Must Design

Content Marketing Is Key
Important post from Scoop.it CEO @Guillaume Decugis because the 12 step program he outlines clearly cleaves content marketing pros from everyone else. We share this post in our Design Revolution Scoop.it feed because we would add 2 more items to a solid list:

13. You aren't designing for content curation and content marketing. 14. You are building community in

Designing for content curation means incorporating the automated feeds Guilluame discusses and leaving room for community and collaboration.  

Community's pillars such as user profiles, timeliens, following, comments, wikis and blogging have to be fuilt into a design or you are talking to yourself about yourself even if you follow many of Guillaume edicts. Guillaume's 12 Step Progam: 

1. You’re not tracking your results.

2. You’re not repurposing your content.

3. You aren’t automating at least part of your social media activity.

4. You aren’t automating some of your email marketing.

5. You’re only sharing your own content – you’re not adding any content curation to the mix.

6. You aren’t testing.

7. You don’t have a content strategy that’s tied to business goals and your buyers’ journey.

8. You haven’t defined your buyers’ personas or their typical journey.

9. You aren’t creating content strategically.

10. You don’t have a centralized “vault” of all your company’s content assets.

11. You aren’t promoting your content, either via social sharing or by making it visible to the search engines.

12. You have nothing to show for your work.

We've had a HUGE Day over on GPlus today. I wrote a post about why G+ is magical thinking (https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/F5fXyrkTPCr ) and my post got picked up by my friend Mark Traphagen (@MarkTraphagen) and it BLEW up into an amazing conversation.

Given the MONSTER day we've had I thought it would be a great idea to share some of the most successful G+ Brand pages. GPlus is a massive Blue Ocean for most.  Blue Oceans are where your content gets MORE traction with less work. Red Oceans are where your content requires more investment to generate LESS return.

GPlus is really a set of TOOLS. Incorporating Hangouts, maps, communities and other widget-like tools. The first website or agency to figure out how to combine those powerful tools in unique combinations is going to WIN big. Some of these examples approach the top of the mountain, but G+ has more power than even anyone here captures.

If you know how to curate information we need to talk. Many content curators work for little recognition and no money. CrowdFunde, a Durham, NC based startup, wants to find the 10 best curators in the world.

If you are amazing with G+, Pinterest or Scoop.it we need to talk. We need help creating a revolution. CrowdFunde helps websites, brands and businesses tap wisdom of crowds.

Great curators are a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for our business model. So if you love thinking about information architecture, curating content and using cool tools you need to apply to work with CrowdFunde.

http://www.crowdfunde.com/top-curator-contest-crowdfunde-hiring/

Here’s a fun fact: Over the last 10 years, our attention spans have decreased from 12 minutes to 5 minutes. Our ability (and our desire) to read lots of c