According to Crowdtap, partnered with Ipsos Media surveying 839 millennial men and women online, millennials reported spending roughly 18 hours of their day engaged with media, often viewing multiple devices simultaneously. Whether it’s called peer-created content, consumer content or user generated content (UGC), the research found that millennials spend 30% of their media consumption time with content that is created by their peers.

This exceeds television consumption and is rivaled only by the time spent with all traditional media types (TV, print, radio), a combined 33%. Millennials are also committed to engaging with social media on a daily basis above all other media types.

Millennials spend more time with User Generated Content than with TV

Millennials prioritize social networking above other media:

Given millennials’ advertising savvy and skepticism around media, it is important to deliver a message through trusted sources, says the report. Millennials report that information they receive through UGC is highly trustworthy and trusted 40% more than information they get from traditional media sources (TV, print & radio), including newspapers and magazines.

Specifically, conversations with friends and family are the most trusted UGC format, followed by peer reviews. Conversations with friends and family are trusted 2:1 over TV and radio and almost 4:1 over banner ads. Brands looking for consumers to trust their marketing can no longer rely on tradi­tional media to communicate their messages to consumers. In today’s landscape, it’s peer-created content, or “consumer to consumer marketing,” that drives trust.

The correlation between trust and influence is revealed in the 2013 Annual Edelman Trust Barometer Study, says the report, which finds that trust leads to influence. The more trusted the source of a message, the more likely it will have a positive impact.

With 18 hours of media consumption a day, across multiple screens, with channel flipping, tabbing and page turning, it’s a wonder anything stands out and makes a lasting impression, notes the report. Marketers rely on creative to break through the clutter, but often it’s a combination of creative and the right delivery channel. For millennials, user generated content is more memorable than non-user gener­ated content, with peer-created content, including conversations with friends/family and peer reviews standing out the most.

UGC uniquely provides marketers greater access to millennials’ time, a trusted channel to deliver brand messages and a memorable experience. The combination to deliver all three makes UGC more influential on millennials’ product choices and purchase decisions than traditional media.

Percent of millennials who say media type has influence on purchase decision:

• User Generated Content   53%
• Traditional Media   44%
• Banner Ads   23%

Concluding, the report says that professional influencers have the reach and resources to create and share quality content. Consumer influencers have personal relationships that enable their recommendations to carry weight. Together, this combination can drive both reach and powerful influence. As brands continue to aggregate types of influencers and refine their strengths, these programs will likely become a fundamental component of most marketing strategies.

By Jack Loechner,
Center for media Research

According to a 2012 study by AOL and Nielsen, 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared every day. By now, the mantra of “content is king” has been relentlessly drilled into our collective heads – but more isn’t always necessarily better.

Quality is important – but how do you know if you’re really producing content that’s engaging your audience? Perhaps even more importantly, how are you measuring the results?

If you write and share it – will they come?

Let’s take a look at several new findings made as a result of a joint study between the Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs and Brightcove and what they could mean for next year’s content marketing trends.

Current Trend: Social Media, Newsletters and Blogs Head the Content Marketing Pack

Social media leads the way with 87% of B2B content marketers leveraging one or more platforms.

Not surprisingly, most marketers are promoting their content via social networks. Considering that clicks from shared sites are as much as five times more likely to be shared – it’s easy to see why. But at the same time, social media can seem like you’re marketing in an echo chamber. According to a MarketingLand survey, only 25% of marketers measure the ROI of their efforts down to the actual piece of content.

Most just seem to measure activity (likes/comments) if they measure anything at all – and that’s not giving them the raw data they need to know what’s real discussion, and what’s just background noise.

While nearly 50% of marketers surveyed had a content marketing plan – only 25% could accurately measure results down to the individual pieces of content.

What’s more, are people truly getting anything of value from the share itself (other than recognition from their friends/colleagues), or do they simply click and forget?

The Prediction:

I believe that in 2014, other content marketing avenues will overtake social media – including live events, case studies and (if companies can afford it), branded content tools. These things deliver much more value, brand awareness, backlinks and discussion than a simple social share – and in a marketing channel that’s already overcrowded, these tools present a chance for opportunistic businesses to approach customers from a newer, more helpful angle.

