. Emphasize the key points so the scanner can quickly pick them out. 7. Harness the power of numbers Think those numbered list posts are tired? Think again. Numbers are an incredibly effective way to both capture attention and to keep the reader oriented. You can often make a post more compelling just by numbering your main points. Give it a try. 8. Check your dual readership path Once you’ve used subheads, numbers, bulleted lists and other formatting to highlight the key elements of your post, read through it again — looking only at the text you’ve called special attention to. Does the reader get the gist? Have you pulled out the most interesting and relevant words, the words that will pull your scanner in and turn her into a reader? By Pamela Wilson -- http://bit.ly/LzBnQm Source: http://bit.ly/LIOp4n Infographic by BlueGlass -- http://bit.ly/LzBNpN
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