Community In A Box Community In A Box is about the only marketing left - friends of friends proxy marketing.
Online only has one time – NOW.
Now is GOLIATH, a monster sure to kill us all except for a tiny DAVID slinging rocks at the future. David, undeterred by the monster’s apparent size or formidability, is unimpressed by yesterday’s victories. Yesterday’s victories mean little when a stone hits you in the face today.
Better to die on our feet slinging stones than live on knees comatose with yesterday’s victories or afraid of tomorrow’s insults. Tomorrow’s insults are inevitable. We are dreamers, dreamers who believe monsters fall to slingshots and stones. Our dream, our romantic vision, philosophy and belief is why we’re creating “Community In A Box”.
Quirky Toy Company Reading about Fat Brain's openness to innnovation and innovators reminded me of trying to sell my magnetic word game, Poetryslam, to Milton Bradley.
Every major toy company DOESN'T WANT (or didn't want) to talk to innovators. So sure where they your pitch would be something they already had in their files.
Stupid is as stupid does and this post about Fat Brian shows what a nimble competitor can do against such petrified thinking. Post reminded us of Quiryk.com. Our company, Curagami, is about to pitch several major clients on why they need a Quirky-like playground where innovators share, talk and receive the legitimacy they need.
If that sounds like we will be hatching a handful of mini-Milton Bradley's powered by ideas, smartphones, laptops and cool ideas you got it right. And why not? Fat Brain may get it, but they are still in the miniority in the less digitally innovative than they need to be toy biz.
Startups Must Tap Friends & Friends of Friends Replace "ecom" with "startups" in this YouTube Video to understand the Critical Success Factor (CSF) that is Asking For Help for startups.
Find the Haiku Deck for our 4.16 FedEx Ecommerce Summit presentation here: http://shar.es/1gJeZE Online merchants must tap their networks, empower brand advo...
Visit one of Australia's top rated business blogs. The team at Anecdote share insights on business strategy, storytelling, leadership and collaboration.
3 More Reasons Noticing that the @TedRubin post 3 Reasons Marketers Fail At Social Media (http://sco.lt/7SYjYH ) wanted to weigh in with 3 MORE Reasons We Marketers Fail at Social Media Marketing:
* Not Thinking Mobile First Breaking old habits is new especially when they only formed YESTERDAY. We started creating websites in 1999. 15 Years is not "yesterday" exactly but it's close in "learning" time. The world is moving faster than our marketing brains can keep up. One clear example of that is how we cling to the boxes, borders and design of websites. Websites are so OVER. Websites are now ways to test what you should put into your mobile marketing - a message we marketers have not received or understood fully yet.
* Talking Not Listening Listening online is different. Listening on the web means following back, curating THEIR (customers and advocate) content and being open to sharing things that used to be uniquely OURS. Marketers are Type A hard chargers as a group and breaking them of thinking we make our livings communicating not curating is proving TOUGH.
* The Network Is the Computer Scott McNealy's famous line about NETWORKS being where the action is has never been more true. We marketers like to push balls up hills like Sisyphus. Learning to build community, one of the hardest things I've ever done and I have cancer, is proving a tough transition.
Changing so much so fast is enough to make anyone seasick. You would think since we marketers are in the change business we would be ready, accepting and welcoming (of change). You would be wrong as these 3 More Reasons Marketers Fail At Social Media illustrate.
Good news is we don't give up either :). M
Followed this Scoopit with a post on Marketing's Timeline
Know thyself is great Internet marketing advice and this post helps explain how to define your Unique Selling Propositions and Unique Customer Aspirations.
UCA is the startups secret weapon. When you are aligned to UCA your startup scales. When your ideas are out of alignment or not communicated well (been there, done that) your startup doesn't scale.
Wrote this piece for Atlantic BT during my tenure as Marketing Director.
Why Do People LOVE & HATE Startups? Biggest startup haters? Answer: Other Startups. To be fair the VAST majority of fellow startups at the American Tobacco Campus and American Underground are AWESOME and HELPFUL.
Some have been abusive and mean. We got to thinking about what might be making some fellow #startups so snarky and angry. We think it may be the process.
This post shares the strange WALK THIS WAY undercurrent inside the startup ecosysem and wonders if David Amerland's New Value System might "beat the dogs" less and accomplish more.
We've been down this road so many times in life. Going to football camp as a kid first thing everyone had to know was if you could get hit. The next thing everyone wanted to know was could YOU hit. So much testosterone so little time (lol).
Why do you think people love or hate startups? Share your experiences and I will curate into the post. Thanks and have a great weekend. Marty
Martin (Marty) Smith talks to Get Social Health about the radical change in his life when he heard the words cancer and his name in the same sentence. Here is what Marty's done since his cancer diagnosis:
* Rode a bicycle across America (Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer).
* Founded CureCancerStarter.org one of first crowdfunding cancer research platforms.
