Curation Revolution

[Content Marketing, Must Read] Great slides by Rand Fishkin on what makes an effective content marketing strategy. He outlines 5 reasons why your strategy might fail: You believed the biggest myth content marketing ever told the world You made content without a community You invested in content creation, but not in it's amplification You ignored content's most powerful channel: SEO You gave up too fast

Making Warby Parker's Annual Report VISUAL
As Beyonce proved when she rethought her last album to be more visual the visual marketing revolution is here (Beyonce covered here http://sco.lt/7Pci1p). Here are 12 GREAT Visual Marketing Tips from Column 5 the Infographics experts:

1. Be Visual. 
2. Show YOUR Personality.

3. Only share NEWSWORTHY news.

4. Let People See Your Engine (able to look behind the curtain).

5. Focus on and Feature Your POEPLE.

6. Make IT Easy To Share (and IT is everything).

7. Present DATA in context.

8. Don't forget the TANGENTIAL. 
9. Share the LOVE. 
10. Product Tie-Ins should happen NATURALLY and ORGANICALLY.

11. Share VALUES.

12. Pat yourself on the BACK every now and again. 

My favorite is FEATURE YOUR PEOPLE. Clients ask me and/or complain they have no good content. Nonsense you have amazing content sitting at desks or on the shop floor.

Telling your product's story by proxy, by telling the stories of the people that work on it, is a brilliant way to create STICKY content that isn't self-serving and feels more TRUE.  

Haiku Deck Rocks Visual Marketing
If you haven't used http://www.haikudeck.com yet you should. Mark Traphagen turned me on to it and it is the best visual marketing tool out there. Here are 5 reasons we love Haiku Deck:

* SO EASY - the creators of Haiku Deck may have made the easiest to use tool on the plant.
* Free - Amazingly the tool is FREE (at the moment).
* Visual Marketing - we use the tool to find images from the Creative Commons. Content marketing is hampered without great images & Haiku Deck helps you find 'em.
* Their Community - great marketers creating awesome decks makes the Haiku Deck community one of our favorites (right up there with Scoop.it).
* Their team - the Haiku Deck team is responsive, social and they want to help.

If you aren't using this awesome content marketing tool yet, you should be.

You may catch Marty combing through Vogue, Elle and Vanity Fair at B&N. Why? Fashion mags are great visual marketers - 8 Visual Marketing Tips From Vogue. Here are 8 Visual Marketing Lessons from Vogue:

* Be specific & BIG NUMBERS are great ways to be specific.

* Be branded – take advantage of existing brands such as Shades of Grey.

* Be topical – March is “fashion week” in NYC and both magazines have extensive features.

* Be welcoming – note how both models look directly out at the viewers (my favorite online engagement pose).

* Use SOUND – “Sexy, Shiny, Bouncy Hair sounds fun. “Full on Fashion Force” sounds forceful. Words create rhythm and sounds that adds to or detracts from compelling images.

* Juxtapose – “street chic” and “fashion force” are examples of creative juxtapositions.

* Use Action Verbs – which of these action verbs AREN’T on either cover? grab, be bold, upgrade, must have, takes on, and rock? Yep, all of those “action verbs” are in sub-headlines.

* Simple Colors – ONLY colors used for headlines and sub-heads are black, white and red.