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Win The Ecommerce Game
I'm giving a keynote speech tomorrow at a FedEx Conference. This post links to the Haiku Deck created for that talk. I'm adding a blog post to Curagami.com today too.
If you want to know how to win the new e-commerce game here is the Haiku Deck:
https://www.haikudeck.com/p/cd625524c9
Homeland & SEO
Watching Homeland episodes to catch up before the great TV show's season opener we realized our favorite spy story has a lot in common with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) including:
* Paranoid.
* Surprise * Sisyphus * Ignorance * Tribes
Working on a http://www.Curagami.com post, in the meantime find the slidedeck here:
https://shar.es/17ByZi
Why You Must Curate Content
We shocked a SEO Meetup suggesting 90% curation to 10% content creation. This deck explains why you MUST curate content. Content curation is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for online marketing.
Among the 7 Reasons we share content are these three:
* Proof of "Digital Listening" * Reach
* Costs
Discover 4 more reasons you must curate content at Haiku Deck: https://shar.es/1vwHY8
How Their Rank Teaches You SEO Lessons
SEO: Their Rank Talks To You, but are you listening, emulating category leaders and finding ways to disrupt your space to win hearts, minds and loyalty online is the "new SEO".
So if your question is, "You talking to ME?" and you are asking Google the answer is YES.
Journey To Unique & Uncontested
We are presenting ideas to a group of about 100 SMBs in Atlanta on 4.16. The BIG IDEA is don't attempt to play a sequential, incremental improvement game. That dog doesn't hunt anymore.
Discover BLUE OCEANS where you can create Unique and Uncontested business models that rule, evolve and win hearts, minds and loyalty fast and over time.
How can you discover Blue Oceans in your business vertical? We suggest "Disruption for Dummies" where you combine 2 or all of these surfable trends:
* Appification. * Gamification.
* Social Shopping Nowists.
* Friends of Friends Marketing. * Community.
Content Director Should Rock Content Marketing
I'm excited that th etalented @Scoop.itteam ( @Guillaume Decugis@Ally Greer@Marc Rougierand many others) are launching a new content curation tool called Content Director. As team Curagami shared in our 7 Reasons You Must Curate Content (http://shar.es/1ohSrO over 5,000 views now) knowing what content is making you money and why is a CSF (Critical Success Factor).
Can't wait for our demo tomorrow PM. Will report back.
Marty Note
Great post by Scoop.it team. At our cool tools for ecommerce merchants startup http://www.curagami.com we see all six of these mistakes. Here are some of the ways we've helped clients fix reasons their biz blogs sucked:
- No Subscription Form
Agree with this mistake being #1 since it cuts off your Internet marketing nose to spite your face. BUT adding a subscription form can be tricky. If a client has a vast archive we always locate a large search box in their header. If NOT we cross our fingers and put a subscription from up there.
We HATE subscription forms in footers since it since the WRONG message. Footer forms say, "Sure you can join, but we don't care." Best location is left rail somewhere below your hero (largest image on the page is a hero) and that means your left column should be navvy (i.e. about 200 - 300 pixels and have other nuggets like social in there too). We don't like being forced right either since we read left to right so stuff on the left typically gets more "eye time". WE HATE popunders those annoying requests to join that must be cleared BUT they work with enough people that most online merchants use them. Our answer to that is if everyone jumped off a cliff would you too and then we realize we are sounding like our parents so we shut up (lol). If you have to popunder use http://rocketbolt.com/ as they are the least obnoxious popunder we've seen.
- Content Is Skinny & Stale
Blogs are a commitment. The deal you make is you WILL be blogging several times a week. Break that commitment and your biz blog will suck, never receive links and so you may as well stay home and watch TV for all the good adding less than 300+ posts a year will do you. Blogging is a discipline, a habit, your routine must incorporate if you want your content marketing to mean anything to visitors not related to you. Daily blogging gets easier the more you do it, but do it you must as fresh content is a huge part of the bargain you are striking with Google when you put a website into its view. Google is important, but your customers are even more important and they believe in QDF too (Quality Deserves Freshness), so blog it out.
- No Relevant CTAs
Boy this is one of our HUGE pet peeves. If you don't have a BUTTON or LINK on your site that says the equivalent of CLICK ME THERE IS COOL STUFF HERE your biz blog sucks. CTAs are important, but you can have TOO MANY too, so strike a balance and ask for attention HERE and HERE.
- No Related Links
Blogs are NASTY bad at building relevant next links. Without a plugin your blog will be backwards. Most default WordPress themes publish "archives" in reverse publishing order (most recent first). BTW, that sucks. You are better off to have related links at the bottom of a post AND create Top 5 lists across several dimensions such as popularity, most shared, most commented on, staff favorites and even bottom 5. Creating a priority list does wonders for content because it brings the MOB into play. We want to know what OTHERS think is interesting or bad or amazing. Lists work so USE 'em.
