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.

Web Designer SEO
Our SEO Tips for Web Designers hit a nerve. It is heading to 13,000 views (probably today). We hit a nerve because web Designers are where SEO rubber meets the road. This Haiku Deck is full of SEO tips for web designer including:

* Know who has the banana and why.
* Know how much SEO you need to know.

* Learn what is MIST vs what is Gorilla.
* Listen Digitally.
* Understand how SEO & Content marketing work together.

* Design to Win Hearts, Minds and Loyalty. 

And More SEO tips designed for designers.  

Haiku Deck Zuru uses the power of artificial intelligence to transform your ideas into polished presentations. Become a charter member to get 6 months free.

Marty Note
Haiku Deck is one of my favorite visual marketing tools. Our 41 "decks" have generated more than 100,000 views. We got the idea about slides being a new marketing channel by working with this magic wand of a tool.

Now they've got something new up their sleeve and the entry fee is a whopping $30 bucks (lol). Let's see, 100K views for $30 bucks, we signed up today and suggest you do the same. Whenever their new tool comes out of beta we know it will be worth many multiples of $30 bucks :). M

Here A Wiki, There A Wiki, Everywhere A Wiki
What is a Wiki if not an invitation to create online community. The "open source" like collaboration Wiki's provide is a blueprint for creation of online community. After months working on http://www.Curagmai.com we've discovered how close Wikis are to...well everything.

Wiki Ideas To Steal Include:

* Open Source Like Content Collaboration.

* Use community to steer and de-spam ecosystem.
* Depend mostly on social reward.
* A healthy and competitive contest never hurts.

* Feature and thank contributors.
* Provide ways for contributors to know where they stand vis-à-vis other contributors.
* Create ways contributors can follow and communicate with each other.
* Include ways for contributors to create mini-tribes.

* Make sure "rules of the road" are understood and published.

* Communication with sponsoring agents must be easy too.
* Normalize greatness by sharing across ecosystem.
* Role of sponsors becomes more curators than creators.
* Ask for help.
* Provide social rewards (such as features) to contributors.
* Create ways to identify contributors in the world (t-shirts, stickers).
* Appreciate, be nice and thankful (always no matter what).

Following a few simple rules will dramatically increase the most important content you can't buy (User Generated Content or #UGC) and build sustainable online community. Sustainable online community means costs go DOWN even as other material rewards (UGC, followers, traffic, money) go UP.

This Haiku Deck is about why we are all in the Wiki business whether we realize it or not AND how to design for the Wiki-ization of marketing, brands and online community.

We asked several developers what their favorite sources are for web design and code inspiration, and they pointed to these 17 wide-ranging sites.

Marty Note
I like several of these designs including Web Design Ledger and The Source for their creative balance between images, copy and headlines. There are so many things dancing on the head of a pin on any homepage such as:

* Your desire to SHARE everything.

* Their (visitor's) desire to find what they want.

* Navigation.
* Images.
* Headlines & Copy.

Getting all of these dancers to tell a coherent story in 9 seconds is the challenge. Usually as content being shared increases understand decreases. Several of these designs manage to present a lot of options intelligently.

Which one is your fav?

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.

.
Web Designers Beware
If you can make Wordpress sing like a fine violin we applaud you. We're leaving Wordpress because it's promise of publishing well-designed content to the web feels false, spoiled and crushed. 

Crushed under the weight of battling plugins, poorly supported themes and the false belief that beautiful design beats SEO basics (like not putting a rat;s nest of code into your HEAD). Ugly and Google friendly gets more traffic than beautiful and Google nasty. 

