Social Media - Embrace The Suck Turns out marketing and war have a lot in common as this Curagami post shares. Twitter is reeling in pain and social media marketing is entering the BIG SHAKEOUT period.
Don't question, judge or cry too much. Grab you Vines, put them on YouTube and (or the best of 'em anyway) and move on. Remember nobody knows nothing and watch your ego and hubris enough to keep betting without the false belief you've found any lasting truth or repeatable pattern.
Ecommerce & Content Win Hearts Minds Loyalty How can your website cut through the impossible clutter of today's ultra-competitive online world? How can you find the right development partner to achieve your online goals?
This Curagami post shares how to find a vendor capable of helping your e-commerce website win along with our current Curagami Customer Hunt.
Brilliant Twitter Lists Idea I'm blessed with brilliant friends. Earlier I shared my friend and Startup Factory founder Chris Heivly's new book. Build the Fort is a startups must read.
A few days ago another friend, @Kelly Hungerford, including my @Scenttrail twitter handle in a list. Twitter lists may be the coolest tool no on uses I know, but Kelly's use of the list to include me in something NEW was beyond brilliant.
Granted Kelly is a "trusted source" for me. Whatever she says I should look at, review, write about and share there is a close to 100% chance I will. Kelly's use of an ignored tool should work "cold" too. By placing someone on a list you tweak their curiosity in a way almost guaranteed to get a click and a review.
Compare the subtle grace of including people you want on your "beta" list to spamming emails sure to be ignored. Kelly's approach is graceful and such a tease I bet the approach generates a higher level of conversion and advocacy than spammy pitches.
When people subscribe to the list in response to your added them following up with an email or call doesn't feel spammy. The person is part of your tribe. Even better is PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW but who may like to be part of your beta (or whatever) will signal their desire to join by subscribing to the list.
WOW, now you get to have a WARM call or email conversation with someone who may invest, contribute content or become an advocate for your idea, startup or campaign. TOO GOOD.
The future of social media is about just such brilliant applications. Many don't have lists. I've always been a big believer in lists, but seeing how brilliantly Kelly used Twitter Lists create a new dimension of awe and respect (for lists and Kelly :). Marty
Note: May 27th, 2015 I wrote this post at the end of 2012. I was frustrated. My doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers don’t understand “social me”. Convinced recognizing my links, likes and loves in social media is an important part of helping me feel better I wrote Martin’s Hug for Healthcare – the 1,000 word rant.
Today heard HOPE from my friend Janet Kennedy, founder of http://www.GetSocialHealth.com . Janet told me about the Mayo Clinic's upcoming social media summit. There is hope in the universe.
Riffing Tableau I have great respect for Tableau Software. Solid team producing cool tools and the content needed to sell them. Their analysis of 2015 BI trends was so good I’m using it as a template to riff and add my thoughts.
Top 10 BI Trends 2015 1. Death of Gate Keepers. 2. Social Arbitrage Creates Competitive Advantage. !!! 3. Analysis Not JUST For Analysts Anymore. 4. Rise of the Sustainable Online Community (our #1). 5. Everything Integrates (BELIEVE). 6. Cloud Things is REAL. 7. Near Real Time DOMINATES. 8. Data & Journalism Finish MERGING. 9. Mobile Matures. !!! 10. Smart Analytics Begin.
As we work on creating a new tool, a tool capable of helping ecommerce merchants and content marketers validate their social media and content marketing. We’ve identified five community pillars and share them in this Curagami post:
4 Principles of A Networked World Macrowikinomics author Don Tapscott shares great examples of his 4 emerging principles of our new digital world including:
* Collaboration.
* Transparency.
* Sharing. * Empowerment
Marty Note I found the discussion of the commons and the example of starling flocking behavior (at the end) the most resonant. I'd heard about the gold mine several times and agree with Tapscott - crowds are the key to our web future.
At Curagami we've been working on what it means to create online community. CTSE (Collaboration, Transparency, Sharing, Empowerment) are the table stakes of this new poker. We would add:
* Communication. * UGC. * Gamification.
Communication within and around the hub is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for online community. You need to be able to follow and communicate with me and vice versa.
User Generated Content must be listened to, valued and rewarded with gamification or its a one-time "one and done" thing.
Highly engaging presentation. Gone are the days of Security and Reliability as the principles of a Networked world. The C-generation is pulling us to the CTSE world.
Fostex versus Sennheiser... Who makes the best headphones? GO!