* Founded Curagami, marketing tools to help content marketers and online merchants create community.
* Founded Tech Cures Cancer Fund at UNC Lineberger Cancer Center.
Wide ranging interview with an entrepreneur and cancer survivor whose life is dedicate to helping and giving back.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
I'm blessed with amazing friends who help, help and hep some more. Marty
We are emotional people on a spiritual journey. Why is logic the most common approach to online selling? 5 Tips so your digital marketing makes less sense.
Startups BELIEVE in the widget. Talk to any Venture Capitalists and they will tell you they invest in teams not ideas. Ideas change. Teams capable of making the many pivots any new idea needs are worth their weight in gold.
Go to 100 startup websites and teams, if they are there, are pushed to the background as the WIDGET takes center stage. This is because we believe the way to "make a sale:" is to use logic.
Logic is tyranny when what we seek is emotional connection . This post shares 5 tips to avoid logic's tyranny:
* Listen More.
* Control Less, Collaborate More.
* As community forms listen and curate.
* Empower your advocates and Sherpas.
* MOVEMENTS not campaigns.
Startups need to forget the widget and remember we are spiritual beings having a human experience not the other way around.
We are ALL in the community building business now whether we know it or not thanks to Google and the web's slouching toward SOCIAL and MOBILE. This post shares a contentious CrowdFunde meeting where, as my friend Mark Traphagen pointed out, our company was born.
Pinterest & Startups This image of Batgirl staring out of a doorway is one of Scenttrail's most popular pins (http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/ ). Pinterest is important for startups because:
* Marketing is becoming VISUAL & Pinterest excels at visual marketing.
* Pinterest is asynchronous to other social nets. * Pinterest is EASY and doesn't require much time. * Pinterest creates community faster than other social nets.
That last bullet should have a caveat. Pintererst builds community FAST once you figure out the secret handshake. I was frustrated with how long it was taking to develop a following.
I would share content on Pinterest and I could never understand what seemed to matter, so I shared LOTS more content (one key to success). I also Repinned from others and commented on pins.
All of those tactics helped, but the real dam breaker was creating the King and Queen of Pinterest boards:
The real winner is the Queen of Pinterest with over 400 pinners now and a great daily rhythm. Community boards do get spammed so I developed some simple guidelines, pinned those guidelines (and do so again and again when the board starts to get spammy).
The victory with King and Queen of Pinterest shares an important secret. Pinterest is a tad solipsistic. People who love to pin really LOVE to pin. There are cult-like moments (lol). So one way to connect is to have a board that shares obsession with Pinterest.
Your startup may not be obsessed with Pinterest, but bet you need to develop a following. When I started the King and Queen of Pinterest boards I had 114 followers. Now, about six months later, Scenttrail has more than 5,000 followers.
Cool thing about community boards is people begin to tell their friends. I invited about half the people pinning on Queen of Pinterest. Interesting I invited 90% of the men (lol). Women understand the core of social media better. They are more naturally social about topics that people love to pin about such as culture, art, celebrity, travel, weight loss, etc...
If you are a startup you should be using Pinterest if only because it builds community, once you figure out a secret or two, faster than any other social net. The other reason Pinterest is important for startups is its focus on asynchronous visual marketing. Learn "asynchronous marketing" even a little and your startup will rock.
Bringing communities together around a cause is one of the most meaningful and rewarding types of community management. Marty Smith shares how he does it.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Important discussion for #startups. Most startups think of content marketing as a distant third priority. I disagree. Building a tribe of brand advocates, a community, might just be the most important thing any startup does.
Will be discussing how Communities can save the world today at 2:00 EST with Ally Greer, @Scoopit's Community Manager and Tim McDonald, Huffington Post Community Manager. Should be a fun kickoff to Memorial Day Weekend.
Genius Lunch at Precision Lender My friend Phil Buckley (@1918) is a genius. Phil knows how to ask for help. He is a great networker. Combine those two simple ideas we all know but take for granted and genius results. Precision Lender makes a cool tool banks use to replace Excel.
Phil's company is on a common quest - how to build sustainable community. Read our notes from today's Genius Lunch:
Social Streaming, Smart TVs & theFuture is how our social streaming collaborative future is already in the house despite few acting on the many implications. Smart startups will step into the breach. Hope we are one of 'em :). Marty
5 Curagami Monster Trends This is a great Fast Company post, but it is a bit overwhelming. Instead of trying to process 25 ideas all at once and all equally I've carved out 5 of team Curagami's favorite ideas, ideas that are creating a "new marketing" where we becomes US. We didn't include MOBILE since that should be understood by now. Mobile is everything starting NOW.
5 Curagami Monster Marketing Trends:
* Most branded content will come from consumers. * Real time tracking & use of personas = customized experiences.
* Everything is a "catalyst for conversation". * Rise of video & video sharing. * Mashups and clutter filters will RULE.
