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Digital Music Gurus
Wow figuring out how to help our music sound great in all the new ways we listen to it makes our head hurt. Luckily we have an engineer friend who helps (surprising how often that happens). Drew Baird, Moon-Audio.com's founder, is a creative electrical engineering genius.
How do I know that? I'm listening to music powered by his Dragon Audiio Cables right now (and it sounds so sweet). Skeptical about the difference cables can make?
I was too until I listened to my Shure SE846 earphones for a year without Drew's cables. You would need to pry my Silver Dragons from my cold dead hand now (sound is that good).
In this post Drew shares how to move music from iTunes to a DAP. Itunes compression isn't the best so music detail can be lost. Crazy to have great equipment and poor recordings. Drew explains how your music can escape iTunes and sound great.
Steal These 5 Netflix Marketing Ideas
- Almost Freemium.
- Build Your Tribe as a Distributor.
- Migrate from Distribution to Production.
- Mine the long tail.
- Keep some proprietary something.
People Marketing shares hard won tips, ideas and stories about loving, curating, listening to your people to create winning online marketing.
We included this link in our Startups Revoluiton Scoop.it because startups are so WIDGET focused they forget PEOPLE provide the context and emotional connection needed to SELL. It is understandable that YOU love your widget, but your customers love THEMSELVES much more.
Creating "like me" moments mean your "product" becomes a movement your customers want to join. This journey from YOU and THEM (customers) to WE is the most important journey every website and all marketing is on whether the creators know it or not.
Netflix-ification
While we wont all become a digital media download artist we will all go through four stages of growth hacking:
* Disruptive Technology - used to consolidate a market (i.e. Blockbuster) and map a future.
* Online Community - learning to curate instead of create.
* Engine Phase - putting in less to get more out.
* Return as Creator - informed by Big Data and able to make "community based" bets.
Want to learn your future? Take a look at Netflix's immediate past.
Two of my 3 #mustfollow content curators will be familiar to many Scoopiteers:
@Guillaume Decugisand @Marc Rougierare visionary startup entrepreneurs and content curators. I'm learning how to use their latest tool - Content Director - tomorrow and can't wait. If you don't follow both Guillaume and Marc on multiple platforms you should.
Denis Labelle is a great G+ curator (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DenisLabelle/posts ) and a March #mustfollow too. Denis has a great eye, understands what is happening online and his growing G+ community is proof of his skills.
Interesting, funny & sad watching car dealers create web & social marketing. Getting better is easy, fun and CHEAP as Web Marketing For Car Dealers shares.
We think of car dealers as "startups" because they need to start over and pivot their THINKING. Many of the tips shared in this Curagami post (http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/web-marketing-101-for-car-dealers/ ) such as:
* People not THINGS Sell.
* Stories and People, People and Stories...matter. * Humanize your approach and thinking. * Let THEM (customers and brand advocates) HELP.
apply to stsrtups too so killing a pair of birds with a single blog post today. Picture is of me (left) and Travis Lunsford in front of a ROGUE (seemed appropriate lol).
We have put together a list of tools that can help you create amazing visual content like infographics, memes, gifs, etc. Must read for every online marketer.
Marty Note Great list mostly new to me. Missing one of my favorite visual marketing tools Haiku Deck: http://haikudeck.com/ . Haiku Deck is much more than a simple UI on the Creative Commons. If you are SMART you will use Haiku and some of these other #cooltools to create the kind of arresting visual marketing we all need and aspire to daily.
Warren Buffet's Haiku Deck Lesson
One of the hardest web marketing lessons my former Direct Marketing bosses taught was to think Darwinian thoughts. I wanted to improve laggards.
Don't waste your time, came the advice and important digital marketing lesson, double down on winners. This wise lesson was just taught again by Warren Buffett.
Warren's Tips For Startups Haiku Deck has been on top of the 36 decks I've created. I started watching views by deck several months ago and my DM bosses lesson holds true.
Warren Buffett's Startup Tips (http://shar.es/10AbWU )
Buffett Gains: 878
Total Views: 8,100
% Gain: 12%
Social Media: It's A Conversation Stupid (http://shar.es/10AHlZ )
Gains: 1,915
Total Views: 6,297
% Gain: 44%
Once again Buffett proves the rich get richer.