We think of content as products. We want to merchandise, combine and suggest content just like an ecommerce merchant creates cross-sale and up-sale.
- Don't Leverage Analytics in PUBLIC
I'm sitting at a Panera Bread writing this and there is a big sign sharing that the owners shared $19M with charity last year. Public feedback loops such as Top 5 ordered lists and Most Searched summaries help your visitors know you, your content and your tribe.
- No Social Shares or BAD Social Shares
Wow we could write a mile on this one, but we will give you the quick version. 1. Make it easy to share every page 2. Remember you want some shares for your SITE and some for the content people are reading now and those are two different things and need two different social widgets. 3. ALWAYS include your @name in your auto-tweets and shares.
Great post by the Scoop.iteers. Hope those ideas help you know how to fix six reasons your biz blog sucks. Time and web attention are way to valuable to ever SUCK. That is not to say we've never SUCKED (lol), but we try not to stink forever. Blog on :). M
Burn Down The House
Driving to #columbusohio to go to +OhioStateMed again tomorrow I realized my idea for a book based on social shopping sucks. What we need is a new Cluetrain Manifesto, a no holds barred howl at the moon riff on the marketing revolution happening NOW. Apologize for being such a wimp yesterday, won't happen again :). M
Marketing's Big Bang Manifesto
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/Tf9GNsX35qn
Biggest challenge to great web marketing may be learning to THINK like an Internet marketer. Here are 5 Secret Tips to help you become a great IMer.
Severe Marketing shares how P&G creates 360 degree brand marketing & how you and your website can too.
What Is QDF
Google has a favorite core concept - Quality Deserves Freshness. The concept changes content marketing in many ways such as:
* Content is publish & done.
* Content that sparks comments is prized. * Content that promotes links and shares is good. * Static Content is bad.
On Monday I made an editorial mistake. @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.comwrote a great guest blog post for Curagami about content curation. My mistake was building a reference into an embedded slide deck in the title.
That editorial decision assumes too much. Any post MUST live up to its title and this one DID if a reader looked at Cendrine's great slides. If you didn't it was confusing. I added to the confusion by using a numbered list in the title and then NOT numbering the tips contained in Cendrine's slides.
We received a comment noting the dissonance my editorial decisions made. NOW WHAT DO YOU DO? Change the title back to Cendrine's better title and destroy the ripples the post earned. Change the blog title without changing the URL and Google sees and punishes the dispariety.
Better to ADD CONTENT IN because of QDF. I wrote in a couple of hundred words and re-shared the post on social as an object lesson in my need to become a better editor and QDF. NEVER take something away from Google they've indexed, has been shared or is inside your website's modeled evaluation.
Taking things away creates suspicion. Adding in new content helps with QDF and provides a new hook to share on social. QDF can be helped by:
* Comments.
* Feeds (if structured and embedded properly).
* Curation (of comments or other material).
* User Generated Content (UGC) such as social shares, comments, reviews and forms. * Questions - great because "new to them" evergreen content promotes UGC for years. * Polls - voting brings customers back and creates new social share hooks too.
If this information sounds like you really can't "fix" an editorial mistake as much as you create, curate and surf you way out of it you understand implications of QDF. Content in Google land is forever, but content in the new QDF world isn't static, unchanging and inviolate either.
Promise to write a post on QDF and how Google's search for the latest greatest and most relevant content means your content marketing needs to shift from "publish and done" to "publish, curate and publish again".
Invisible Giant of the New SEO shows why Google, appification, mobile and other trends are making the new SEO hard to see, understand or create tactics for.
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Top 10 Curagami Posts
Top 10 Posts shares how Banksy, friends and artists helped create Curagami's Top 10 Posts (by inbound links) despite our best efforts to the contrary (lol).
Here some BIG lessons from our Top 10 Posts from Banksy to Web Design:
* Tap Your Unconscious (and ramp risks) * Friends Rock * Shit Happens - Keep Creating
What BIG Lessons have you learned from your top 10? Share and we will curate your ideas, experiences and comments into the post:
http://www.curagami.com/top-10-posts/?v=7516fd43adaa
http://www.curagami.com/top-10-posts/?v=7516fd43adaa
Adding Scoop.it Magazines
Adding Scoopit Magazines to a blog or website is a Curagami post that shares the easy how and why of adding @Scoop.it "magazines" (feeds) and content curation, to your blog or website. Content curation via Scoopit adds inexpensive reach and customer engagement generating loyalty and return on investment.
Future of Content Marketing For Online Merchants
Online merchants are learning hard lessons about content marketing. Mainly that it takes a lot of time, effort and money. What if you could increase your customers engagement, support and loyalty without spending an arm and a leg? Interested?