Champion any 2 of these trends and your company, brand or startup will WIN and WIN BIG. What about you? What 5 trends strike you as MONSTER and must respond to trends?
@Kelly Hungerfordand @Ally Greermay be the best community managers on the planet. We included our favorite storyteller / teacher ( @Dr. Karen Dietz since online communities will become more and more about stories (yours and THEIRS where theirs = customers and brand advocates).
Marty Note Love this Jody Porowski post since she shares directly and doesn't lay claim to expertise she doesn't have (rare). I also love here reasons for why content marketing matters beyond pure traffic generation such as:
1. Drive Traffic.
2. Increase Awareness.
3. Create new Connections. 4. Produce Warm Fuzzies.
Great list. I would add:
5. Creates online community (net effect of 1 - 4).
6. Voice is authority, authority is reputation, reputation is all.
7. Provides grappling hooks out to social media to accomplish #2. 8. Shares values and nonverbals communication such as WE LISTEN (especially when you curate or incorporate content from users). 9. Promotes User Generated Content (they won't share if you don't). 10. Define your USP and UCA (Unique Selling Proposition and Unique Customer Aspiration).
YES, we live in a post content-shock world, but construct a website without a voice and see how it performs (it won't). Stories, shared intimacy and risk form the basis of any successful online community. Remember 1:9:90 Rule says 1% of a site's visitors will advocate and share valuable UGC (User Generated Content), 9% will vote and share especially content from the highly trusted 1%ers and 90% read and visit (important to traffic numbers but hard to engage).
We used to think content and voice was the ante for an Ambassador Program or the creation of valuable brand advocates and Sheraps. Team Curagami changed our mind recently and now advise customers such as Moon-Audio.com (manufacturers amazing audio cables and sells high-end headphones and earphones) to ASK for help NOW.
Continue to develop content and voice since the more trusted you are the greater chance you have at the gold at the end of the web marketing rainbow - sustainable online community. BUT ASK FOR HELP immediately, specifically and often.
Such a great post by Jody I couldn't help adding a riff from my experience as a content marketer, content curator and former Ecommerce Director. Added to Startups Revolution because content marketing is one of the rocks many startups get hung upon. Don't over think content marketing and create something daily.
The Curagami Story Curagami was launched by Martin Smith and co-founder Phil Buckley when they found a need in the marketplace they felt was not being served and a window of opportunity.
Curagami helps ecommerce merchants discover the "new ecom" where commerce and content live harmoniously together. This is their story.
Marty Note Great write up by @Lori Wilk about our #startup Curagami.
Bunch O Balloons Featured on TODAY Show This morning!
Bunch O Balloons, an easy to use time saving water balloon invention, may make $1M on Kickstsarter thanks to great crowdfunding marketing and the new SEO. Team Curagami is in Charlotte at the Search Exchange Conference.
This Curatti post combines a fascinating new tool set capable of making "Editors of Chaos" come true and the story of how a crowdfunding project goes "mega-viral".
Curagami helps form the “Ambassador Layer” every website and brand needs these days. Ambassadors, people who’ve “bought in” to a brand’s mission and want to help, need to be given contextually appropriate “jobs”.
Curagami Scores We've tuned our Curgami engine to evaluate three website and brand CSFs (Critical Success Factor):
* Content. * Community. * Conversion.
The tool creates unique metrics such as Link Efficiency Indexes (LEI) to evaluate a website, close competitors and it establishes "best practice" averages viral content, sustainable community and asynchronous conversion ideas (not going up against a competitor's strength).
We started our journey to answer a simple question:
What content should a website create and why?
That simple question has soaked up six months of our lives and tens of thousands of our investors' cash. Good news is we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Will your website WIN armed with a Curgami Score Report?
Marty Note I wish I could sit every startup entrepreneur down and have them read this post about how blogging accelerates growth. Need funding? Spending tons of time pitching? Why?
If I could share a way for a startup not to have to have absurd conversations with people who will NEVER invest in their startup they would ask me what they need to pay for that kind of magic.
Guess what, the magic is FREE, all you have to do is write what is happening, create some videos and share your progress. I've been writing about The Social Startup and blogging is a KEY aspect of creating the kind of content people find and want to CALL YOU.
If that last sentence translated like this, "You get to keep more of your company," then you get the idea. Even if you never make a dime from the content you share blogging is worth doing. You will LEARN so much from sharing, getting feedback and reacting.
That kind of feedback is MAGIC and worth its weight in gold. When I worked in marketing at M&M/Mars we paid BIG BUCKS for the kind of information any entrepreneur can get FREE now. So SHARE and then ASK, SHARE and ASK again. Bet you make more money that way than bieng 100% widget focused.
Creating A Revoltion is HARD May be hard, but MOVEMENTS are powerful ideas. Campaigns are not movements. Campaigns are more about YOU than THEM. My advice is learn secrets for revolutionaries and remove US vs. THEM makreting in favor of Save The World Marketing.
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