![Why Your Web Content Is On A Hero's Journey: Content Marketing That Gets Buyers [Chris Brogan] | Curation Revolution | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/OPJr6AD864kQ0OZTDfGoljl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
You can write for your idea-spreaders, and you can write for your buyers.
One gets you seen and the other gets you business. I say do both. Here’s a post about content marketing with the mi...
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Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith onto Curation Revolution |
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Google can feel like a dungeon master. If your website is mission critical, and whose isn't now, and any traffic source controls more than 30% of your websites traffic and/or conversions you are in trouble. Delete the scoop?
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Papa and Marketing Got A Brand New Bag The Commons, that special place where the sum is greater than the parts. The commons is where the Holy Grail of authority lives, where we collaboratively compete and all of our Google dreams are answered, Delete the scoop?
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2 Examples of The Share
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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. * But be prepared and know your subject. * Create in the moment on what inspires you. * Ask great open-ended questions. * Write a script AFTER filming. * Tell a story.
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Love Is The Killer App If Will Dean's, CEO of Tough Mudder, recent statement, "Experience is the new luxury good," is correct then all marketing is personal now. Days when presence was enough are over. 
Martin (Marty) Smith's comment,
June 9, 10:45 AM
Thanks for the comment Francis. Not sure I agree with the idea of "wasted". Since consumption is so easily within our control those sharing don't have to find an audience. I've done extensive analysis on what kind of information creates an audience and negative doesn't work nearly as well as positive. This doesn't mean there isn't an audience for both just that we prefer stories of HOPE. Increasingly the more personal the story the more support or engagement it creates. Let's amend that to say the more positive and personal the story the more successful. Marty
Martin (Marty) Smith's comment,
June 10, 8:09 PM
Good comment Francis and you are onto what Popcorn meant. That people join meaning and so a brand with meaning creates itself. Pity the poor brand whose meaning is hollow, perceived as non-relevant or uncaring. Benjamin Moore just launched a perfect example of social branding and joining today with their Main Streets Matter campaign. Aligned to their brand, well executed and a perfect example of how a company can "humanize" itself so thousands (perhaps millions) will "join".
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Video Tour of my house in Durham, NC: My amazing employer, Raleigh software and web devleopers Atlantic BT, are creating Cure Cancer Starter and matching my investment. I'm paying for development with my salaray and cash is getting TIGHT so time to sell everything, time to sell out to help cure cancer :). Delete the scoop?
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The venture investor and former Facebook executive examines technologies he thinks will improve the quality of life and economic output—and explains why most executives undervalue technical proficiency.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Why Don't We Teach JavaScript?
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Raleigh PHP Programmer Jobs & Raleigh .NET Programmer Jobs. Come work for the largest web development company in the Raleigh/Durham/Cary area!
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Atlantic BT, Raleigh's largest software and web developers, has been growing at more than 30% a year for five years. Last year was no exception. If you hare a great devleoper, Internet marketer or designer come work with a great team doing awesome projects such as http://www.curecancerstarter.org :). Delete the scoop?
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Penguin 2.0 happened last week creating a big OUCH for ScentTrail Marketing as the Panguin SEO tool shows. Atlantic BT can help fix your SEO issues too.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
My blog got smacked last week by Penguin 2.0. I know why (laziness on my part). This piece includes tools to help you get back into Google's good graces. Delete the scoop?
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Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Community & OPC Tim made an interesting distinction in our Hangout between UGC (User Generated Content) and OPC (Other People's Content). This post follows up with notes on places to find OPC and its overwhelming value. Delete the scoop?
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Amazes me more big companies don't know about SEO rollups, the ability to platform or "Hub" a website and roll up large groups of keywords. Delete the scoop?
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Embrace Save The World Marketing
In a social mobile and connected time for profit companies should learn emotional storytelling from nonprofits. Nonprofits should learn viral marketing and SEO from their for profit cousins.
Save The World Marketing is a "new altruism" that is sweeping across social media. Companies and brands that embrace Save The World Marketing create an emotional connection with customers via authentic stories and social media.
Every enterprise is saving the world in some interesting way. Telling that story or finding partners who can help tell a company's "save the world" story should be a top priority for senior managers and small to medium sized businesses (SMBs).
Yu Ji's curator insight,
May 21, 6:37 AM
To some extent, it pointed the changes happened today in marketing and how to cope with such changes.
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Rescooped by Martin (Marty) Smith from Startup Revolution |
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Content Marketing Tools For Startups
I didn't write this post with #Startups in mind, but I could have. Startups wrestle with content marketing. I suggest these content marketing tools for any startup:
* Paper.li
* Scoop.it
* Google Analytics
* Google Adwords
* Google Plus
* Twitter
* A Blog (WordPress)
It is possible to change the world with those seven tools.
The linked post explains how I use Paper.li for everything from spidering the social web to reputation management. If you are a startup and don't know what either of those ideas are, trust me you will and I promise to post more about content marketing for startups soon.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Friends @Smallrivers (Paper.li) made my day today and it was HARD day, so thought I would run this scoop about why Paper.li ROCKS back up the flagpole along with my thanks.
