Startup Revolution

What’s content shock? It’s a term coined by Mark Schaefer two years ago, when he observed that “content supply is exponentially exploding while content demand is flat.”  The logical consequence of supply continually outstripping demand is that on average content articles will get … Continued

New Ecommerce Trends
New Ecommerce: Search For Blue Oceans is about the disruptive impact smartphones, ubiquitous connection and retailer innovation are creating in ecommerce.

• Smartphones and ubiquitous connection to the web
• Impact of videos and unboxing creating “gift box retailers”
• Social Shopping and slouching toward real-time
• Buying personas, web analytics & dynamic personalization
• Google and the New SEO where content is KING and social content QUEEN
   

 http://www.curagami.com/new-ecommerce-5-crucial-trends/?v=7516fd43adaa 

Marty Note

Startups are so pressed for time they often ignore or make a C priority developing content marketing. That is a huge mistake when it comes time to close a round of funding.

Startups with following have leverage and so may survive. In this excellent two part series Andrian Leighton shares tips on how to blog and how to recycle old blog posts into new content. With these tips every startup has the time to develop the most overlooked but important thing almost all startups overlook - effective content marketing.

Clean Slate Brands
Time doesn't guarantee anything anymore. "Proudly in business for 100 years," sounds great until Uber cleans your clock. http://www.uber.com re-imagined what "cab" means in a mobile / social / reputation time.

I took my first Uber ride in Columbus, Ohio last week and it was EASY. I've also used Columbus Yellow Cab and spoken to the owner. Columbus Yellow Cab provided excellent service minus one important thing - a way to monitor how far my ride is.

Columbus Yellow Cab has an app too, one I will use on my next trip to Columbus this Wednesday, but Uber is a "clean slate" brand with little preconceived notions about owning anything OTHER than the most disruptive technology the cab business has ever seen.

Uber is about to change the very definition of "cab". And Uber isn't alone as this Trendwatching post about Clean Slate Brands shares.

Need Your Help
I'm writing the Ultimate Content Curation Guide For Business and need your help. If you love content curation please share thoughts about:

* How would you define content curation for business?
* Is content curation different for SMBs than big brands? If yes, how?
* How should startups curate content?
* What are your favorite content curation tools.

Send your thoughts on these questions or anything content curation related to martin(at)Curagami.com. Thanks, Marty

How Netflix + Roku Is Changing Content Curation In Competitors Beware Ways.

Content Marketing For Startups
Content marketing authority is something everyone wants yet few realize the fastest way to achieve what they want is to share, share, share. The 4 Sharing Tips:

* Give Expertise Away, but not 100% (find a way to create ROI too).

* Following Is Currency, So SPEND IT.
* Presence Makes you REAL.
* Trust in KARMA of the SHARE.

Post is trending on Curatti after going live on Tuesday. This "bean stalk" is an important content marketing one for startups to climb. Being a startup is solipsistic and self referential when it needs to be open kimono authentic and all about sharing. Share EVERYTHING.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

SEO & Content Marketing's Future
Google, Panda 4.0, Rankbrain, SEO & Love shares how future content marketing will be shaped by smartphones, sentiment and feeling with 5 tips on how to thrive.

• Rich Get Richer
• Channel Diversification Is Essential
• It's About SMARTPHONES, Stupid
• Screens, Content Types, Social & Love 
• Curate more than create, no content is ever "old"

http://www.curagami.com/google-panda-4-0-rankbrain-love/?v=7516fd43adaa

Adding Scoopit Magazines
This post shares the easy how and why of adding @Scoop.it "magazines" to your blog or websties. We work with and around a lot of startups. Every startup is so widget focused they have a hard time creating the content marketing needed. 

Why is content marketing so NEEDED for startups? Well let's see. Want to get funded? Want to scale? Content marketing can help, but virtually no startup thinks that way. 

Every startup we know is so widget focused they can't see forest for trees. Widget focus isn't unimportant, but at some point soon you will need to sell that widget to someone for money. Content is the magic key in that "sell to someone for money" door. 