Friends at http://www.Moon-Audio.com make the best audio cables in the world. Their cables connect to headphones and earphones and passions run HIGH where people's music and gear are concerned.
See Moon Audio's Fostex vs. Sennheiser Question Here on.fb.me/1uOFvEv
That link takes you to Moon Audio's Facebook page where use of vs. prompts passionate shares and stories of experience and joy. Great simple idea to promote engagement, garner User Generated Content and learn how your customers really FEEL about the brands you sell.
We are working on a vs. tool for Curagami (http://www.curagami.com ) our marketing tool suite meant to create exactly the kind of community Moon Audio is generating right now thanks to a simple "vs." question.
Jeff Fromm in a great post for TBJ makes Curagami's tactical marketing is dead argument beautifully. Social Media Marketing is dead & here's what's next.
As we consume more and more content via our mobile devices, both content marketing and social media marketing strategies need to be re-examined.
Why?
The end user, your consumer now has Notification Distraction, be it from a game or text message your content has limited engagement time of these devices. Getting a share has become even harder.
Connecting content to product engagement is the new marketing.
Dr. Karen Dietz's comment July 23, 2014 5:43 PM
I really enjoyed this article Marty and am going to reference it for another kind of story project I'm working on. Good stuff! Thanks for finding and sharing.
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.
Social Media Reach Is Dead, Long Live Content Curation & Cmmunity @Guillaume Decugis was nice enough to ask me to weigh in on his blog post. He knew it wouldn't be hard for me to write 1,000 words on something that I feel strongly about - what will tomorrow's marketing look like.
Little is certain OTHER than tomorrow's marketing will be very different than today's and unrecognizable from yesterdays. The post on G+ shares my reaction to Guillaume's post along with as much Nostradamas as I can muster at midnight after a long day.
The core is YES content curation is going to be an integral part of the friends of friends marketing creating community we see at our Triangle Startup Factory funded startup called Curagami (http://www.curagami.com ).
One BIG THING we've already learned is RESPECT, ADMIRATION and enough envy to fuel a train for what Marc, Guillaume, Ally and the Scoopiteers created. The post discusses how any cause moves from passion, through to business and finally into quackery.
That evolution is why all tactical online marketing is dead man walking. The key is winning and keeping hearts and minds. Certainly content curation is going to be HUGE in winning the LOVE any successful brand or online presence will require to be successful in tomorrow's marketing. Are there a few other things? You bet and I tried to share all of the hard won lessons about content, community and love team Curagami is learning.
Find and engage digital influencers. You may be used to turning to the traditional press but there are more cost-effective methods today.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Trust & Citizen Influencers This is a great post that reminds me of a book I read ten years ago called Citizen Marketer. Trust is upside down. We trust those perceived to have the LEAST to gain. We trust our friends.
This trend is one of the driving pistons of our Triangle Startup Factory funded startup called Curagami. We see the conversation as the new link. Conversations, unlike links, need to be tuned to PEOPLE and ENGAGEMENT more than a search robot.
Conversations matter, but so do our trusted guides. No one can know everything, so we depend on delegating knowledge to friends. My friend and Curagami co-founder Phil Buckley is my SEO source. Mark Traphagen, another friend and well known G+ evangelist, is my G+ source.
By ELIMINATING things we must know other than at a macro level we create a winning strategy that stays just ahead....at least when everything goes well (lol).
The subtext of this excellent share from Bill McCann (@Bill_McCann) echoes the importance of community, brand advocates and extending your network daily.
Win The Ecommerce Game I'm giving a keynote speech tomorrow at a FedEx Conference. This post links to the Haiku Deck created for that talk. I'm adding a blog post to Curagami.com today too.
Stuck In Mobile With Memphis Blues Again I'm stuck in Van Horn West Texas thanks to the day after Christmas blizzard. Stuck also because the highways (I10 and I20) have been closed. This experience made are realize something important every brand manager and web team needs to know.
How would you answer this question, "What 3 things are you doing to connect with customers in real time in 2016?" If "mobile" isn't part of at least 2 of your answers you aren't ready for 2016. TxDot, the Texas Department of Transportation, isn't ready for 2016 and this post shares why.
Post also shares ideas on how to connect such as:
Assign A Social Media Master – Someone responsible for aggregating ALL social information about an event and sharing across platforms
Create Event Hashtags – Create hashtags such as #dec15i10i20 to FORM a community then aggregate from multiple sources using YOUR event hashtag
Live Video and Photo Feeds – Why can’t we SEE the problem and then the resolution? Seeing = believing and seeing the parking lot that I-10 became east of Van Horn would reduce the number of motorists driving toward the abyss.
