Curation Revolution

After reviewing http://www.thefuntheory.com/ and not having much fun it struck how hard creating "fun marketing" is. In this piece for ScentTrail Marketing I compare creating "fun marketing" to developing viral marketing. 

Turns out FUN is as elusive as viral. Here are my 5 Tips to Safely Create Fun Marketing: 

1. Create Personas.
2. Test, Test, Test.
3. Don't Try To Go "Viral".
4. Find FUN Out There. 
5. Have Some Fun Yourself. 

Use these tips and remember to have some fun since it is impossible to LIE for any amount of time in Internet marketing. The math and truth always wins.  

E-Commerce Storytelling Tips 1 to 3
It was fun writing this piece. Since covering the first 3 tips ran over 1,000 words Ten E-Commerce Storytelling Tips became a multi-part blog "series".Tips 1 - 3 are covered in this @Atlanticbt post.

The remaining 7 tips will be covered over the next few days.

Great piece about BOUNCE RATES and how to structure content to bring them down. Also great general idea - that having a website does not equal benefiting from the site. When the clueless create websites they can do more damage than good via bad tagging, poor meta data (especially titles) and bad structure producing high bounce rates and so never earning Google's trust. 

Don't think just because you finally got that website up it is doing you any GOOD (lol). Internet marketing requires a PRO to advise you at some point otherwise you fly the plain into the mountain and feel good about it all the way in.  

3 Things You Can't Know, Until You Know
Apparently I've entered that "professor emeritus" space that befalls all Ecommerce Directors as they age (lol). Before I link off into the sunset here are three things I could have told you back when I was an Ecom director only on pain of death (yours or mine :). 

1.  Internet Marketing Isn't What You think
I wrote a piece about how misinformed most people are about what Internet marketing IS:

http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/why-internet-marketing-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/  

Internet marketing is the extension, amplification and feedback loop every marketer depends on. For every moment you obsess about look and feel you lose money because THEY (your customers) will tell you everything you need to know if you only LISTEN. 

Oh, and make sure you LISTEN to Google too. Good to do what the KING tells you to do WHEN she tells you too. 

2. Everything Balances and Dances Until There Is A Wobble
Metrics are tied to each other. When your traffic goes up chances are your bounce rate will inch up too. When your time on site goes up because you've created great gamification or video marketing your SEO gets easier, you generate more Facebook LIKES and life is good. 

Then there is a wobble. 

Wobbles are inevitable so staying calm and carrying on no matter how severe the wobble is the only way to be an Internet marketer (otherwise you end up jumping off the roof LOL). 

Wobbles can come from Google, competitors or the war in Iraq. Death, taxes and that there will be costly wobbles in your Internet marketing future are life's new immutable truths. Your Internet marketing will dance again after a period of rehab and if you stay calm and carry on. 

3. The Secret Is There Is No Secret
I spent valuable TIME trying to find the FREE LUNCH of Internet marketing, the silver bullet, the one action that would solve all problems. Some may be able to do so, but someone wins the lottery too that doesn't mean it makes statistical SENSE (lol). 

Your best Internet marketing bet is to:

* DO THE WORK.

* LISTEN to the responses.
* Rinse and Repeat. 

The MAGIC of life and Internet marketing is in the JOURNEY not the destination no matter how rich it makes you. In the end your money goes into a trust or to your children, so what matters is what is happening NOW, this MOMENT.

If you are doing the work, no matter how "bad" you think it is, you are ahead of many. If you LISTEN you are ahead of more and if you relentlessly rinse and repeat you will be at the far right of Internet marketing's bell curve. 

Good luck to all the Supermen and Superwomen out there thinking that surely their head will explode if they have to learn one more thing (it won't) and never trusting they are really THERE (they are).

You NEVER need anything MORE than what you have as you read this. You are fully armed and ready right NOW to change the world, to change YOU. 

Do the work. Listen. Rinse and Repeat. 

Is it just me or do you see Jungian archetypes all over Internet marketing? This is my post to my friend Doug Kaufman's very well done psychology glossary. Glossaries, as he is proving, are amazing SEO food. 

FAVOR for Marty
My favor is to take a look at AlleyDog.com's glossary (this post links to the Carl Jung page) and comment on some of Doug's terms. I ask this favor because Doug is sure no one cares enough to comment.

I've learned the hard way there are some tricky parts to comments including:

* NO ONE comments when other comments are present.
* Comments need to be supported by social recognition.

* Comments tend to go drip, drip, drip, flood, so please help AlleyDog.com get to the flood stage.

Appreciate it and you have an open chit with me. You may use that chit to have me write something you need or want. I support my posts with social (as I bet everyone who knows me already knows LOL), so help Doug and AlleyDog.com and I will return the favor. .

Thanks, Marty  

Gret post about when to do what and how to have OPP (Other People's Platforms) work FOR you not just for THEM.

Meme Marketing Can WIN or HURT
This post is a little fast and loose with their definition of a "meme". When Richard Dawkins coined the term he had something more robust than cultural ephemera in mind. 

The use of Nirvana's lyric is not what made Nirvana a meme. Nirvana came to represent a tribe of angry disaffected youth raised on irony and lied to repeatedly by authority figures from parents to politicians. Trying to tease art from inspiration is a fool's errand, so Nirvana and Kurt Cobain became archetypes representing a movement and a tribe.

The author may be fuzzy on what a meme is, but they have the viral power of memes just right. Memes live to do one thing - transfer cultural ideas. Think of the May Fly who lives for a single day. Memes live for as long as the act of transfer is met with ever increasing amounts of transfer. 

Meme Creation Tips

* Keep ideas simple.

