Social Marketing Revolution

Adding Feeds To your Blog / Site
I wrote a Curagami post recently about how the future of ecommerce is a symphony of feeds. (http://www.curagami.com/ecommerce-future-a-symphony-of-feeds/?v=7516fd43adaa ). One tool, our beloved @Scoop.it, is leading the way in making it easy to curate with your left hand and add valuable content with your right. 

This post shares the 5 easy steps to add Scoop.it feeds to your blog or website.  

Weekly Cool Tools from The Tool Guy
If you've never followed or read Robin Good's tool reviews they are works of art. Robin is the best "tool guy" on the planet. Robin has started sending out a weekly Tools of the Week email. Here are his selections for this week:

5) Cloud Storage Cost Comparisons
https://cloudvertical.com/

Foll @Robin Goodand subscribe to his Tech Tool Roundup (couldn't find the link to encourage subscription, so Robin if you read this ping the link to subscribe and will include).

Sign up for Robin's Newsletter Here:
http://forms.aweber.com/form/61/518534561.htm

This week, I'm stoked to feature uber content curator and friend @Martin (Marty) Smith on the blog. 

His answers will make you want to start curating right away if you have never done it. 

An excellent interview!

Read it at http://socialmediaslant.com/curator-martin-w-smith/

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Cendrine Marrouat

There is a new invisible giant, a giant using 5 "tricks" so the "new seo" is hard and harder to see and understand. This Haiku Deck and Curatti blog post is about how to see the invisible giant. How to win hearts, minds and loyalty online.

Content curation is all the rage right now. But finding all this great content is time consuming. Fortunately for content marketers, there's an incredibly powerful social media tool that doubles as...

Content, when used right, is an incredible sales tool. It can also dramatically shorten the sales cycle. Here’s how…

UGC = Trusted, You...Not So Much
Love it when someone makes our +CrowdFunde points for us. This post, shared by +Phil Buckley, shows how Millennials trust #UGC  (User Generated Content) more than a website's marketing voice.

Duh, of course they trust #socialmediamarketing  and UGC since it is where they and their friends LIVE via their #smartphones . The CONVERSATION is the new means of mem transfer.

* Will be writing more about this for our blog
http://www.crowdfunde.com* 

"Meme transfer" sounds confusing and dense, but if you think of your products as content and #SMM  as a way to share your content then you are already engaged in "meme transfer". When an article like this one points out who the next generation trusts - their friends on social media - every #Internetmarketer should take notice.

We've not only taken notice we are building a tool to harvest UGC called+CrowdFunde. Good news is Millenials (and soon everyone else btw) trust User Generated Content (UGC). Bad news? Millennials trust UGC and your website doesn't have a way to ask for UGC, analyze it once you get it or take an action based on it. OUCH!

That ouch is why we are spending +Triangle StartUp Factory's money to create CrowdFunde :). Marty   

Love it when someone confirms our thinking
http://www.crowdfunde.com  

SMM Lessons From The Pit & The Food Bank
Poking fun at my @CrowdFunde cofounder Phil Buckley today I wrote a new caption for The Pit's Cuegrass photo. I noted that either Phil was holding court or Cuegrass was coming soon.

My "inside" joke with my partner Phil, former "Mayor" of The Pit BBQ in Raleigh, NC, IS THE MOST DISCUSSED CONTENT on my social nets today. Let that statement sink in for a minute.

What do you call it when someone blows up your Tweet? Answer: Social Media GOLD.

My "inner circle" social nets have about 12,000 followers. I share content from Scoop.it (daily shares with 2,300 followers @Martin (Marty) Smith ), G+ (2,896 followers share daily https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MartinWSmith/posts ),Twitter (@Scenttrail 4,200 followers share daily http://www.twitter.com/scenttrail ) and  Pinterest (4,929 followers post daily http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/ ) and the most shared post today is an "inside" joke with a handful of friends.

A handful of friends and some SMART social media marketers shared some great social media marketing lessons today!