Kelly Hungerford's comment,
June 18, 11:15 AM
Thanks Marty. That's a great list and we're proud to be a part of it in your "Do More With Less Strategy" Appreciated!
Kelly Hungerford's comment,
June 18, 11:15 AM
Thanks Marty. That's a great list and we're proud to be a part of it in your "Do More With Less Strategy" Appreciated!
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Rescooped by Martin (Marty) Smith from Latest Social Media News |
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How your startup can benefit from high-quality website content, and why you might need to hire someone to oversee it for you.
Via Neil Ferree, Gerrit Bes
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Content is the new SEO.
Neil Ferree's curator insight,
June 14, 8:38 PM
Key factors Google considers to be indicators of high quality:
- Longer content
- Images and video
- Proper text formatting
- Correct spelling and grammar
- Outbound links to other high-quality sites
- Inbound links and social shares from other high-quality sources
A proper content strategy requires a significant amount of time and talent. But as a time-crunched business owner, you might not have enough bandwidth to regularly generate and oversee the content creation for your website. If that's the case consider hiring a director of content who can create and publish white papers, newsletters blog posts or e-books for you.
Make sure your http://bit.ly/RichSnippet renders with the content you create publish and syndicate to your top socials.
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Suggested by Carla Deter |
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Attn: It is best to read this entire post to have a complete understanding of why I chose this post topic. I thank you in advance. ~Carla Dear Readers, I’m writing this post today because I’ve be...
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Wonderful, generous and kind post from Carla about several things I KNOW is true:
* We will cure cancer in our lifetime.
* Social media and the web will play an important role in the cure.
* We cure cancer when we BELIEVE we can.
Carla is right. I'm all in because that what creating anything great always takes (at least for me). I've been so lucky and honored to know amazing people, a list that grows daily.
I've NEVER been disappointed by trusting in the kindness of strangers and Carla proves why I won't be this time either in this kind post. Imagine the day we cure cancer. Think of how that day will feel and let's work backwards.
Thanks to Carla and my growing list of FOMs (Friends of Martin). With an army of friends we climb any mountain.
:)M
Carla Deter's comment,
June 13, 7:14 AM
Marty, I love to write and therefore blog. This doesn't always come easy. This post was actually quite easy to write - nothing technical - the research had already been done just out of curiosity and interest the thoughts just flowed. I hope your sale and goals are reaching further everyday. Thank you for the inspiration to intertwine my social media profession with a topic of human interest. Because of your story, I will always seek to find human interest stories relating to my social media business. Hmmm...a new blog may be due. This has sparked a thought.
Martin (Marty) Smith's comment,
June 13, 2:49 PM
Carla, thanks and glad to have you on our journey to cure cancer. Stories are so important to Internet marketing now. Stories are everything. Since the web starts FLAT our words and stories provide the fabric we weave with customers and friends. As Karen Dietz so accurately says, "He who tells the best story, WINS". Marty
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Consumer-Driven Campaign Will Revitalize and Repaint the Main Streets of 20 U.S. And Canadian Communities
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Benjamin Moore's Main Street Mattes is a great campaign idea. The paint company will use a favorite tactic of mine, the User Generated Content Contest, to "beautify America.
They will select 20 "Main Streets" to be revitalized based on UGC nominations and votes. Great idea proving another favorite topic - Save The World Marketing.
Every brand, product and service saves the world in some way. Connecting with how your brand, product, service or company saves the world has never been more important.
Find my slideshare on Save The World Marketing here
http://www.slideshare.net/martinmartysmith/save-the-world-marketing
Kudos Benjamin Moore.
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Content's Many Audiences
When you create content you need to think about who will be its eventual consumer. Do you know who and why your content will be consumed by? Not ever and not nearly.
What you do know is you need some content for search engine spiders, the only one guaranteed to read every word on your pages (lol). You also need short attention span and mobile theater. Think of a smart phone as a game console and you wouldn't be too far wrong.
Finally you need content that springs legs and walks around the world. My advice is to NOT plan for consumption as much as general content characteristics. Search engines love LONG form content. Users love graphics and short attention span theater.
Mobile users want instant gratification and to easily file for later. Rich snippets work great on mobile, will leave search engines wondering what the heck you are up to and may or may not go viral.
Do you need all three kinds of content: long form, rich snippets and games for mobile and viral content? Sure, and DO make sure you create all three, but don't limit where you publish.
Always test everything everywhere. If you have a rich snippet go viral then write a blog post and create some more weight for SEO and to promote viral. If you have long form go viral cut it up and tweet it.
Don't get MARRIED to the idea that X content goes into Y channel. Be flexible, test everything and COPE (Create Once and Publish Everywhere).
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If your content doesn't resonate with your audience, then they won't follow you where you want to take them. Here's a list of ideas for creating 21 types of content we all crave.
MARTY
Great infographic that reminds us not all content is equal. Some content starts with more viral potential than other content. Not surprising to see content that is more "craved" is about dreams, nostalgia and love.
Oh, and the life is short stuff, somethig I know all too well :).
