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
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
Startups Too
The interesting thing about this post every one of my web marketing friends seems to be talking about is it validates Mark Schaefer's "content shock" concept and replace "content" with "startps" and it applies just about as well. Only difference? Startups fail at a much higher rate. Doesn't mean the cure isn't similar - building a community of advocates and supporters and using "amplification" to change the world.
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
Discover the trends shaping a new online commerce on Curagami:
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
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.
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
How Netflix + Roku Is Changing Content Curation In Competitors Beware Ways.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:
As we are proving with our startup http://www.curagami.com content marketing is HOT for #startups. Hot because as budgets increase tools are needed to help publishers and merchants. Here are just a few areas of opportunity:
* Content curation tools to help bring content in, shape it and publish it back out. * BI Tools to know what is working and why. * BI Tools that help see into the octopus of attribution.
* Customer experience tools - using personas and archetypes to increase relevance & that helps generate social shares and customer satisfaction.
* Loyalty and gamification tools.
Just a few startup needs in content publishing / ecommerce.
In last 15 years, eCommerce marketing has evolved a lot. It's no longer confined to keyword stuffing or PPC. In 2013, website optimization, guest blogging and responsive design was in vogue.
* Mobile optimization: Agree! * Mobile advertising: Agree! * Targeting wearable devices: Too Early (talk about more than target in 2014). * Long-form content: Agree! (stories are about to rule the world). * Social and search ads: Agree! * Authorship branding: Agree! * Omni-channel user experience: Agree! * Better delivery: Agree! Local SEO: For some this makes sense. * Marketing automation: Harder to imagine in Ecom, but open to the idea of it.
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.
Great Neil Ferree Post meant for Lawyers but equally applicable to startups and any online business (and what business isn't an online business now?). Lawyer capitulation is particularly interesting because lawyers worry about content creation's legal implications more than any other business.
For an "inside baseball" lawyer website like this one to explain the importance of content marketing supported by social shares means the costs of NOT participating are so much greater than the liabilities of creating great content marketing supported by social. If "not joining" the movement is so clear to lawyers the same implicaitons should be clear to all.
I work with many healthcare providers and they should read this post too. Anyone with QUALMS or worries about content marketing and social shares should read this post since it explains the prohibitive costs of NOT joining the content and social marketing party already in progress.
Yes the article is a tad technical, but your takeaway should be if LAWYERS are encouraging other LAWYERS to create and support content the last brick in the dam is in place. Any continued denial, obfuscation or non-acceptance of content and social marketing will be expensive (as in you won't be here much longer).
We can discuss the need to be GREAT later, right now let's simply agree Content Marketing and Social PRESENCE are DEMANDED.
The cost of not participating in Social Media will continue to grow over the next 3 - 5 years. If you are looking to start in #socialmedia we make it incredibly easy at Simply Social Media. Our packages start at only $495.00 per month.
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"
.
We share this post in our Startups Revolution Scoop.it since few startups understand SEO and fewer still think they need content marketing - big mistakes.
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.
Marty Note On Developing Trusted Content Startups must create content to develop trust and community. Content marketing. and this may be a surprise to some, is not an end unto itself. You create and share content to help, educate and share. Startups should create content to develop a self-sustaining community.
Sharing content requires being vulnerable, real and authentic. The six tips from the linked post focus on creating honest communication. My 4 content marketing tips describe how to create content sure to be shared (a form of trust), built upon and provide the feedback loops you need to run an online business:
Six Content Tips (from the link)
* Eliminate Hype.
* Make Your Content As Unbiased as possible.
* Present alternative perspectives (from trusted leaders and gurus).
* Include objective research.
* Beware of product pitches (just say NO to product pitches).
* Proclaim your identity (be honestly who you ARE as any disparity creates dissonance).
Marty's 4 Content Marketing Tips (to promote shares and feedback)
* End with a question asking for feedback & don't mind if none comes (1:9:90 Rule says only about 10% of your visitors are going to engage with your content is ways you can see). * Shorten your sentences & paragraphs and lose the conjunctions and personal pronouns. * Create short (10 words or less) headlines with "grabbers". * Create, shoot or develop original art.
Questions are great. We use questions in three ways:
* We ask and then answer our own question as a way to engage a clear line of reasoning and thinking. * We ask contextually relevant questions at the end of a post looking for feedback on a reader's experience. * We ask and leave open questions in heading sand sub-heads to promote the content as answer reading the curiosity of a question prompts.
Short and Sweet Shorten and create SEO writing. SEO writing is reducing your "stop words" such as personal pronouns or other words search spiders can't understand. SEO may be out of favor these days, but those "spider tips" apply to creating content to promote online readership and engagement too. Think Hemingway more than Faulkner.
Original Art Startups shouldn't use stock photography. Stock creates dissonance with any startup's main positioning. All startups are claiming to be smarter and more creative than the other guy. When you use sock you look just like the other guy. Just say NO to stock no matter how much your designer wants to use it. CORNED use stock but ask your design team to create unique edits and perspectives so your stock doesn't look like everyone else.
Last month, 14% of our website visitors AND new contacts came from Pinterest. Pretty good, right?
Well, for one of our clients, 48 percent of his traffic 57% of new contacts came from Pinterest.
...This example of the smoothie recipes is almost too easy. I know. But that doesn’t mean your landscaping company has no choice but to create ebooks about smoothies! Let’s say you created an ebook on starting a vegetable garden. The planning process may be broken down into a few steps. Then there is preparation, a trip to the nursery or hardware store, etc. Each of those steps could use its own pinnable image. You could either create one template and change out the text. Or, you could use colorful images of vegetables and gardens with some text outlining a specific tip or step in the process.
And that, my friends, is my #1 tip for how to get massive numbers of leads from Pinterest.
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 .
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.
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.
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