The best return on any startup's content marketing time is to curate content - i.e. leverage brand relevant content from experts. When you don't have time or inclination to create great content you can get more reach and return from finding highly relevant sources (for your business content) and curating them. 

Be sure to follow and contribute to those who you curate from too (or your curation can feel like stealing). This Curagami post explains how easy it is to curate content with Scoop.it and then add the magazines you create to your startup's blog or site. 
 

Content curation is key for Small To Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) online success & Scoop.it's new Content Director makes curation a marketing reality.

Crowdfunding Where BUZZ Lives In Time For the Holidays
Working on http://www.curagami.com taught us important content marketing lessons such as:

* Buzz is HARD to create by yourself.
* Want buzz? Go to where the BUZZ is and mashup.
* Crowdfunding is highly SOCIAL and very BUZZ worthy.

* Crazy Guy / Girl in basement is a compelling aspirational story.

That last bullet is where the moneyball lives. The reason crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter ROCK SEO and content marketing is great entrepreneurs share their cool ideas AND their social network. Platforms such as Kickstarter get to sit back and pick and choose what to help BLOW UP (or their algorithm does).

Here MoMA creates a curated content partnership with Kickstarter helping to add legitimacy to everyone's hand (for MoMA, Kickstarter and the projects curated into MoMA's holiday guide). What is stopping YOU from creating a similar partnership with a cool crowdfunding platform and featuring BUZZ worthy products you curate?

Answer: NOTHING other than the limitation of our merchandising imaginations and those boundaries should be few and far between :).M

Two years ago, we published a two-part post on social media marketing safety with Internet marketer, curator, cancer survivor, entrepreneur and Friend of Paper.li, Marty Smith.

Well, guess what? Marty is back. And this time, he will share his journey and thoughts on entrepreneurship, e-commerce, social media and how his battle against cancer has shaped his thinking.

Help A Startup Over The 4th of July Holiday
If you have 15 minutes you can help a startup over the 4th. We are trying to keep this, our first, ASK to 15 minutes or less. Click 3 links and answer 3 questions and your feedback will help a startup!

Will post our landing page link as soon as we finish making it (lol). In the meantime checkout our Evolution of Web Design & Marketing infographic: http://www.Curagami.com .

Wow, this post is TAKING OFF fast. Its about something I keep talking about and no one seems to HEAR. GPlus is the place to create your Internet marketing and I use numbers from @Crowdfundeanalysis.@CrowdfundeFind An Amazing G+ Analysis here:
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/F5fXyrkTPCr @Crowdfunde

If you love using Scoop.it we have a job for you. CrowdFunde, a Durham NC startup, is searching for the top 10 content curators in the world. CrowdFunde is a new company dedicated to helping websites, brands and companies tap wisdom of crowds.

And we need 10 great content curators to help!

If you are a great content curator we want to recognize your contribution, pay you to do something you love and include you in a cool new company about to change the way ecommerce merchants create content marketing and the way content marketers know what content to create.

If you are a great curator we hope you will apply at CrowdFunde.com
http://www.crowdfunde.com/top-curator-contest-crowdfunde-hiring/

CrowdFunde Accepted Triangle Startup (TSF) Factory
Thanks to friends who wrote cards and letters and thanks to the team at Triangle Startup Factory, our Durham, NC based startup incubator, who are willing to take a risk on CrowdFUnde as we smash content marketing and crowdfunding together to see what happens.

Our TSF session starts March 10th and we hope you will join us as we share this great startup adventure.

CrowdFunde
http://www.crowdfunde.com

Haiku Deck Pitch to TSF
http://shar.es/QFOzU

Triangle Startup Factory
http://thestartupfactory.co/

Step by step guidelines for startups on how to acquire customers.

Full image at: http://ijustdid.org/2013/08/customer-acquisition-guide-for-startups/

Source: http://onboardly.com/customer-acquisition/the-step-by-step-guide-to-startup-customer-acquisition-infographic/#.UiIpSdJHKo0