BI Revolution

5 Ways To Avoid The Online Competition Trap
Never ceases to amaze me. Team +Curagami sees the Hatfields and McCoys squared off and fighting tooth and nail over nothing all the time. Here are 5 ways to avoid the Online Competition Trap (be sure to Read Mark Traphagen's excellent note in comments on the attached too):

* Use Google Adwords to discover REAL DEMAND for keywords (use exact an broad match too and if you really want to get depressed use "exact match" to see how few people are actually searching for that new widget you just created).
* Create something like our Curagami Keyword Efficiency Index (cKEI) to calculate where #blueoceans live (keywords or phrases with less competition but healthy search volume and YES these are getting harder and harder to find). Use "long tail" analysis to find these.
* Understand your "poker table stakes" keywords - words you have to have content for but won't win in this lifetime.
* Know what they are spending (use +SpyFu) and then SPEND DRAMATICALLY LESS because you've out thought them. One way to do that is look for a #contentmarketing "fighter pilot" in your space and toss them into your ecosystem (I did this with +Red Bull during my keynote to a group of #smbs at +FedEx conference and they found it eye opening to say the least). 
* Think about using new tools such as Curagami, tools that help create #community so you do LESS but win MORE hearts and minds. Would classify +Paper.li +Scoop.it and +Optimizely in this category of get more spend or do less tools.

There is only one way to break out of the rat race and eliminate all competing rats - create EPIC Personal Branding. Here's how. Added a Epic / Not Epic table.

What about you? What things do you know of that USED to be Epic and now not so much? What things are NEW and Epic? .

David Edelman for McKinsey

David's (@davidedelman) post on HBR is still my favorite discussion of the new conversion funnel. Turns out the new "funnel" is more filter than funnel. Edelman explains how buyers move through cycles.

Each cycle tightens (or loosens) loyalty and buying intention. The other thing Edleman's article got SO RIGHT is how the "funnel" doesn't end with a purchase. I love how David explains how purchases begin a new and almost more important buying phase - advocacy.

Most marketers build campaigns to achieve the sale. David points out that kind of thinking is old school and dangerous. In a connected and social time a sale should be the beginning of a much deeper and more rewarding relationship (for both parties). Think of conversion as a series of loops that don't END as much as intensify.

Also read David's Aligning With The Consumer Decision Journey (CDJ) to get the full force of these important ideas:
http://hbr.org/web/ideas-in-practice/aligning-with-the-consumer-decision-journey

Regular readers of my content will recognize another proof in David's work. Faith Popcorn's, "People don't BUY brands they JOIN them," has never felt more true. David's CDJ illustration (above) shows purchase = advocacy.

As Internet marketers we need help. No one climbs our new marketing Everest alone. We need the advocacy of others in the form of links, likes and shares. Even if you HAD enough money to force your products and ideas on others, and no one does anymore, spending that kind of money would NEVER be called for or pay for itself.

Advoacy comes when your customers "join" your brand and continue Edelman's loop. String enough of those "magic loops" together and you win :).

We shocked a SEO Meetup suggesting 90% curation to 10% content creation. This deck explains why you MUST curate content. Content curation is a CSF (Crtical Success Factor) for online marketing.

7 Reasons You Must Curate Content
* Can't Create Sustainable Online Community Without Curating.
* Reach.
* Costs.
* Digitally Listening (is different).
* Authority.
* Tribes.
* Sustainable Online Community (so important its worth two listings).

Content curation is how you TEST and so protect your site's content creation. Content curation lowers your content creation costs and insures your current SEO ranks. Bet you agree, after flipping through this Hailku Deck (slides) content curation is a CSF (Critical Success Factor) for digital marketing.

Promise to follow with a deck on our favorite tools for content curation with @Scoop.itat the top of the list.

WOW, over 500 views in six hours thanks to Haiku Deck making Content Curation: 7 Reasons You Must a Featured Deck:
https://www.haikudeck.com/gallery/featured

Go directly to the deck
http://shar.es/1X0Rrc

#2 Red Bull Branding
This post is about branding's journey from Tide in 1958 to Red Bull now with one inescapable conclusion - We Are All Media Companies Now.

This post about how Red Bull FOLLOWS and BRANDS their customers in juxtaposition to P&G in the old days when their brands were presumptive. P&G's marketing presumption? We will tell you how to be "good mothers".

The "Red Bull" generation, also called Millennials loves to do extreme things (extreme User Generated Content or eUGC) and have Red Bull notice, share and amplify.

This post is now in the #2 spot for the 2M documents returned on "Red Bull Branding".