Curation Revolution

The Platform Revolution "
Google is all about big brands now," a frustrated customer said. The complaint was about how this Small to Medium Sized Business couldn't win organic listings anymore. We disagreed. Google isn't rewarding top organic listings to Big Brands. Big brands look and feel more like platforms and that is why they are winning in spite of themselves. 

Learn more about why you MUST think in platforms NOW: http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/new-seo/the-platform-revolution/  

Lots of questions after our presentation of asking the right Ecommerce questions last week to a group of about 40 Small to Medium Sized Businesses in Raleigh sponsored by FedEx. Instead fo writing more, we took a different approach and developed short "Video Notes" adding Curagami YouTube links to our Haiku Deck:

Find the Haiku Deck Here
http://shar.es/1gssvu

Find Introductory Video Notes on YouTube Here
https://youtu.be/T3KVhY_yK10 

Find Video Notes about creating online community here
https://youtu.be/KXmON4U1I_E 

Will add more video notes soon.  

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.

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.

5 Internet Marketing Secrets
Some of these 2014 "secrets" such as ecommerce and social media may not feel very secret, but there is still plenty of "blue ocean" in them still. Ecommerce creates great content marketing support for less and less effort (to create the story) so every website should have a store now even if all they sell is their logo merchandise.

5 Secret IM Tactics For 2014
* Crowdfunding.

* Content Widgets. 
* Mobile First. 

* Ecommerce. 
* Social Media. 

Social media is ubiquitous but not embraced. Our recent Ecommies Study of social media for top online retailers (http://bit.ly/1gATp9p ) proved many have social media accounts but few are "social businesses".

5 Secrets Blog Post on ScentTrail Marketing
http://bit.ly/IYZIo8

5 Secrets Haiku Deck
http://bit.ly/1k6uJFu

Five elements creating an eCommerce store can bring to your marketing efforts. Master marketer Martin W. Smith by Mark Traphagen. 

Tapestry, the latest contender in the fashion-tech startup space, wants to connect a shopper's digital identity with the physical products in the store they're in by using barcode/NFC-scanning smartphone apps which shoppers use to build up a...

Marty Note
Read about Tapestry before. Cooler now.I learned how valuable wish lists could be from my friend and great Internet Marketer Jennifer DiMotta. Tapestry is taking the hidden power to new levels.

Jennifer taught me about the aspirational nature of a wish list. We wish list the better US we see in our minds. Own those kinds of aspirations and you can rule the world or the closet :). M

The Medium Is The Message
We may have read a better explanation of Curagami’s raison d’être than Medium founder Ev Williams, but we don’t remember when. Ev’s discussion of the move from widget focus (adding features) to the Jungian thing – helping customers self actualize and so become more actualized in turn – is an ecommerce must read. 

More than a loyalty program, Amazon prime is ecommerce's future. Amazon Prime builds community, reduces customer risks, is easy and fun so steal this...

The New Customer Journey Map
Mozu is the content arm of Volusion and they've hit something just right - how the future of commerce is about smooth integration of content. Their New Customer Journey map echoes David Edleman's influential HBR post Branding In the Digital Age: https://hbr.org/2010/12/branding-in-the-digital-age-youre-spending-your-money-in-all-the-wrong-places .

Well done and a must read for #ecommerce teams.

3 Internet Marketing Haiku Deck Triptych is BUZZING:

Invisible Giant: Why It's So Hard To See The New SEO (1,726 views 2wks)
http://shar.es/1nY2gX

Get Hired or Bought By Warren Buffet (132 views in 12 hrs)
http://shar.es/1nY2qu

Connection: The New Ecommerce (1,094 views in a week)
http://shar.es/1nY27I

Websites Need MacGuffins
Website MacGuffins are different than film MacGuffins, an idea important to moving the plot along that may never be fully disclosed to viewers. Website Macguffins move customers along a journey to conversion.

Website MacGuffins Include:

• Free Shipping.
• Prevalent & Easy To Find Email List.
• About Page.
• Relevant Content.
• Reviews.
• Trust Marks (Visa, MasterCard for example) in cart.
• Terms of Use.
• Satisfaction Guarantee.
• Social Share Buttons especially Twitter and Facebook.

What are your website's MacGuffins?

Amazon Ecommerce Mus Steals Fro 2014 Continues with #6 - 10:

* Gamification.
* Speed.
* Shipping.
* Algorithms not people.

* Think Different.

Add teset to must steal tactics 1 - 5:

* Content Curation.

* Information Is Half The Profit.

* Price Arbritrage.
* Arbritrage Everything.
* Think in SCALE.

and you have an RX for ecommerce victory in 2014. Steal any 3 of those tactics and you will make more money this year than last.

1 - 5:
http://www.scenttrail.com/top-10-reasons-amazon-will-kick-ecommerce-butt-2014/

6 - 10
http://www.scenttrail.com/ecommerce-steal-these-amazon-tactics/

Diversify Your Content Marketing For Greatness
When everyone is doing something online you need to do it BETTER. If your content marketing rides these "Four Horsemen" you will diversify your base and so become stronger faster.

Content Marketing's Four Horsemen

* Content Creation.
* Content Curation (with tools like @Scoopit).

* User Generated Content (UGC) Engine.  

* Ecom.

This ScentTrail Marketing post explains how to use these tactics in combination so your content marketing is GREAT, highly differentiated and SEO strong.  

After creating the Story of Cancer Store (https://storyofcancer.gostorego.com/ ) in a matter of days I learned 5 valuable "New Ecommerce" lessons including:

1. Everyone Should Have A Store.

2. Stores Are Easy.

3. Stores Are Visual.

4. Stores Tell Stories.

5. Stores Are Fun.

Your brand and Internet marketing is STRONGER with a store and creating a store is becoming one of the most profitable and underutilized ideas in Internet marketing (especially for B2B relationship based sellers).