Curation Revolution

Top 10 Curagami Posts
Top 10 Posts shares how Banksy, friends and artists helped create Curagami's Top 10 Posts (by inbound links) despite our best efforts to the contrary (lol).

Here some BIG lessons from our Top 10 Posts from Banksy to Web Design:

* Tap Your Unconscious (and ramp risks)

* Friends Rock

* Shit Happens - Keep Creating

What BIG Lessons have you learned from your top 10? Share and we will curate your ideas, experiences and comments into the post:
http://www.curagami.com/top-10-posts/?v=7516fd43adaa  

http://www.curagami.com/top-10-posts/?v=7516fd43adaa

Quiz Power shares the engagement and excitement personality profile quizzes can bring to digital marketing. What Famous Painting Are You?

How Their Rank Teaches You SEO Lessons
SEO: Their Rank Talks To You, but are you listening, emulating category leaders and finding ways to disrupt your space to win hearts, minds and loyalty online is the "new SEO". 

So if your question is, "You talking to ME?" and you are asking Google the answer is YES.  

Content marketing must serve a higher purpose & featuring people not things is how websites win hearts, minds & loyalty creating online community.

Post includes a Fareed Zakaria interview with hedge fund manager Ray Dolio because Ray shares 5 tips for how to become a great web marketer:

* Think more about how "the machine" works (Google in our case).

* Be in the middle of it and expect to get banged up.

* Have great humility and FEAR.

* It isn't KNOWING that matters it is what you do when you DON't KNOW.
* Find smart people who disagree with you and LISTEN.

I couldn't summarize how teams I've led have made over $30M in online sales learn to think and be. Ray may be speaking of how to manage a hedge fund, but he may as well be outlining how to be a great digital marketer.

This post explores an eternal truth - people not things sell.
http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/marketing/5-ways-people-fix-content-marketing/

Digital marketing is moving to real time CONTEXT & CONVERSATIONS. Curagami's Predictive Analytics Engine (cPAE) creates relevant web, email & mobile context

Question: What is a revolution without a white paper?

Answer: A book club.

Want easy access to our 2 shocking white papers? Click on the links below OR join us by visiting http://www.Curagami.com

Why Ecommerce Marketing Is Broken

The New SEO: How Conversations Became The New Links

Get the stuff, join the revolution.

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.

Banksy, a grafitti artist, is a powerful social marketer. Banksy's art blew up New York teaching ten online marketing lessons for those wise enough to see including:

1. Live By A Single Rule: If Your Content Is Generating Shares DO MORE.
2. Other “Control Rules” Are Gone.
3. Use existing distribution systems, but turn them upside down.
4. Create EVENTS and content people will CHASE and SHARE.
5. Get THEM to do YOUR work for YOU.
6. Keep some secrets as long as possible.
7. Whatever happens is all good as long as Rule #1 still applies.
8. Use the Internet and social media to amplify content & events.
9. Define deadlines because deadlines heighten the web’s amplification.
10. Rinse & Repeat

Are people racing around NYC to see your latest work? If no then steal some social marketing tips from one of the world's best - Banksy.

Why we need to become the best Sisyphusian stone rollers in the world:

* Internet marketing means change at ever faster rates forever.
* The Web IS so changing US is what we control & no more.
* Internet marketing isn't what you think.
* Most important idea is to KEEP testing, trying and listening.
* Master objective is & will always be creation of sustainable online community.

What about you? How has working online changed you? Share on G+, in comments on Scoop.it or email martin(at)Curagami.com.

Social Shopping
This new Haiku Deck is an outline for a book we hope to write over the next few weeks. I'm headed to Ohio State for several weeks of treatment at the james Cancer Center and NO WAY I sit on the bench during November (not going to happen).

If you would like to help PLEASE DO SO (lol). Many ways you can help including:

* Writing content to be included.
* Suggesting resources.
* Suggesting great interviews.
* Reading and editing (need lots of help there :).

I'm lucky to have smart, giving friends who I regularly TEST, a test they've never failed. Hope you will join me for the Social Shopping book writing journey. Writing and publishing a book is on my bucket list and I get things on that list DONE :). M (with help, lots of help) 

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

Adding Scoop.it Magazines
Adding Scoopit Magazines to a blog or website is a Curagami post that shares the easy how and why of adding @Scoop.it "magazines" (feeds) and content curation, to your blog or website. Content curation via Scoopit adds inexpensive reach and customer engagement generating loyalty and return on investment.

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  

Why You Must Curate Content
Scoop.it is a great tool we've used for years. We finally had a chance to use the easy to use and understand feed embed tool. The ability to easily add feeds into your blogs and websites means content curation is easy to create and add into your content marketing mix. 

The linked post explains why content curation is a MUST. Content curation is less expensive, has more reach and develops more community than content creation alone. We seen the damage pushing more content with less support can create in engagement and SEO. 

Don't do that (push content at the expense of curation) is our best online marketing advice. 

