Curation Revolution

Brilliant Twitter Lists Idea
I'm blessed with brilliant friends. Earlier I shared my friend and Startup Factory founder Chris Heivly's new book. Build the Fort is a startups must read.

A few days ago another friend, @Kelly Hungerford, including my @Scenttrail twitter handle in a list. Twitter lists may be the coolest tool no on uses I know, but Kelly's use of the list to include me in something NEW was beyond brilliant. 

Granted Kelly is a "trusted source" for me. Whatever she says I should look at, review, write about and share there is a close to 100% chance I will. Kelly's use of an ignored tool should work "cold" too. By placing someone on a list you tweak their curiosity in a way almost guaranteed to get a click and a review. 

Compare the subtle grace of including people you want on your "beta" list to spamming emails sure to be ignored. Kelly's approach is graceful and such a tease I bet the approach generates a higher level of conversion and advocacy than spammy pitches. 

When you add someone's Twitter to a list they receive a notification with a link to your list. Here is a list I just created following Kelly's lead: https://twitter.com/ScentTrail/lists/curagami-beta-partners 

When people subscribe to the list in response to your added them following up with an email or call doesn't feel spammy. The person is part of your tribe. Even better is PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW but who may like to be part of your beta (or whatever) will signal their desire to join by subscribing to the list. 

WOW, now you get to have a WARM call or email conversation with someone who may invest, contribute content or become an advocate for your idea, startup or campaign. TOO GOOD. 

The future of social media is about just such brilliant applications. Many don't have lists. I've always been a big believer in lists, but seeing how brilliantly Kelly used Twitter Lists create a new dimension of awe and respect (for lists and Kelly :). Marty 

 

Print The Legend
Even if only HALF the potential of 3D printing is realized it will still be substantial. Print The Legend is a great documentary film about what may be the end of the beginning of 3D printing. The film is certainly one of the best and most accurate films about startups we've ever seen, a #mustwatch for entrepreneurs.

Amazing Content Marketing Tool
If you don't use Haiku Deck to help create visual marketing you are missing a powerful tool. We've created 36 Haiku Decks. Over the last 22 days those decks added 8,322 views or 378 new views each day.There is NOTHING we are doing with that kind of reach...NOTHING!

We are beginning to believe Slide Decks may be an exciting new marketing channel. Amazingly NONE of our 36 decks reported zero views over the last 22 days. Even OLD decks continue to be viewed making slides and slide decks VALUABLE content indeed. 

Not a complete surprise since Slideshare has been creating SEO magic for years, but Haiku Deck may have just legitimized slides as a marketing channel. You don't need an excuse to create Haiku Decks. No conference talks needed to win with these new visual marketing tools. SLIDES and Haiku Deck's CMS that sits on top of the Creative Commons are becoming a powerful content marketing tool and a widgetized marketing channel in their own right. 

Trending Haiku Decks Include

Crowdfunding Tips From The Clash +46% Views
http://shar.es/1ao3gt 

Gamify Content Marketing +36% Views 
http://shar.es/1ao3GS 

Invisible Giant: Why New SEO So Hard To See +8% Views
http://shar.es/1ao3ZG 

Warren Buffett's Tips for Startups remains Top Dog w/  7,700 Views
http://shar.es/1ao3Bj  

See performance for all 36 Haiku Decks we've created on Google Doc here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ozsk4hHtT6Xm77SxQbP7EFw259oQMVC_5DY1bOU9dAk/edit?usp=sharing  

Help us change our name. Only takes seconds to VOTE in our new name poll. There is clear leader, but you have to VOTE to find out.

http://www.crowdfunde.com/marketing/crowdfunde-name-change-poll/

THANKS, Marty, Phil and CrowdFunde team

After Google's algorithm changes content is KING, context QUEEN. Online merchants who "match the hatch" of content to customers create advantage. Winning this advantage takes courage.

Courage because when one revolution happens things get crazy. When three revolutions are happening simultaneously its time to get in the basement with water and a year's supply of canned goods.

Instead of doing that we suggest reading about how content, commerce and social media can contribute to one another on CrowdFunde our startup dedicated to helping websites, brands and companies tap wisdom of crowds.

Startups are fun, creative & may be our best hope. This second of a two part Curatti series covers startup trends from digital homes to wearable tech.

As I was putting the finishing touches on this second post in a 2 part Startup Trends 2014 for Curatti.com one of our featured Smart Home Startups @Nest sold to Google for $3.2B. Amazing.

More than 25 other cool startups covered some of them will be worth billions too :). M

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 

Tapestry, the latest contender in the fashion-tech startup space, wants to connect a shopper's digital identity with the physical products in the store they're in by using barcode/NFC-scanning smartphone apps which shoppers use to build up a...

Marty Note
Read about Tapestry before. Cooler now.I learned how valuable wish lists could be from my friend and great Internet Marketer Jennifer DiMotta. Tapestry is taking the hidden power to new levels.

Jennifer taught me about the aspirational nature of a wish list. We wish list the better US we see in our minds. Own those kinds of aspirations and you can rule the world or the closet :). M

Marty Note on Twitter Marketing Lessons

There was an employee a secret cop at Twitter I had to call. My feed was on the wrong side of some unwritten law and it was in "Twitter Jail". Finally, I got an email through to the secret cop and she told me in an overly hurried voice (amazing how you can get so much information between the lines in an email) that I was no longer n Twitter Jail. 

San Francisco Rocky Horror Warp
Read the post and try not to do everything Read Write outlines, but we have another take - don't put your company in San Francisco or don't leave it there. San Francisco is an AMAZING place. 

If I could afford to live there I would be in San Francisco. When I sold sweetener for NutraSweet to Dryers in Berkley I loved staying at the Claremont. But there is something warping about the bay area. The arrogance, tunnel vision and pit bull meanness are hard to overstate. 