The Pit, our favorite BBQ joint in downtown Raleigh immediately RTed my new caption of their photo with a supportive tag ("now that's a caption"). The Pit's RT prompted several Cuegrass, the event I wrote the new caption for, vendors to RT too.

This is the POWER of the recognized conversation.

The Pit could have been MAD I wrote a new caption for their Cuegrass event pic. Nope, too smart for that they provided encouragement and RTed demonstrating what Phil and I are working so hard to create at CrowdFunde - conversations RULE.

AND the more responsive, lean, funny and fun your social content is the more shares you achieve. The more shares you achieve the more awareness you gain. When I opened a new chapter on Cuegrass the Pit jumped on it. Now I see Phil got home and joined the conversation. Phil's nets are the size of mine so the Pit just picked up 20,000 potential followers or attendees at this year's Cuegrass (I still don't even know what it is lol). 

So, not only is the Pit the home of our favorite BBQ and Cuegrass, but today they've put their secret rub down long enough to share two important social marketing lessons:

* When someone is talking about YOU ENCOURAGE THEM.
* Encourage them IN Social Media so the "lesson' is immediately shared and "social kudos" points transfer. 

Duh, who knew. Actually LISTENING and being SOCIAL are important to social media marketing success. The Pit knew, several of their vendors know and the Food Bank knows (https://twitter.com/FoodBankCENC ). In Fact my "cool follow of the day" award goes to the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina since they FOLLOWED ME!

Not giving them the award for following me as much as seeing a great conversation and jumping in with both feet. Every Twitter following that is only a tiny % of those following them could take a lesson from the Food Bank. You can't create relationships with people you don't follow.

And, as the Food Bank demonstrated, when you see a great conversation happening jump in, SHARE and FOLLOW. What do you call it when someone writes a new caption for your photo? Answer: User Generated Content GOLD and I hope you are as smart about what to do with SMM gold as the tribe that formed around my "inside joke" on The Pit's Cuegrass photo today.

And whatever Cuegrass is and whenever it is happening I hope it is as fun as the picture :). Marty

You may catch Marty combing through Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair at B&N. Why? Fashion mags are great visual marketers - 8 Visual Marketing Tips From Vogue:

• Be specific & BIG NUMBERS are great ways to be specific.
• Be branded – take advantage of existing brands such as Shades of Grey.
• Be topical – March is “fashion week” in NYC and both magazines have extensive features.
• Be welcoming – note how both models look directly out at the viewers (my favorite online engagement pose).
• Use SOUND – “Sexy, Shiny, Bouncy Hair sounds fun. “Full on Fashion Force” sounds forceful. Words create rhythm and sounds that adds to or detracts from compelling images.
• Juxtapose – “street chic” and “fashion force” are examples of creative juxtapositions.
• Use Action Verbs – which of these action verbs AREN’T on either cover? grab, be bold, upgrade, must have, takes on, and rock? Yep, all of those “action verbs” are in sub-headlines.
• Simple Colors – ONLY colors used for headlines and sub-heads are black, white and red.

I think we can all agree that the world is a pretty complex place. It would be easier for most of us if it was simply cleary black and white, right and wrong, for and against, like a LOTR movie with all nuances wiped away. That is, however, never the case. Whatever stories we want…

Why LinkedIn Doesn't Work for Content Marketing
Having a fascinating conversation with +Cendrine Marrouat about LinkedIn. Linkedin's "edgerank" or whatever they are using to depress how many of my connections see content I post IN LinkedIn is working. 

I created a test between Linkedin and my blog recently posting half on Scenttrail marketing (http://www.scenttrail.com/why-im-not-an-seo/ ) and the other half on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-im-seo-martin-marty-smith ) Scenttrail Marketing, my personal blog I just dusted off, crushed Linkedin confirming what we've been feeling - there is no "there" there for LI and content markeitng. 

Post continues on G+ where there is a there there despite naysayers.l  

Successful content marketing engages over time. Engagement needs online community and a role shift from content creators to community curators and GAME creators.

Insight Squared
Link is to an interesting InsightSquared study that may answer the wrong question the wrong way. The question, should your sales person keep calling, should be should your sales person call. Calling or "cold calling" prospects in a social / mobile / connected world is a nonstarter.