In addition, I predict that 2014 will see the rise of better measurement tools that don’t just track clicks and likes, but actual engagement in the form of discussion, shares across multiple platforms/channels, and actions as a result of those shares. Currently, it’s too cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming for a marketing team to micromanage the analytics for every single piece of content to see how it performed – so companies simply don’t invest in it.

Current Trend: How Brands Measure Success

According to the Content Marketing Institute study, most B2B companies measure success by the oldest internet metric in existence – traffic. But sheer numbers alone will only provide you with so much. Fortunately, sales lead quality ranks behind second, although it lags by almost 10%.

It’s difficult to measure intangible things like quality, but taking steps toward that goal, like creating personas for your target audience members, and matching those up with proper list segmentation can go a long way to putting a “face” with an interaction.

The Prediction:

This coming year, there will still be an emphasis on getting traffic, but many floundering websites are finally starting to wake up and smell the conversion coffee. Success will be measured according to the metrics that matter for that particular industry – whether it’s number of downloads, order volume, quality leads or a combination of those criteria.

Current Trend: What Type of Content is Created Most?

Industry Trends lead the way, with leadership profiles not far behind.

According to the chart above, content marketing focusing on industry trends are leading the way, with lesser degrees focusing on leadership profiles, company details, or even going so far as to try and play catch-up with competitors’ content. Industry trends could include breaking news, just-released software reviews, better practices or upcoming changes in the law or other facets of the business. Decision maker profiles could give readers a glimpse behind the scenes of the people who are leading the way in the aforementioned industry trends.

But if you look carefully at this chart – you’ll see that a lot of emphasis is placed on the company itself, industry methods, and people within the company.

STOP IT.

This is why most content marketing efforts are essentially spinning their wheels in the mud. Not a single one of these has anything to do with the real reason why people and businesses are consuming content:

Relevancy.

Keeping a finger on the pulse of news, learning about industry leaders and the companies they lead are all well and good – but none of these things get to the heard of what’s on every company and customer’s mind – What can this do for me?

The Prediction

In 2014, I’d expect to see this graph radically changed. Content needs to be tailored to fit the needs and unanswered questions of the target audience. Specifically:

• Shift from industry news and trends to “Here’s how you can use these trends to grow your own business – and how our company can help.”
• Exchange profiles of decision makers to focus on customer/company success stories – detailed case studies that show a marked, measurable result.
• In place of company characteristics, ask “Why should I trust you? What can you offer me that no one else can?”

Tailoring content to where customers are in the buying cycle is a tried-and-true sales method, and I believe more and more marketing teams will take the time to properly engage their customers based on not only their place in the sales funnel, but their individual needs and expectations.

Again, we’re measuring many intangible, potentially unquantifiable things here – and it’s hard to pin down personalization and results into something as concrete as an analytical tool, but there’s no clearer route to earning a customer’s business, loyalty and trust.

At the same time, looking to a competitor’s content to see what steps to take is like the blind leading the blind. Do your own tests and use that data to understand what truly works for your website and your business.

Getting Ready for the Year Ahead

With all this information, how can you best prepare yourself for the year ahead?

• Create your own Case Study – Not only is it a terrific resource for backlinks, but it also propels you on to becoming a recognized authority in your field.
• Or Host a Live Event in Your Area – This is a great way to reach out to local businesses and entrepreneurs while sharing ideas and resources.
• Look for Ways to Measure the Impact of Your Content Marketing – Not just in terms of raw numbers, but in the actions that occurred after the fact.
• Refocus Content on the Consumer – Most content marketing is more marketing than content. How can consumers benefit from what you’re sharing? Why should they pay attention to it?

No One is Right Every Time

We may be completely blindsided by a new technology that brings us even closer to that marketing sweet-spot of connecting with buyers and persuading them to act. Until then, however, content marketing is one of the best ways to encourage engagement and interaction. We’ll look back at this article this time next year and see how right (or wrong) these predictions turned out to be!

Share Your Content Marketing Predictions for 2014!