This truth doesn't mean Social Media: Its A Conversation is unimportant. Knowing what is trending is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for any web marketing team, but Buffett does prove Darwin was a web marketing pro long before there was a web. Double down on winners and leave laggards stands as one of the most important "laws" of our web marketing ecosystem :). M
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
15 Ways To FUNK UP Your Startup
15 Ways To Funk Up Your Startup
Watching Mr. Dynamite, HBO's great documentary about James Brown, got us thinking of ways to FUNK UP your startup including:
* Crowdfunding - James Brown knew how to ask for help.
* Content Marketing - Share your journey DAILY.
* 'Splainer Video - broll your elevator pitch & put on YouTube. * Daily Social Media Shares - Build Your Tribe NOW.
* Contest - When in doubt create a low cost high yield contest.
* Games - Make your startup a game with many winners.
* Arresting Visuals - STOP THEM NOW.
* Stories - Share yours and they share theirs.
* Awards - Find the under appreciated and give 'em an award.
* Daily Difference - do something (anything) different today. * Listen More, Talk Less.
* Curate - mashup this, that and the other thing. * Coach - say something nice about something YOU didn't do daily. * When THEY tell you there are RULES don't believe 'em. * Teach - Watch one, Do one and then TEACH ONE to really get the hang of marketing in a digital age.
BURN DOWN YOUR WEBSITE.
Beat the rush. Have courage, light a match, become a NOWIST :). M
Marty's Paper.li Story
About a week after starting as Atlantic BT's, largest web dev shop in Triangle area of NC, new Marketing Director my boss & founder / CEO Jon Jordan asked me, "What's this Paper.li" thing.
Jon's displeasure was obvious. I explained how Paper.li is a "get more, do less" content curation tool. Jon said, "It doesn't look like us," and I had to agree. My question back to Jon was, "Is 'looking like us' important," and you can guess his response.
To his credit, Jon asked me to do an analysis before shooting the limping horse. I also related our previous conversation about the "creation of a commons". On my second day as Marketing Director for ABT Jon and Mark Foulkrod, then COO, confessed a concern.
"We think you will steal from us," Mark said straight out (that is the way Mark is). The comment surprised me so I asked the right question. "Why are you worried and what do you think I will 'steal","I asked.
Jon shared the story of a previous employee who "blogged for himself on our dime". I never met the person, but I explained ABT had little or nothing I could "steal".
It was my turn to shock them. I shared how, at that time, ABT's Klout score was 19 while mine was 45. Together, I went on to explain, we were stronger than either apart. We would create a commons mingling my content, ABT's and curating in other content from gurus, thought leaders and ABT customers to create a "rising tide" sure to lift their online reputation boat and mine.
"You will gain more if only due to our starting points," I shared. At the end of my tenure (December 2013) ABT's Klout score was 50, a 233% increase. Mine was 65, a 44% bump.
Paper.li and Scoop.it were MAJOR contributors to the rising tide of ABT's commons. Scoop.it helped test content marketing ideas and Paper.li creates more community faster for LESS work than any tool I know or use (and I use a passel of 'em).
The brilliance behind Paper.li, that they present an algorithm filter of content you've already shared and or mashedup, makes it the GREATEST and most under utilized (and just about the cheapest) content curation tool.
Startups are so WIDGET FOCUSED they don't think about the day they want to share their widget with the world. Paper.li is guaranteed to make "sharing day" easier and for the cost of...well just about NOTHING a startup receives a powerful ally. If you are a starutp or Internet marketer and DON'T use my friends in Switzerland's coolest tool since sliced bread you are nuts.
Oh, btw, when I shared data showing Paper.li was the most powerful community creation tool we had Jon and Mark didn't care if it "looked like us" or not (lol).
** PS. Paper.lis great community manager @Kelly Hungerford just pointed out that if Paper.li had CSS and templating options then ABT's Paper.li would have looked like them. M
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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: http://www.curagami.com/new-ecommerce-5-crucial-trends/?v=7516fd43adaa
How Crowdfunding Can Work
Great Josef Holm post on Krowdster about why crowdfunding campaigns fail also shows why and how they can work. Easy? Not even a little bit, but crowdfunding is an important new marketing channel.
Web Marketing Secrets
Want to know how we made over $30M online? Read our BOOKS and contribute your favorite Internet marketing reads in our new Curagami Book Store:
http://www.curagami.com/books.html
Send your favorite reads to martin(at)Curagami.com
Our SEO for Web Designers has surpassed Warren Buffett's Startups Tips to become our #1 Haiku Deck:
SEO for Web Designers (9,972 Views)
http://shar.es/1gyTSf
Warren Buffett's Startups Tips (9,050 Views)
http://shar.es/1gyTIK
Makes SEO for Web Designers our fastest and steepest trending Haiku Deck. Our 42 Decks have generated over 100,000 views proving visual marketing is here and slides are a new online marketing channel.