We've proven the point. Our ugly Blogger site (Scenttrail Marketing started in 2008) had 100,000 visitors. Curagmai.com looks great, but Wordpress is crushing us for 5 reasons:

* Spam, Attacks and Potential for HARM

* Unrealized Promise
* Crap Overload

* BAD SEO and poor site performance (load times)
* No Easy Multi-Platform Content Curation

Let's Compare to @Scoop.it where we've spent LESS TIME to get more results including:

45,000+ followers
276,000 Views
204,000 visitors 
95,000 reactions 

WINNER = Scoop.it (as you can read on our Curagmai post). And the horse race isn't even CLOSE!!!

When we started using WP six years ago the platform was full of promise. But there is a problem. Ugly and Google friendly gets more traffic than beautiful and Google nasty. That sentence is worth repeating. If you are a designer who can make WP sing don't forget the ultimate goal - creation of RETURN for your customers. 

Beauty and great design is ONE ASPECT of creating online ROI. Make sure your WP designs overcome the 5 reasons we are leaving, out, history, see ya :). Marty 
 

Ugly and Google friendly gets more traffic than beautiful and Google nasty. 

Beating Content Shock
We don't disagree with author and web marketing guru Mark Schaefer. There is too much content chasing too little attention. Once you have attention you need to convert visitors to buyers.

Creating content "magazines" is a great way to beat Schaefer's content shock, create trust, win hearts and minds and engender loyalty. This LinkedIn Post shares a synopsis of tips shared on Curagmai including:

• Find 3 – 5 content groups that interest your visitors.
• Decide your schedule (we recommend monthly updates at first because that is a big commitment that must be kept to gain trust).
• Curate content from trusted sources such as brands, manufacturers and even competitors.
• Automate at least one of your content groups with feeds.
• Find and nurture free visual media sources such as Haiku Deck.

The Curagami post is here:
http://www.curagami.com/ecommerce/5-tips-magazine-content-marketing/?v=7516fd43adaa 

And The http://www.Moon-Audio.com example is here:
http://www.moon-audio.com/chord-hugo/magazine.html#

The LinkedIn Synopsis is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-magazine-your-content-marketing-martin-marty-smith 
 

What Is Your Favorite About Us Page?
Team +Curagami  is looking for great About Us pages. Our fav is http://www.rei.com/about-rei.html. +REI hits all the "great about page" pillars including:

* It SOUNDS like them.
* Includes A Creation Story.
* Guiding Values Statement.
* Save The World Cause.
* Movement Outline (so people want to JOIN).
* Some external confirmation (+Fortune Magazine for REI).

Share your favorite About Us pages and, if we use your examples, we will send a "Tech Cures Cancer" tee along with our thanks.

e: Martin(at)Curagami.com      #favaboutus

Thanks, Marty

Knowing your website's navigational taxonomy can mean the difference between millions in traffic and money. Here are 5 Simple Navigational Taxonomy Rules.

* It's About THEM not YOU.
* Create A Commons.
* It's FREE and EASY.

* Srart with Brands & Work OUT.

* Find Engagement & Work IN.

Easy to follow rules so your site's nav WINS traffic, hearts, minds, SEO and loyalty needed to be around for a bit.

Jenny Odell is a gifted artist, web designer, writer. The icon page in the Red Bulletin with a tiny name was intriguing enough to prompt a Google search. The Red Bull Bulletin is one of my favorite publications. 

The Bulletin is visually stunning but that's not all. The Odell page is a great example of the intelligent and very NOW sensibility Red Bull's Bulletin uses with such grace.

To intrigue, take advantage of how the world is not how it was and engage is so important in today's social / mobile / connected world. Red Bull's publication and core branding GETS IT.

The Jenny Odell page of tiny icons such as the Eiffel Tower, Spiral Jetty and squiggly lines requires WORK to see and decipher. Work to find out what the page is al about. Red Bull GETS that their customers are connected so they build in hooks to those capabilities.

Brilliant marketing I wrote about for Curatti in Red Bull's Branding Lessons: Why We Are All Media Companies Now:
http://curatti.com/red-bulls-branding-lesson-media-companies-now/ 

Jenny Odell's site
http://www.jennyodell.com/  

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