Startup Revolution

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.  

Joi Ito's Ted Talk is a must view for web marketers. The shift from invading Russia in the winter to becoming a NOWIST is fundamental, sweeping and a tsunami of change in our thinking, actions and marketing. 

No surprise a post I wrote a year ago popped up out of Curagami's long tail today. Great TED Talk video embedded in the post.  

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.  

Please Note: Waitlist Thanks to our friends at FedEx Curagami’s agency business, our incubation lab where we invest in customers and they invest in us, is currently CLOSED. With 4 active clients we have no room at the Inn. This doesn’t mean we can’t help. We have friends in every aspect of online marketing. Friends …

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.

SEO For Web Designers
Web designers shouldn't be SEO experts since keeping up with DESIGN is a full-time job. But web designers are where SEO rubber meets the Google Road so understanding a handful of ideas is critical to the online success of any designers creations.

This Haiku Deck includes a list of our favorite FREE SEO tools and how to use them to create a content marketing map. Content marketing maps help move your site to the first page of listings for keywords that matter (to your business or nonprofit).

Many of the tips included in SEO for Web Designers are universal and so helpful to anyone creating online communication...and who ISN'T creating online communication these days?

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).

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:

* Hedge & Diversify.

* Know your Over / Under.

* Card Count & Double Down.

* Become A Nowist.
* 4 out of 5 = Hall of Internet Marketing Fame.

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
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.

SOne of the Lean Content best practices we’ve seen several speakers at our meetups recommend is to leverage existing audiences on top of your own to increase the reach and the impact of your content.

I became a testing junkie to defeat HIPPOs. We riff a Tommy Walker Shopify post sharing why SMBs & online merchants should be testing junkies too.

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

The Tao of Marty summarizes the OVER (gain) versus UNDER (loss) philosophy we used to make over $30M in online sales with hundreds of thousands of orders. Want your ecommerce site to make money online? Read and share the Tao of Marty. 

Brand Ideals
Learning your company's "brand ideals" may be the most important branding work few startups accomplish. SEO and content take a backseat to widget development for most startups. 

Yet isn't the most important question WHERE are the points of connection with potential customers and/or investors? The latter, investors, receive plenty of attention when they are easy. Investors want CONSUMERS and lots of 'em.

So the best way to connect with investors is to connect with consumers and the best way to connect with consumers is to know, articualte and share your "brand ideals":

 * Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility.
* Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways.
* Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences.
* Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality.
* Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, including by challenging the status quo and redefining categories.  

Those "brand ideals" come from Grow: How Ideals Power Profits At The World's Largest Companies by Jim Stengel and is a must read for any startup entrepreneur who wants investors....after they've won the hearts and minds of consumers. 

Content curation is key for Small To Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) online success & Scoop.it's new Content Director makes curation a marketing reality.

Moon-Audio.com is having a record year. This post is about how YOUR website can steal from 5 ideas fueling Moon's online success to set records of your own.

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

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.

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).