This Curagami post shares tips on how to think like a magazine editor - at least an online magazine content editor. It shares five tips including:
- Find 3 – 5 content groups that interest your visitors.
- Decide your schedule (we recommend monthly updates at first because that is a big commitment that must be kept to gain trust).
- Curate content from trusted sources such as brands, manufacturers and even competitors.
- Automate at least one of your content groups with feeds.
- Find and nurture free visual media sources such as Haiku Deck.
Read more about evergreen content and why thinking like a magazine editor can help your online store create TRIBE and MONEY on Curagami:
http://www.curagami.com/ecommerce/magazine-ing-content-5-tips/?v=7516fd43adaa
How To Make $30M Online
When people ask me how teams I've managed made more than $30M online I say it's simple - find your 80:20 Rule, double down on winners, leave laggards and hire great people.
None of those things are nearly as "simple" as they sound, but you must know what NOT to do. Any website has an enduring and constant fractal called the 80:20 Rule. This post includes a video about the importance of your 80:20 Rule, how to use what you find and a link to an earlier post on how to find your 80:20 Rule.
http://www.curagami.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fractals-cover-image.png
Content marketing must serve a higher purpose & featuring people not things is how websites win hearts, minds & loyalty creating online community.
Post includes a Fareed Zakaria interview with hedge fund manager Ray Dolio because Ray shares 5 tips for how to become a great web marketer:
* Think more about how "the machine" works (Google in our case). * Be in the middle of it and expect to get banged up. * Have great humility and FEAR. * It isn't KNOWING that matters it is what you do when you DON't KNOW.
* Find smart people who disagree with you and LISTEN.
I couldn't summarize how teams I've led have made over $30M in online sales learn to think and be. Ray may be speaking of how to manage a hedge fund, but he may as well be outlining how to be a great digital marketer.
This post explores an eternal truth - people not things sell.
http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/marketing/5-ways-people-fix-content-marketing/
Why Content Curtation Rocks SEO
The slide deck from @Scoop.it about how content curation impacts SEO is an excellent SEO & content curation primer (embedded in the post), but let’s do a deeper dive to understand how content curation ROCKS SEO and every site's Uber-Goal of creating sustainable online community.
This Curagami post creates an interesting comparison between Oprah and Amazon. One knows how to create online community one doesn't. Both have great tips to share.
Why we need to become the best Sisyphusian stone rollers in the world:
* Internet marketing means change at ever faster rates forever.
* The Web IS so changing US is what we control & no more.
* Internet marketing isn't what you think.
* Most important idea is to KEEP testing, trying and listening.
* Master objective is & will always be creation of sustainable online community.
What about you? How has working online changed you? Share on G+, in comments on Scoop.it or email martin(at)Curagami.com.
Social Shopping
This new Haiku Deck is an outline for a book we hope to write over the next few weeks. I'm headed to Ohio State for several weeks of treatment at the james Cancer Center and NO WAY I sit on the bench during November (not going to happen).
If you would like to help PLEASE DO SO (lol). Many ways you can help including:
* Writing content to be included.
* Suggesting resources.
* Suggesting great interviews.
* Reading and editing (need lots of help there :).
I'm lucky to have smart, giving friends who I regularly TEST, a test they've never failed. Hope you will join me for the Social Shopping book writing journey. Writing and publishing a book is on my bucket list and I get things on that list DONE :). M (with help, lots of help)
Story may be the most important but least understood online marketing word there is. Understand why storytelling is "beyond important" for web marketing.
Over Planning Can KILL Your Content Marketing
We see a lot of experts, gurus and people who should know better sharing yesterday's advice. We've read thousands of words about the importance of goal setting, planning and objectives for content marketing.
People talk about creating content marketing calendars and planning everything to within an inch of your life. Good luck with that. Might have worked 3 years ago, but today's social / mobile / connected world means you need to become a NOWIST.
This Curagami post embeds the influential Joy Ito TED talk about becoming a Nowist by pulling from the network to meet demand. Your content needs to do the same.
AND You need to digitally listen. We riff a few paragraphs about what it means to digitally listen such as FOLLOWING those who follow you, Retweeting and curating content from your customers and brand advocates.
Next time you read 1,000 words on planning your "content calendar" STOP and read this Curagami post so you don't over plan your content marketing.
Thanks to @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.comI got into a riff about how #contentcuration is leading a new train. The train's name is community and those who get on, or those who answer the future knocking, will succeed. Those who don't won't.
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Scoop.it!
![Fractals, Ecommerce & The Web - Finding and Using Your 80:20 Rule [video] | Curation Revolution | Scoop.it](http://www.curagami.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/fractals-cover-image.png)