* New Via Known - Use Made To Stick idea and connect NEW ideas to familiar (think of the duct tape on the book's cover) ones. 

* As Memes go sideways tweak YOUR messaging. 

* If Meme is WRONG stop feeding it (and hope others follow your lead).

* NEVER fight a meme. 

The reason you don't fight a meme is TO FIGHT is to add transfer energy. The more you attempt to restate the more ingrained the meme becomes. If your meme goes so sideways it is dead wrong STOP FEEDING IT. 

Often if the originator of a meme stops the feed it will slowly die. Note the use of "slowly". if your boss says they want that fixed tell them sure no problem and DO NOTHING. Do anything and you increase your problem. 

Memes vs. Cultural Ephemera
Memes have more backbone than cultural ephemera. Dawkins "Selfish Gene" idea is an example of a meme with powerful reach and robustness. Despite many leading authors including Wright (NonZero), Benkler (Penguin and Leviathan) and Shermer (Mind of the Market) the concept of man's innate selfishness is a strong meme. 

Dawkins must appreciate the irony since the book he wrote in 1976 The Selfish Gene that created or reinforced or given name to the "selfish man" meme doesn't say man is innately selfish. In fact, The Selfish Gene has a detailed discussion of The Prisoner's Dilemma where competitive collaboration is discussed. 

This misinterpretation brings up an important point. Memes transfer ideas FOR THE PURPOSE OF TRANSFER not accuracy. Expect your meme marketing to go a little sideways when exposed to the world. The smart move, when your memes go a little sideways, is to adjust your messaging to be consistent with how the meme has stripped your ideas down for transfer. 

If this is starting to sound like playing the MEME SEO game can be a tad dangerous you win a cookie. Just as Dawkins's amazing title created its own meme that was only partially related to his book your memes will take on a life of their own. 

Summary
BE CAREFUL with "Meme Marketing" and respect the power of the mob and you can WIN big as the author of this post shares. Memes are LIVE AMMUNITION so think about your end goals and test ways your memes will go sideways. If you can't live with a meme going sideways DON'T CREATE MEME MARKETING. 

David Meerman Scott writes how to ride fast breaking cultural ephemera and memes to your marketing advantage in The New Rules Of Marketing and PR and NewsJacking.  

5 Headline Creation Secrets

 General Rule - I try to live by the billboard 7-word rule. Sometimes I stretch headlines to 10 or 11 words and those titles rarely work as well as the short, sharp ones. 

Here are 5 Secrets To Create Great Headlines. 

Tip 1 Use Clichés
Clichés are sticky, that's why we remember them. When you turn a cliché upside down your readers will be hooked and want to untangle it. Using clichés is what the Heath brothers mean when they say sell the unknown from the known in their excellent book Made To Stick.  

Example Cliché Rework
Money Is Root Of Evil Except With Mobile Wallet
iPhone: Best Phone Since Sliced Bread

The second example shows another little trick. Sometimes I use a cliche in a way that doesn't make sense. Leave a little mystery in your headlines because the role of the headline is to convert browsers to readers. 


Tip 2 Shock A Little

Shock and surprise work great, but cross the line between shock for good and just making people mad and you can lose readers. I like to combine this tip with Tip 3 Use Humor. 

Example Shock
A Naked Woman, An iPhone, A Bar, What's Your Question?
Does Google Still Matter?

Shock can come from out of place contrasts (naked women in bars is not usual) or an early statement many may be thinking but no one has articulated in a succinct way yet. If your headline is better you might wind more social shares on content you curate from others. If your headlie creates a new readership be sure to credit your source. 

Tip 3 Steal From Great Authors and Popular Culture
I like to lift or rework pop culture or well-known literature. Shakespeare played an important role in our education, so I riff of William frequently.

Example Shakespeare
Out Damned Spot Twitter Says To Pinterest (Macbeth)
To Be Or Not To Be Is The Question For Facebook (Hamlet)

I flag beautiful phrases with an eye toward mashing the author's hard work into a headline when I read. 

Tip 4 Ask And Then Answer A Question
When you read a question your mind begins answering. I have two variations of the Q&A headline. One is ask and then answer the other is ask and leave open.

Example Q&A
Is Content Marketing The New SEO? A: YES
Is Content Marketing The New SEO?

I answer when I'm looking to reinforce authority. I leave open when mystery might prompt the click better pure judgment call. 

Tip 5 Create Alliteration Or Rhymes & Use Numbers
Words that have the same sound can create authority, cohesion and plant a good "should read this" hook. I mashed this tip up a bit to include several common headline elements. I do mash alliteration, rhymes and numbers sometimes. 

Example Alliteration
Clear Concise Content For Lent
6 Clear Concise Content Tips For Lent

*****
What about you? What are your favorite headline creation secrets. Share and I will curate into a blog post. Thanks, Marty 

After shooting a video with our resident photographer, Andrew Bartlett, I realized that SEO in a post Panda and Penguin world is easier than ever. Do the basics well, connect everything so Google knows YOU and be consistent and life is good. 

Here are the 5 SEO Tips this piece shares: 

* Keywords in URL.

* Keywords in image Alt text.
* Tell a story with Keywords.

* Content With Call To Action is King

* Be consistent With Other Marketing

Easy right? What are your 5 favorite EASY SEO Tips? 

Realized a couple of things today about social process, about how to start small and build. Not the way I would do it, I'm all in, but all in freaks people out.

Testing and pilot programs allow the perception of incremental acceptance. Which would you rather do? Jump into a cold lake or ease your way into it? I'm a jumper but respect people who must ease in too (don't understand, but have empathy for LOL).