Where do you think content marketing is headed? Share your own predictions in the comments!

By Sherice Jacob

Combine “web” with “log” and you get “blog.” It’s a funny word, but serious business.

Of course, there are millions of blogs that aren’t about business. Music, fashion, travel, food and beauty top the long list (according to this research). This post isn’t about them.

This post is about blogging for business—with a purpose. We have a lot to cover, so we’ll knock it out as efficiently as possible with a series of lists.

We’ll get right to it.

Who should read this post?

• Non-blogger—You’ve never had a blog and you need to fix that now.
• Unfulfilled blogger—You blogged for a bit. Magic never struck.
• Beginning blogger—You blog, but don’t really know what you’re doing.
• Regular blogger—You’ll pick up tips from a fellow blogger.
• Expert blogger—You could steal the good stuff for your blog.
• None of the above—You have nothing better to do, but to read about blogging.

21 benefits of blogging with purpose.

1. Connect with customers—A blog is a practical and powerful way to share useful, relevant information with customers.
2. Connect with partners—Blogging allows you to connect and team up with influencers and leaders who can be instrumental in building your business.
3. Generate traffic—A strategically planned blog, with carefully chosen keywords in play, will show up in search and drive traffic to your landing pages.
4. Establish authority—Your business blog is the hub of your content marketing efforts where you share your expertise.
5. Win business—60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers, says HubSpot. They offer a ton of statistical insights in their research.
6. Inspire your social media—If you’re using social media effectively, you’re sharing your blog posts regularly and taking advantage of the magical amplification of social networks.
7. Increase reach—Your blog will be shared and find new eyeballs daily.
8. Grow your email database—Your blog should inspire people to opt into your email newsletter list. Also, your email feeds traffic to your blog.
9. Give your company a voice—A blog is your pulpit, your publication, your journal—the place where you talk about whatever you choose, however you choose.
10. Humanize your company—That voice needs personality. Great bloggers are genuine. Your personality comes into play, that is, if you aim to make real connections.
11. Exchange ideas—Blogs obliterate the wall that once stood between a company and its customers. You encourage interaction, comments and feedback. You create a conversation.
12. Get (and stay) customer focused—By blogging, you’ll learn how to speak in your customers’ terms, perpetually improve this vital skill and grow more in touch with your audience’s wants and needs.
13. Inspires content and productivity—Blogging is hard work. You need processes. Commitment. Consistency. You’ll need to step up—and you’ll be rewarded for doing so.
14. Increase focus—A subtle addendum to the point above, blogging consistently forces you to define who you are trying to reach and why.
15. Generate publicity—As I mentioned, business bloggers establish authority. Stick with it and demonstrate you know your niche and you’ll get asked for interviews frequently.
16. Invite outsiders in—While business blogger should refrain from being relentlessly promotional, the blog is an appropriate forum for delivering insight into your company, its values, and people.
17. Get strategic—You’ll get in the habit of closely examining the site’s analytics and gather all kinds of insights about what does and doesn’t appeal to your audience. Your marketing will get more strategic by day.
18. Learn—We’ll get a bit warm and fuzzy now, but there’s no denying you are going to learn a lot about yourself and the world around you. It comes with being a writer.
19. Get inspired—The research, the conversation, the experience… it’s inspiring. Trust me on this: a switch gets turned on and it’s impossible to turn off.
20. Have fun—Perhaps not everyone will agree blogging is fun, but I believe every great blogger gets into it and enjoys the ride.
21. Make millions—Maybe, maybe not. However, business blogging with purpose works. Every post is a long-term asset. Learn how to blog and you’ll lower your marketing costs and increase sales.

Let’s look at how to do it.

22 tips for blogging with purpose.

I have to give a shout out here to my man, mentor, friend, Marcus Sheridan, a.k.a. The Sales Lion. No one understands and teaches the practice of blogging quite like Marcus. I won’t be replicating his great post, “50 Qualities of the Best Business Blogs in the World” here, but I did draw these ideas from it (and encourage you to check it out).