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Penguin 2.0 happened last week creating a big OUCH for ScentTrail Marketing as the Panguin SEO tool shows. Atlantic BT can help fix your SEO issues too.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
SEO Smackdown
There was another Penguin 2.0 SMACKDOWN last week that hit ScentTrail Marketing (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com) hard. I know why, share cool tools to know if your website was attacked by an angry Penguin and what to do about it.
If you have any LIKE or LINK love to spare for my little marketing blog it is much appreciated:
ScentTrail Marketing
http://scenttrail.blogspot.com
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Curation, the purposeful filtering of Internet content, is a hot and disruptive trend. Continue reading →
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Thanks to Clair and Scoop.it team for asking me to follow up my Social Patient post from last year (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-social-patient-how-social-media.html ) with thoughts on how curation will change healthcare.
What about you? Are you curating more and creating less? Have you ever been a "social patient"? How do you think curation will change healthcare?
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Rescooped by Martin (Marty) Smith from Birth Of The Cool |
Martin (Marty) Smith's curator insight,
May 27, 2:38 PM
Curator's & Creator's Friend
Trapit is a great keyword crawl tool with the ability to "learn" via your behavior (clicking thumbs up or down). As the crawl tool learns your feed gets tighter and more accurate.
If this sounds like the keyword crawl tool from @Scoopit you aren't too far wrong, but Trapit is on steroids. They've isolated the crawl and capture function and improved it with Digg-like "rate the content, learn to tighten the feed" features.
Kudos to the Trapit design team. The interface is clean and connecting the dots takes not time. The ability to use such a complex tool made so simple means double kudos to the UX design team. Things you expect to be there are and functions are easy to find and adjust.
Trapit has already helped with my content curation and I began using it about an hour ago. The more ratings I provide the more the tool will tighten up. Good idea for @Scoopit to do a #StealThis on.
In fact the idea of such a simple dial (thumbs up or down) should be a #StealThis for #Ecom merchants too since. When we move to Web 3.0, a highly dynamic ecosystem controlled by branching algorithms, this smile profiling behavior could become invaluable.
Great tool for ORM too. Online Reputation Management, knowing who is saying what about you, is an important task for any Internet marketing team. Create a Trapit with your company and brand names and you have a quickly learning ORM assistant.
Trapit promises to be a big help in parsing the fire hose into your websites, blogs and social nets.
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Fun Hanging out with Ally (from @Scoopit), Tim and Jonathan today. NOTE: We had some bumps and the conversation starts at the 6:00 mark.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
This ink to G+ embeds the video from our #CMGRhangout AND links to authors and ideas mentioned in the talk.
Great How To Build Community infographic: http://sco.lt/6DWS49
Ally Greer's curator insight,
May 24, 8:33 PM
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!
Martin (Marty) Smith's comment,
May 25, 7:03 AM
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
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Looking forward to "Hanging Out' via G+ with Tim and Ally tomorrow at 2:00 EST discussing how Community Saves The World.
http://mycmgr.com/ #CMGRHangout
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SEO as we've known and practiced it is terminally ill because of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Entropy is killing SEO and that is as it should be.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Written in response to Is SEO Dying? Yes It Is http://www.digitalgossips.com/2013/05/is-seo-dying-yes-it-is.html by Munaz Anjum (@munazanjum) this post is an answer to a friend's question.
J. Nolfo (@JNolfo) asked if I thought SEO was dead or dying. The short answer is YES, but I did add a sixth force to the five SEO Killers Anjum noted:
* Mobile.
* Tech.
* Google.
* Social.
* Us.
The Master Blaster controlling force, I argue in the linked post on @NewMediaLeaderz is E N T R O P Y.
Therese Torris's comment,
May 28, 11:02 AM
I'd say SEO is dead, long live SEO ! There will always be a need for search and engines and search/discovery optimization in one form or another...
Martin (Marty) Smith's comment,
May 28, 1:33 PM
Therese is right. Until we plug in directly math will need to understand marketing and that means some level of technical SEO remains IMPORTANT.
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This piece by Chris inspired me to write about how all web copy is on a Hero's Journey on Google Plus:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102639884404823294558/posts/2jXTLKhxqTx
My First Reaction Notes
Great Chris Brogan article explaining how to write content that makes your customers the hero. I also love the "never waste content without an ask of some kind". We are in the Call to Action business; to forget to ask is to waste your content marketing.
Types of asks:
* Ask to join a list.
* Ask to amplify your ideas with their take.
* Ask to buy something.
* Ask to read something else, something related.
* Ask for comments.
* Create a poll or a survey and ask specific questions.
* Ask to be LIKED or shared.
* Ask for support.
* Ask for trust (can be very powerful).
* Ask for help (admit you don't know it all).
That last bullet, ask for help, may be controversial. Don't you want to appear to have all the answers if you are selling your consulting services to other business? No one can know it all. People are smart. They want to work with people like them.
Admitting to being human only helps and strengthens your case. I don't like wimpy copy, but admitting you are unsure of something isn't wimpy (if done right). Collaboration is about knowing your strengths AND weaknesses and collaborating to contribute one and buttress the other.
Great Chris Brogan article on how to write content that makes potential buyers actual partners and collaborators.