Learn more about how your company, team and brand can win in an emergency by curating content and developing community in real time.
Free because the most valuable thing in a car is the driver. Valuable if loyalty and branding is creatively tapped, buying risks reduced & magic increased.
Grace & Social Media Marketing (Scenttrail Notes) The days of getting by with simple knowledge of how to schedule tweets in advance or research hash tags are long over. Today you need "social skills" such as:
1. In-person and online social grace (agree! very important).
2. Editorial/journalism skills (Need to know how to tell a great story).
3. Understanding of channel diversity (Who has KLOUT in your space?).
4. General pop culture awareness (YES, if it is HOT you need to be ON IT riffing reasons why your content is related and relevant).
These are 6 hard earned heart felt truth I've learned about Social and Digital Media.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
This great share from @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com of the founder of List.ly's desk about social media includes the best discussion of the 1:9:90 Rule I've ever seen. A #mustread!
If you are serious about growing your Google Plus following -- and actually gaining some clients from the platform -- you should be doing these seven things:
* Share Great Content. * Interact with Others. * Forget your listings. * See out those with authority & influence. * Expand your content offerings.
* Join Real Estate communities. * Build a business page.
Marty Note My friend Bill's post about how to create a G+ Real Estate following apply to anyone needing to build a following for anything. How we sell stuff is different now and getting more so everyday. Bill is a leader in real estate, content marketing and social media. He took to Scoop.it like a duck to water.
Creating a distributed content network with widgets is a vast blue ocean of low cost, high reward Internet marketing today. Won't be that way for long.
Steal This Survey To Post Idea Had a great stay at the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Charlotte during the Search Exchange conference. I NEVER fill out surveys since who has the time, but the service was so good I wanted to share that information with Marriott.
I broke my rule and completed a survey that was at least 2 pages too long. Started out looking all Net Promoter and then just went on too long. Glad I hung with it because if I'd bailed I wouldn't have seen one of the coolest ideas - use surveys to create web reviews.
The last page asked me to write a review TO GO TO THE COURTYARD WEBSITE. Now that is BRILLIANT. Bet they are smart enough to create a new webpage with the 100 words I just shared too adding to page spread and aggregating reviews on their property.
Why am I so confident Courtyard is that good? Look at their 7,000 follows on 43K following number (15%). IMPRESSIVE. Most big brands think social is about THEM talking to you. That's why I created Social Its About the Conversation Stupid on Haiku Deck (http://shar.es/LhQP2 ).
Don't have to teach Courtyard by Marriott to listen. They are and the experience in their hotel was pretty amazing as a result. Now all they need is our startup Curagami (http://www.curagami.com ) to take their community to the next level of excellence in listening :). M
Pushing web design forward too fast blows up trust from internal stake holders and visitors. There is an organic path the journey to online community takes.
Marty I agree. So many businesses still think "Build it and they will come". The website gets built, they spend thousands promoting it and doing social media and yes the visitors come. One small problem no one discussed with the website development company or budgeted for follow up analytics and review of the design and content to see what changes can be made to improve the ux. So many visitor never comes back and that's where the problem is with most websites. Percentage of return visitors is key.
Social Media Tipping Point Is Behind Us: Lays Puts Tweet For Swag on Bags of Chips & Needs Curagami Because .... Yesterday I noticed a bright red banner… - Martin W. Smith - Google+
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
We know Social Media is a CONVERSATION. One of my most popular @HaikuDecks is It's The Conversation Stupid (http://shar.es/MmhkM). At first I took Lays "Tweet For Swag" campaign as a sign we are beyond the social media tipping point.
Now, almost an hour after 4 @Lays tweets with no response I think maybe not so much. As I noted in this G+ post maybe the day BIG BRANDS wake up and listen more than they talk is the 7th sign and the end of the world is moments away. Let's hope NOT.
I noted our Triangle Startup Factory funded startup Curagami (http://www.curagami.com) could help and YES that's a tad self serving, but Big Brands think they are creating community today. Actually they wouldn't recognize a true online community if it walked up and introduced itself.
"We sell chips," woiuld surely be their retort. We KNOW THAT and would like to interact with you Mr. Frito or Mr. Lays...you truly and honestly IN or are you just trying to stuff more chips down our throat? BBQ if you are stuffing :).
Not all brands are created equal. Some can help your online marketing more than others. Use our Curagami Brand Score to map your content marketing for ROI.
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