1. Answer questions—Listen closely to questions prospects and customers ask and answer every one of them in your posts.
2. Teach, don’t preach—Avoid making your blog a heavy handed attempt to advertise your products. Adopt an educator’s mentality and you’ll win your reader’s trust.
3. Converse—Ask questions of your readers, encourage feedback, counterpoints and criticism. Respond to comments as promptly as possible in an effort to exchange ideas.
4. Create a blogging culture—Invite everyone in your company and its constituents to contribute ideas and participate in the blog.
5. Use images—Take advantage of the appeal of photos, illustrations, charts and infographics to increase your stopping power and make the posts more attractive.
6. Make it easy on the eyes—Use short paragraphs, line breaks, white space, subheads and lists to make your posts look inviting.
7. Be transparent—Write with uncompromising integrity and don’t be afraid to address real issues, problems, challenges, and yes, prices. Don’t avoid the tough questions. Tackle them.
8. Remove internal barriers—There’s no place in blogging for corporate red tape. Get permission in advance to write openly and honestly.
9. Don’t back down—Some readers (or co-workers) don’t love what you have to say? Say it anyway. It’s not a popularity contest.
10. Be consistent—The number one reasons blogs fail is they are neglected. Set a schedule and stick to it. Make the time to post often. No excuses.
11. Nix the fluff—Your posts can be short or long. Just don’t babble your way through them. Serve meat and go easy on the gravy.
12. Recognize others—Congratulate, write about and recognize customers, employees, partners, industry influencers and even competitors. Being generous will only help. You’ll enjoy reciprocity.
13. Optimize—Research and use the keyword phrases that will increase your search engine rankings. Install plugins to assist you with SEO.
14. Write passionately—Make your passion pulse through your prose. Tap into your reader’s emotions.
15. Tell stories—Learn how to become a master storyteller. Observe how the best bloggers unravel plots and develop characters.
16. Include customers—Drop the secrecy and anonymity. Cite real customers, real challenges and real solutions.
17. Invest seriously—Blogging only burns time and money when it’s a low priority. Invest in the tools you need and put the best writers and designers on your blog.
18. Market and sell—Don’t write ads and press releases disguised as blog posts, but do include a call to action and guide your readers along the path to discovering your solutions.
19. Stay tuned—Follow your industry daily and stay on top of what your peers are saying.
20. Encourage sharing—Don’t forget to offer social media buttons to make it easy for readers to share and email your content.
21. Promote your blog—Promoting a post can (and probably should) take more time than writing it. Write teasers for your content and promote it across social networks and all potential touch points.
22. Have fun—Never be stiff, formal, or jam useless jargon into your posts. You have the stage. Relax. Be entertaining. Allow yourself to have fun with the writing

Business blogs are a major challenge.

Blogs are the hardest channel for business to keep updated—and to really nail.

Passle, makers of a blogging shortcut service of sorts, recently studied 525 businesses and reviewed their performance across blogs, company news pages, Twitter and Facebook. Their study, “The State of Business Blogging 2013,” reported:

• 75% of companies don’t update their websites in any way.
• Only 20% have a blog and over one-third of them are inactive.
• 1 in 8 companies have an active blog.

Ouch. Please understand…

Business blogs should/can/will grow your business.

• 57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog.
• 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.
• Blogs attract repeat visitors who continue to come back to the website for fresh content.
• ­Blogging allows you to team up with people who already have an audience, which is an instantaneous way to attract readers.

The figures above are conservative. Blogging gets more important everyday. Start now.

Are you digging the stats?

Feast on this great infographic and I’ll see in the comments section, I hope. Ask questions if you have them. I’m happy to answer them and help set you on the path to enjoying the benefits of business blogging.

By Barry Feldman, founder of Feldman Creative

Curation is sometimes confusing. Everyone has a different definition and it’s used in many different ways as part of content and marketing strategies.

I asked 11 of my favorite curation experts for their best tips, tools, their favorite curator and suggestions on innovative uses of curation. Each is a curator on Scoop.it, my favorite curation tool and channel. New and experienced curators are going to learn from their advice.

For those of you who haven’t tried Scoop.it yet, check out the ways these experts use it to find, curate, publish and share valuable information. In addition to their tips and curation tool suggestions, you’ll find links to learn from the best.