Eli Pariser's Filter Bubbles explains why (TED Talk link: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en ). Pariser explains there is NO WAY you can call me cold and win. Most "prospects" are surrounded by a fortress of content, friends and known and trusted resources.

Warm Is Better Than Cold
We don't know what we don't know and we don't care (lol). NO WAY I would suggest a call until your CRM (Customer Relationship Management like SalesForce) system shows and quantifies interest. I would email a prospect relevant information before I would call.

Calling is intimate and presumes a relationship that may not exist yet. I HATE talking on the phone, but I tweet, Scoop and G+ all day long. Interacting with me on any or all of those platforms earns the right to do something I hate (talk to me on the phone). I'm not in the market for enterprise SaaS stuff at the moment, but bet my feelings aren't too far off (since it wasn't all that long ago I managed a large ecommerce website).

Better when your prospects contact you. Contacting you means you are an order of magnitude more likely to "make a sale". Acceptable ways to contact someone cold include:

* Know one of my friends and they suggested contacting me.
* Read something I published and want to follow or add to the post.
* Responding to one of my requests for help on social media.

An example of that last bullet is I'm looking for a place to stay in Columbus, Ohio for several weeks in November. Help with that and I would be glad to listen to a relevant pitch. The most important point is not to be COLD anymore. There is so much information about all of us so easily available build on something shared, known and collaborative.

BUT BE CAREFUL TOO

I'm way to presumptive. I make errors of commission. Each step in a relationship requires time to solidify, improve and strengthen. Hurry = death in a sales call. Leave some openness. Don't worry or hurry and try not to make errors or commission or omission. Easy to write when I am years away from my last "MUST MAKE" sales goal.

The irony of TODAY is to hurry and push will kill you faster than almost anything. To be patient, relevant and invest is the key to long term sales success. Do I miss having quarterly goals hanging over me? Not so much :). M

When the Clash was labeled "The Only Band That Matters," it may have been record company hype, but when I was a teenager, there was probably no band that...

Marty Note
One of my favorite documentary films is the bio-pic about the Clash's Joe Strummer. "That's how we learned to play by doing it for ourselves a punk ethos. You got to be able to go out there and do it for yourself because no one is going to give it to you. Soon became a real big mashup," says Joe strummer.

Sounds like crowdfunding and Internet marketing to us :). M

There is a new invisible giant, a giant using 5 "tricks" so the "new seo" is hard and harder to see and understand. This Haiku Deck and Curatti blog post is about how to see the invisible giant. How to win hearts, minds and loyalty online.

How Do You Create 'Heroic Content'?
You create heroic content by knowing that is what you are trying to do. You create heroic content by RISKING things (reputation, your brand, your ideas). You create heroic content by rejecting the lemmings rush toward the next Internet marketing tactic and embracing them all IN SERVICE to some greater idea.

What's your company, brand or website's movement, manifesto and who is in your tribe? Immediately after you create heroic content that gets you in the game (your About page for example), then begin asking for help. Don't wait or hesitate.

It will be slow going at first, but hang in there and keep asking. One thing we've learned the hard way is people want to help especially those willing to risk all, to share the "inside baseball" content only they know and people who want to help first and are worried about returns a distant third.

One way you create heroic content is to be a hero and beginning is easier than you think AND much easier than mastering one more soon to be diminishing return tactic. Helping create Heroic Content is our Startup Factory funded startup's mission (http://www.curagami.com). Hope you will join us, help us, criticize us and care.

We are all in. The boats have been burned and we want to make Curagami HELPFUL and WISE beyond its years. Hope you will help.
http://www.curagami.com/featured/social-media-marketing-dead-yes/

& we built on that post on LinkedIn
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/ffq4jhbRZbv

Klout has become a valuable resource for major brands and businesses looking to maximize their influence through social platforms. Here are some reasons your business should consider using this free online service.

As social media changes the web marketers need to inspire the kind of commitment, support and contribution made popular by Wiki-pedia - the Wiki-ization of Marketing is happening. You in?