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  

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  

Kelly's Community
@Kelly Hungerford is my friend even though we've never met. Kelly is also one of the best online community developers in the world something she proved working with one of my favorite "get more, do less" tools – Paper.li.  So we couldn't help but lay down a riff embedded within her great Why Your Business Needs Community post. 

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.

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.

Follow Cendrine's Favorite Tweeps Paper.li
Cendrine is one of Curagami's top 50 curators because she is one of the hardest working content curators. If you don't already subscribe to @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.comPaper.li you should:

http://paper.li/cendrinemedia/1335165520?edition_id=33690c50-26eb-11e4-8895-002590721287

Great curated content from a great curator that can save you time and energy is always welcome. Look for my Curagami post on Being Mark Traphagen: How You Can Get Paid To Be You (http://www.curagami.com/featured/being-mark-traphagen-get-paid-to-be-you/ ).

Oh, and LOVE The Moon Audio (http://Moon-Audio.com) ad thanks to retargeting (too good).
M

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.

Creating online community is HARD. This Haiku Deck shares "behind the curtain" secrets to help you build an engaged and engaging online community.

There is only one way to break out of the rat race and eliminate all competing rats - create EPIC Personal Branding. Here's how..

* Create BHAGs NOW!
* Videos and Pictures.

* Think TEAM!
* Use Special SOCIAL Weapons.
* Fail Miserably.
* Give your Skills AWAY FREE.

Follow those hard won secrets, at least one of them tried to kill me several times, and your personal brand will be EPIC, your resume floats to the top and you win the promotion, can afford the G I Joe with the Kung Fu Grip and love the life you create.

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/

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.

Favorite About Us pages shares an e-commerce master class video on how to create a great About Us page and asks for your favorite About Us Pages examples.

Great About Us Pages:

* Tell A Story.
* Share Values

* Outline a Movement

* Help Build Community

Share your favorite about us pages in reactions (on Scoop.it), comments on the Curagmai post or email martin(at)Curagami.com.
Thanks, Marty  

Headphones For Video Gamers
Friends at http://www.Moon-Audio.com  created a great example of great ecommerce content marketing. Their Headphones For Video Games Buying Guide (http://www.moon-audio.com/headphones-for-video-games.html ) shares content from their founder Drew Baird (video) and 3 of their "Ambassadors". 

Moon Audio Ambassadors are audiophiles recruited to help. They provide feedback on ideas, test gear and write great content. The ASK is so important these days. No one climb to the top of the content marketing mountain alone.

We all need trusted Sherpas such as Moon Audio's Ambassadors and content geared to our customers just like Moon's Headphones for Video Games Buying Guide magazine. Also a great example of how to magazine content marketing.

Headphones For Video Games Buying Guide
http://www.moon-audio.com/headphones-for-video-games.html  

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 

 

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.

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

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.

Gamification - Winning Hearts, Minds and Loyalty Online a Free Atlantic BT White Paper with tips on using gamification to achieve Internet marketing return on investment (ROI). Continue reading

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.

Making Warby Parker's Annual Report VISUAL
As Beyonce proved when she rethought her last album to be more visual the visual marketing revolution is here (Beyonce covered here http://sco.lt/7Pci1p). Here are 12 GREAT Visual Marketing Tips from Column 5 the Infographics experts:

1. Be Visual. 
2. Show YOUR Personality.

3. Only share NEWSWORTHY news.

4. Let People See Your Engine (able to look behind the curtain).

5. Focus on and Feature Your POEPLE.

6. Make IT Easy To Share (and IT is everything).

7. Present DATA in context.

8. Don't forget the TANGENTIAL. 
9. Share the LOVE. 
10. Product Tie-Ins should happen NATURALLY and ORGANICALLY.

11. Share VALUES.

12. Pat yourself on the BACK every now and again. 

My favorite is FEATURE YOUR PEOPLE. Clients ask me and/or complain they have no good content. Nonsense you have amazing content sitting at desks or on the shop floor.

Telling your product's story by proxy, by telling the stories of the people that work on it, is a brilliant way to create STICKY content that isn't self-serving and feels more TRUE.