Information Technology & Social Media News

Great gamification primer. 

Great gamification primer. 

Great gamification primer. 

GooglePlus keeps coming up as the most under utilized weapon out there. Great post here on how to use G+ to create contests and games.

On the bright side, at least Twitter is being above board with its changes, they say that users won't see more ads on Twitter, just better ones, as a result of the tracking.

Excellent read, including the comments which followed. 

So true!

Amazing

Easy to digest infographic on what to do after publishing a post that can help with driving traffic to your blog post.

Bloggers take note. Tips you can use.

The Key to becoming a power Blogger

I like this "framework" to create gamification particularly Chou's 8 Core Drives:

1) Epic Meaning and Calling

2) Development and Accomplishment

3) Expression of Creativity and Feedback

4) Ownership and Possession

5) Social Pressure and Envy

6) Scarcity and Impatience

7) Curiosity and Unpredictability

8) Loss and Avoidance

GREAT post on the HOW TOs of #gamification.  

Cool and helpful work from one of gamification's pioneers 

These dives/motivations can be used to improve engagaement in any interaction.

Made To Stick
If you are an Internet marketer and haven't read Made To Stick by the Heath brothers you can get some of the main ideas from this excellent infogrpahic summary. Biggest idea is sticky ideas are KING and there are specific things you can do to mek your ideas, your memes, more sticky or less sticky. You want MORE sticky (lol).

Does anyone question the importance of social influence now. A few weeks ago I wrote Why Your Klout Score Matters (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-your-klout-score-matters.html ).

Important? Beyond important in a Social, Mobile tinee of connection, trust and influence.

Excellent visualization of tips we all know, love and try to practice.

Cool, helpful infograpic about how to set up your social media campaigns. Our process is 10% different. Excellent. 

The techniques required to get ranked on page 1 of Google have changed since I wrote this piece September 11 2010

The Semantic Web, Conversational Search, Siri and the massive amount of content marketing flooding the web has raised the bar.

Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird algorithm updates have made it much more difficult to get get ranked on page 1 of Google.

Social Media, Authorship, Likes, Retweets, Reshares and +1's can help influence the search results, but a cohesive strategy and plan must be developed and executed for your page to hit above the fold status. Click Here if you'd like to Schedule a Hangout and learn how to get your content to rank on page 1 of Google using my model.

Totally agree with Marty, each of these Scoopers uses Scoop.it to build their readership.  That's right they are using Other Peoples Content (OPC) that they curate to build their own following and traffic to their channels be it a website or social network. 

Thanks for this list... I must be doing something right. All were in my network. Even the incomparable @KarenDietz !

Why Content Gets Shared
Turns out our gut instincts about content marketing are correct. The TOOLS we use and the content we curate and create make a difference in the amount and velocity of our social shares.

Tools such as Scoop.it and your blog are indispensible say the results from a 30 day in depth view of @ScentTrail mentions on Topsy. Type of content also matters.

Infographics, SEO and my trusty ScentTrail Daily Paper.li generate the most mentions. Friends also matter.

#4 on the mentions list is group tweets from friends with thanks or best wishes for the weekend. Staying connected and sharing are critical to successful content marketing.

Interesting bottom line is a confirmation of what all content marketers know to be true. Confirmation of the fact that content gets shared is in the numbers. I don't curate or create 30 pieces of content a day (well not on most days lol) and I've certainly NEVER created 66 (most mentions in a single day in this study.

These numbers confirm what we know - content gets shared and explains what types of content is most likely to generate shares and what tools to use to promote shares.

Marty thanks for sharing this study. In the world of online social sharing we need to rethink of the role as content providers. 

My thoughts on how old content media producers need to evolve.

Interesting to see how newspapers, tv and radio are starting to figure out the "value added" model of internet marketing.  People will pay for digital content, and the great thing for the publishers is the low cost of distribution. Online marketers have done it for years using micro websites with targeted content and now apps. I don't see why a newspapers,etc. should be any different.

The way I see it is the newspaper and their website should be the teaser to the value added content. Right now it's like they tell the story and move on, then cry the blues, no one will pay us for our content. Now if they extended the content or partnered with someone (eg health or fitness) for value added content people would pay. 

The newspapers, tv, etc, need to become the advertiser of the content, instead of depending on advertisers to support the media.

They have a reader base that many bloggers would love to have, but they need to rethink the connections they make with the reader.

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.

Content is the new SEO.

Viral Marketing

I sometime write long sentences; so when I saw these tips about the elimination of STOP words, I had to Scoop this.

Cool scoop from Ana.

Badges We Don't Need No Stinkin Badges
Had someone get pretty upset with me last night. She perceived that I was making light of gamification and tossing around the term like a neo maxi zoom dweebie.

I am an INTERNET MARKETER. This means I know and use terms like gamification with the proper amount of circumspection. I also had the "Father of Gamification" take me to the hoop the other day on Cure Cancer Starter pretty hard.

To the Gamification police I say CHILL.

Gamification has its own built in Darwinian thing. It is NOT easy and will not treat those who are looking for a quick fix well. Like any Internet marketing gamification takes testing, tweaking and listening more than you talk. These points are made in the article if a tad on the preachy side (for my taste).

I've experienced this feeling before. It is as if the lucky few inside the club now want to shut the doors because they see their reputations and livelihoods at risk by the legions of neo maxi zoom dweebies flooding the market.

All markets change and the first settlers desire to fend off the latest wave, filled though it may be with zoom dweebies, is arrogance and hubris. Better to LEARN and LISTEN (at least in my 13 years of IM and 30 years of marketing experience).

Let me judge THIS article less harshly. This post is more balanced than the comment from yesterday or my beat down from the "Father of Gamification". I'm still here working on CureCancerStarter.org so those things didn't KILL me but made me stronger and more determined.

Don't think gamification is the EASY thing to do inside of otherwise complicated Internet marketing. It is NOT and there are all kinds of "gamification" so study up, test and don't be pushed away from the door because those inside are saying the gamification green room is full.

You HAVE to love an article about gamificaton that opens quoting The Who. Games ROCK. Gamify me!