Curation Revolution

SEO Freakshow
Small to Medium Sized Businesses are caught in a vicious Chinese finger puzzle. The more they pull the more stuck they become. We say REJECT the CATCH-22 of trying to be us (SEOs, Internet marketers) and run away and join the circus instead. Here's why. 

Hero Marketing combines passion, customer focus, exponential thinking and the creation of movements to help Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) compete with Amazon.

Created this new Haiku Deck for a conference in Baltimore sponsored by FedEx on 2.26.

Here are the content marketing tips for #startups and #smbs shared in this post:

1. Create content before, during and after events.

2. Support great posts about you by writing about them.

3. Don't SELL, CURATE instead.

4. Create content with an eye toward what you want.

5. Tools matter.

http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2013/11/5-quick-easy-content-marketing-tips.html 

Amazon Prime is brilliant online tribal or "club" marketing with great "stealable" lessons for small to medium sized online retailers (SMBs) such as:

* Importance of "movement" marketing. 

* Create CLUBS.

* Empower advocates. 

* Ask for help.

* Be social, mobile and unique. 

Lots of book recommendations and a riff on Rafi Mohammed's "Logic Behind Amazon Prime" shares online marketing tips for SMBs.l  

Haiku Decks Create Shares & Community
If we told you there was a tool that would generate 3,200 views of your content on average and produce almost 60,000 views and over 700 shares for 34 uses (of the tool) you would USE IT right? This Curagami post shares why Haiku Deck is a powerful Internet marketing tool you should start using NOW.

Lions, Tigers, Bears & Content Shock & SMB Survival
Small to Medium Sized Businesses are overwhelmed. The clearest message we've received during our first six months creating our Startup Factory funded startup called Curagami is a clear protest. "Overwhelmed" is the most common adjective SMBs use to describe their situation.

Not hard to see why SMBs are feeling overwhelmed. Tactics that used to insure consistent yearly growth are sick. Tactics are drying up faster than ever.

SMB Marketing Tactics Costing More, Getting Less:

* Yellow Pages (near death).
* Print ads (near death).

* Val-u-pak coupons (near death).

* Coupons of any kind (losing relevance with smartphone users)..

* Groupons (blows brands up almost beyond repair).
* Email marketing (sick due to social / mobile web).
* Social Media Marketing (sick and getting sicker fast).
* Content Marketing.(content shock sick).

* Ecommerce (too many stores, same offerings).
* PPC (paying more to get less).
* Retargeting (cat out of bag, so sick efficacy declining).
* Video Marketing (steep learning curve, expensive).
* Viral Marketing (everyone has that cold now & hit or miss).
* Cause Marketing (not as unique as once was & live or die with partner).

* Celebrity Marketing (expensive and live or die with branded celeb).

* SEO (don't even get us started, all but gone, baby, gone).

3 Rays of Hope

1. Content Curation
Discussed by Scoop.it CEO @Guillaume Decugisin Social Media Publishing Is Dead As We Know It ( http://blog.scoop.it/2014/06/18/social-media-publishing-is-dead-as-we-know-it/ ).

2. Community
Banding and binding tribes of contributors, advocates and supporters to your cause.

3. Friends of Friends marketing.
Reaching new customers via WOM (Word-of-Mouth) supplied by fans, brand advocates and social marketing Sherpas willing to sacrifice and help your cause.

Curagami (http://wwww.curagami.com ) is focused on helping SMBs create sustainable community via the Friends-of-Friends marketing community generates.  

Am Scooping Guillaume's post to use in our Curagami board meeting tomorrow and we are working on 3 cool ideas:

* Curagami SMB Survival Guide - one page "action focused" recommendations on the tapestry of marketing tools and tactics needed to know where online "success" lives these days.

* Curagami $25,000 SMB Survival Contest - Help in seo, content marketing and community building to make this holiday online selling season great.

* Curagmai SMB Survival School - 1 day training to support SMBs at the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, NC.