I've had versions of the secret cop story over and over. One of the owners of Bunchball, a gamification engine, tore me up one side and down the other for the sin of wanting to purchase and use his software to help cure cancer. 

For all the MAGIC in the air help, the bay area and success can be deadly combinations. Twitter was so LARGE and IN CHARGE, I had to beg a secret cop to release me from jail despite never understanding what I did to end up there in the first place. If you believe in business karma then every customer slap eventually comes back. 

Nietzsche's Superman
Nietzsche believed adversity created life. No adversity, no challenge, no life. Twitter's adversity can teach valuable lessons in life's inevitable humility, the curse of being the smartest guys in the room and time's constant arrow toward entropy. 

Entropy is a truth we all know - everything organized becomes less so, everything valued now becomes less so, everything known becomes boring, and every lesson hangs around until learned. 

Twitter is great and can become greater still, but not without soul searching adversity and connection with customers. Yep, no more secret cops. Listening more and abusing less would be good. 

Twitter is sitting on a mountain of fascinating information. SHARE IT. What about asking for help, innovation, and ideas from customers? What about asking for help? 

Entropy happens, we all die, but we and Twitter don't have to die TODAY. If Twitter keeps doing what they've been doing they are done. If Twitter listens, opens up and looks for help they win big. Just because you are young, rich and smart doesn't mean HELP isn't valuable or the oxygen needed now. 

When in doubt be nice. Be nice today because tomorrow someone can treat you like you treated them when you were sure the world revolves aorund you, your company and its brilliance. The world runs on pain, joy and beauty. If your company can relieve one (pain) and promote others (joy and beauty) life is good. Success is rarely about YOU and always about THEM & US :). Marty 

Content marketers tend to attack the work like kids at a sundae bar – scooping up as many toppings as they can to have the most or best creation. Avoid the ice cream sundae syndrome with these steps inspired by Twitter’s founder.

Marty Note
Thanks to my friend and uber-curator Cendrine Marrouat I found this excellent Content Marketing Institute post about the nature of content marketing revealed by startup master Ev Williams.

I agree the Ev Williams quote is an important piece of startup Zen, but find the post's laboring application to content marketing strained. I do agree we content / Internet markets have the shinny lure syndrome.

We (marketers) are like hungry trout clustered together in a fast moving stream darting out for the next new bait an action made all the more frenzied by its proximity to the judging chorus of other trout. Truth is rarely so shinny, easy to digest and so hard to throw off.

Truth is listening + learning + bold risk taking = success. Listening to customers has never been easier or done do badly. Listening thanks to our mobile / social / connected world is EASY to do and remains hard to BELIEVE.

Listening must be matched with learning. Learning too has never been easier or harder to believe. We SEE the patterns, hear the customer and yet we do not SEE or understand. As good as the post is it also provides an example into our greatest problem.

Content marketing is flawed. Content marketing speaks too much ans listens too little. Content Marketing hasn't received Mark Schaefer's Content Shock memo (http://www.businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/ ).

We marketers can't get there (sustainable online community) from here (content marketing). The challenge in creating an "institute" is the isolation and over emphasis such emphasis creates.

Agree Easier Than We Think
The beautiful thread the CMI post picks up from Ev Williams quote is business and life isn't as HARD as we imagine or think. Find a human desire, preferably one that has been around a long time, and use modern technology to make it easy and cool such as:

Need A Ride - Uber
Want to buy online instead of going to the mall - Amazon

Don't want to wait for your car in the cold - FlashValet
Social connection without computers - Android & iPhone
Social Connection - Facebook, Twitter GPlus

I would modify Ev's statement a tad:

Find a human desire and use modern MOBILE technology to make it easy and cool.

Williams "technology" was heavily weighted toward mobile, but at Curagami we see an increasing trend - cool isn't cool without some mobile aspect. Mobile First is becoming a more important statement than it original UI intent. If you are creating ANYTHING new it better play amazing on a smartphone or life will be harder.

Recently I purchased a wireless speaker from Amazon. The speaker is cool and I like having good sound when I travel. The speaker is controlled by an app on my phone.

Here's the killer thing to understand - the app DOESN'T DO ANYTHING that buttons on the speaker don't do better, but the app does NOTHING in a very cool way AND the app ties the speaker to my phone.

That tie means the speaker doubled its cool enough so that I'm mentioning it here. WITHOUT the app no way I mention it. With the app, the app that adds NOTHING, the package is cool enough to mention.

SO, lesson is find a DESIRE (by listening to customers), wipe some cool tech on it, listen to customers some more and don't forget if whatever you are making or marketing doesn't play on a smartphone then it won't exist (soon).

Thanks to @Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com for curating a great post my way :). Marty

Crowdfunding is a new powerful marketing channel similar to what email marketing used to be - high profit, low cost with big social and UGC benefits.

CrowdFunde may be NEXT generation of content marketing. Not if we don't create some BELIEF. Big test Monday 2.10.14 as we pitch Triangle Startup Factory.
 

Thanks to friends who wrote notes to Chris, Dave and Triangle Starup Factory after I TOASTED last week's phone interview. Wouldn't be pitching CrowdFunde next week without FOMs (Friends of Martin's). You Guys ROCK!

Wish us LUCK.  

Social Media Marketing (SM) should be any startups BFF. Here are 5 Social Media Marketing so startups can use social media marketing to win online.

Marty Note
Wrote this piece for Startup Revolution on Scoop.it and then decided to incorporate feedbackand move to Atlantic BT's blog. No bait and switch, but I try things in Scoop.it and this content interested enough of my power curator friends it was worth moving over.

Thanks to everyone who has already shared Five Social Marketing Tips for Startups. Great feedback helped me make the piece better.