Marty Note
Great Share by Mark Traphagen (@MarkTraphagen) of a post by Sean Cowen (@praguebooks) that reminds us there is no silver bullet in digital marketing, life or diets. There is no magic pill to make us skinny, rich and have 10M followers.

At lest no such pill unless your name is Oprah and she worked hard to get to a point where she can do less and make more (so even Oprah didn't find a silver bullet).

Beware the promisers because they don't know. One hard thing you learn fast in this crazy business of Internet marketing is no one knows nothing. Or the minute you think you know something it changes anyway so once again no one knows nothing.

Those who promise imply they know. They know NOT because to promise it to lie and feeding our inherent desire for a silver bullet is criminal. I'm about to speak with 100+ ecommerce teams at the FedEx Ecom Summit in Atlanta and I will be careful to share experience and promise NOTHING.

Because anyone who promises you something is trying to sell you a lie and so should be avoided if not harassed.

Journey To Unique & Uncontested
We are presenting ideas to a group of about 100 SMBs in Atlanta on 4.16. The BIG IDEA is don't attempt to play a sequential, incremental improvement game. That dog doesn't hunt anymore.

Discover BLUE OCEANS where you can create Unique and Uncontested business models that rule, evolve and win hearts, minds and loyalty fast and over time.

How can you discover Blue Oceans in your business vertical? We suggest "Disruption for Dummies" where you combine 2 or all of these surfable trends:

* Appification.

* Gamification.
* Social Shopping Nowists.
* Friends of Friends Marketing.

* Community.

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.

Content marketers tend to attack the work like kids at a sundae bar – scooping up as many toppings as they can to have the most or best creation. Avoid the ice cream sundae syndrome with these steps inspired by Twitter’s founder.

Marty Note
Thanks to my friend and uber-curator Cendrine Marrouat I found this excellent Content Marketing Institute post about the nature of content marketing revealed by startup master Ev Williams.

I agree the Ev Williams quote is an important piece of startup Zen, but find the post's laboring application to content marketing strained. I do agree we content / Internet markets have the shinny lure syndrome.

We (marketers) are like hungry trout clustered together in a fast moving stream darting out for the next new bait an action made all the more frenzied by its proximity to the judging chorus of other trout. Truth is rarely so shinny, easy to digest and so hard to throw off.

Truth is listening + learning + bold risk taking = success. Listening to customers has never been easier or done do badly. Listening thanks to our mobile / social / connected world is EASY to do and remains hard to BELIEVE.

Listening must be matched with learning. Learning too has never been easier or harder to believe. We SEE the patterns, hear the customer and yet we do not SEE or understand. As good as the post is it also provides an example into our greatest problem.

Content marketing is flawed. Content marketing speaks too much ans listens too little. Content Marketing hasn't received Mark Schaefer's Content Shock memo (http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/ ).

We marketers can't get there (sustainable online community) from here (content marketing). The challenge in creating an "institute" is the isolation and over emphasis such emphasis creates.

Agree Easier Than We Think
The beautiful thread the CMI post picks up from Ev Williams quote is business and life isn't as HARD as we imagine or think. Find a human desire, preferably one that has been around a long time, and use modern technology to make it easy and cool such as:

Need A Ride - Uber
Want to buy online instead of going to the mall - Amazon

Don't want to wait for your car in the cold - FlashValet
Social connection without computers - Android & iPhone
Social Connection - Facebook, Twitter GPlus

I would modify Ev's statement a tad:

Find a human desire and use modern MOBILE technology to make it easy and cool.

Williams "technology" was heavily weighted toward mobile, but at Curagami we see an increasing trend - cool isn't cool without some mobile aspect. Mobile First is becoming a more important statement than it original UI intent. If you are creating ANYTHING new it better play amazing on a smartphone or life will be harder.

Recently I purchased a wireless speaker from Amazon. The speaker is cool and I like having good sound when I travel. The speaker is controlled by an app on my phone.

Here's the killer thing to understand - the app DOESN'T DO ANYTHING that buttons on the speaker don't do better, but the app does NOTHING in a very cool way AND the app ties the speaker to my phone.

That tie means the speaker doubled its cool enough so that I'm mentioning it here. WITHOUT the app no way I mention it. With the app, the app that adds NOTHING, the package is cool enough to mention.

SO, lesson is find a DESIRE (by listening to customers), wipe some cool tech on it, listen to customers some more and don't forget if whatever you are making or marketing doesn't play on a smartphone then it won't exist (soon).

Thanks to @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com for curating a great post my way :). Marty

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

Burn Down The House
Driving to #columbusohio to go to +OhioStateMed again tomorrow I realized my idea for a book based on social shopping sucks. What we need is a new Cluetrain Manifesto, a no holds barred howl at the moon riff on the marketing revolution happening NOW. Apologize for being such a wimp yesterday, won't happen again :). M

Marketing's Big Bang Manifesto
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/Tf9GNsX35qn

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.