Amazon is a monster, but SMBs & smaller merchants can compete playing David to Amazon's Goliath. We discuss online marketing tactics to compete with Amazon.
3 More Reasons Marketers Fail At Social Media
3 More Reasons
Noticing that the @TedRubin post 3 Reasons Marketers Fail At Social Media (http://sco.lt/7SYjYH ) wanted to weigh in with 3 MORE Reasons We Marketers Fail at Social Media Marketing:
* Not Thinking Mobile First
Breaking old habits is new especially when they only formed YESTERDAY. We started creating websites in 1999. 15 Years is not "yesterday" exactly but it's close in "learning" time. The world is moving faster than our marketing brains can keep up. One clear example of that is how we cling to the boxes, borders and design of websites. Websites are so OVER. Websites are now ways to test what you should put into your mobile marketing - a message we marketers have not received or understood fully yet.
* Talking Not Listening
Listening online is different. Listening on the web means following back, curating THEIR (customers and advocate) content and being open to sharing things that used to be uniquely OURS. Marketers are Type A hard chargers as a group and breaking them of thinking we make our livings communicating not curating is proving TOUGH.
* The Network Is the Computer
Scott McNealy's famous line about NETWORKS being where the action is has never been more true. We marketers like to push balls up hills like Sisyphus. Learning to build community, one of the hardest things I've ever done and I have cancer, is proving a tough transition.
Changing so much so fast is enough to make anyone seasick. You would think since we marketers are in the change business we would be ready, accepting and welcoming (of change). You would be wrong as these 3 More Reasons Marketers Fail At Social Media illustrate.
Good news is we don't give up either :). M
Followed this Scoopit with a post on Marketing's Timeline
Free Genius Lunches in Columbus Ohio
I'm living in Columbus, Ohio at the Blackwell Inn on the Ohio State University's campus from now until December 3rd (being treated by Dr. Byrd at the James Cancer Center). I love meeting, discussing and learning from fellow startups, entrepreneurs, artists and cool smart people.
I'm stealing @Phil Buckley Genius Lunch idea to see what is happening in Columbus. Team Curagami stands ready to answer Internet marketing questions and learn new tips, tricks and ideas. If you would like to have a Genius Lunch in Columbus check the calendar and email when you would like to meet.
Lear More Here
http://bit.ly/Free-Genius-Lunch-Columbus
Bitcoin, Ecommerce, Money & Value Systems
In three posts I've tried to understand how Bitcoin changes ecommerce:
Bitcoin, Money & Value Systems (on G+)
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/YLFe4ow4rok
Bitcoin Manifesto (on @Scoop.it)
http://sco.lt/8SkV4D
And this post about Bitcoin and #startups. Bitcoin as infrastructure could change everything from online ecommerce to how we pay for groceries and a coke from a vending machine.
Sure the infrastructure to achieve such a vision is largely lacking presently, but it wasn't that long ago we didn't have an Internet either. Here is how I'm going to tune my Bitcoin radar:
* Learn how to install Bitcoin commerce (nothing is easy now, but first movers will get huge benefits).
* Understand how and where Bitcoin could create the greatest impact such as http://www.curagami.com client http://www.moon-audio.com.
* Understand how Bitcoin's platform could connect to other major trends such as social, mobile and connection.
The reason I want to understand how to install Bitcoin commerce is 1. It Ain't Easy Now and 2. Customers with large international buying groups could benefit the most and the fastest. Moon-Audio sells their magical audio cables all over the world. What they've been lacking is an easy way to safely sell around the world.
if there is even a tiny chance Bitcoin can fill those shoes I'm interested and a student. If anyone reading this has resources about how to install Bitcoin commerce please share.
DIY Customers Are Important
Do-It_Yourself customers may be the most important customers on earth. Here are a few ways DIY customers create benefits for digitial marketers and websites:
* Social Shares on Facebook, Twitter and +Google+.
* Creates #ugc (User Generated Content) or the best content you can't buy.
* Drive links into their content on your site.
We are working on a series of http://www.Curagami.com posts on how to engage and benefit from DIY Customer Marketing. If you have tips, ideas or experiences you think would help please share (martin(at)Curagami.com).
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
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.
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.
Via Jeff Domansky
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