Just a heads up. Today, you’ll find a brand new, freshly relaunched Scoop.it with a tasty new design, terrific tools, new interest channels and improved search capacity. I’ve previewed it and I guarantee it’s going to make curation and finding expert content faster, smarter and easier. More on Scoop.it and on Twitter at #curatethecurators.

10 Experts Share Best Curation Tips

I value each of them for their deep expertise in their areas of interest. Even more so, these curators have an obvious love of curation and a delight that comes from discovery and sharing great content. Most of all, they are very approachable and generous with their advice. Enjoy their insights.

Robin Good

Scoop.it Profile (1.1 million views): Robin Good is the global go-to guy when it comes to content curation. His pages on Scoop.it recently passed one million views and there’s a reason. If you’re new to curation, Good is a shining example of how to add value as a curator as well as a source of superb tips, tools and trends. You’ll soon have him on your daily content curation radar like me and many other curators.

Best curation tip:
“What I recommend to anyone approaching new content curation for the first time is to think of it as the art of introducing and illustrating something that is highly relevant to a specific audience. In my view, it’s not about sharing, it’s not about personal expression and it’s not about marketing. It’s about helping your audience discover and understand the relevance (for them) of things of value (people, issues, events, products) that they would have otherwise missed.”

Favorite curation tool: My preferred content discovery app is a toolset made up of Prismatic, Topsy and Tweetdeck.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: Ana Cristina Pratas. She is a treasure trove of useful resources and her talent is in finding lots of potentially good stuff. She doesn’t really curate any of these, but as a source of stuff that can be extremely useful, in the area of learning, publishing, presentation and tools; she is the best I know on Scoop.it. I would like to list Baiba Svenca and Nik Peachey as two good alternative resources.

Interesting curation: Brain Pickings by Maria Popova is such an example. She has such talent in finding and unearthing interesting stuff of all kinds and in publishing them in a format that is highly readable. I this she is definitely unique, creative and very, very knowledgeable person.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Website, Home: Rome, Italy

Ana Cristina Pratas

Scoop.it Profile (937.8K views): Eclectic hardly seems adequate to describe her curation. An educator and “learner”, Ana Cristina Pratas is literally a delightful curator to follow. She shares her “Digital Delights” on learning and developing creativity, contemporary digital tribes and avatars, virtual worlds and gamification. But don’t hold her to those topics alone. She’ll surprise and delight you every day and you will be glad to follow her.

Best curation tip:

“Curate with your heart and head – in other words, select what is significant to you, what will be useful to you. With time, these selections will become your online library where you can return to when necessary and even revise by either deleting them or keeping them as a relevant article for the moment they were curated. Hopefully they will be of interest to others who share the same interests or profession. There are also moments when, rushed for time, I will include an article so that I may later go back and read it more calmly. Curating with Scoop.it! has become valuable to me because I can regularly return to points of references when necessary. ”

Favorite curation tool: I sometimes may use suggestions which appear on Scoop.it! though often it is articles I read or come across online. I tend to read certain blogs and when there is a post which I find of particular interest, I will add it to the curation so that I may find it again easily. 

Favorite Scoop.it resource: Very difficult question as there are such excellent curators! For education, I will certainly turn to Nik Peachey, Ann Foreman and David Mainwood, to name just a few. Angela Dunn is another curator who I follow and always has an interesting selection on Creativity and Innovation.

Interesting curation: There are some excellent sites which curate art and photography (and which I sometimes include in my Digital Delights – Images). Maria Popova’s excellent Brain Pickings Weekly also offers wonderful posts which I sometimes include in Voices in the Feminine – Digital Delights. 

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog Home: United Arab Emirates

Brian Yanish

Scoop.it Profile (304.5K views): Brian Yanish is a nerd. He says so himself. And he’s one great nerd to follow. He curates on the marketing revolution, website design, content curation, Scoop.it marketing, mobile web design and his latest project — an outdoor kitchen.

Best curation tip:

“They say “Content is King.” In the curation world your sources become the Queen. Scoop.it allows you to manage content sources where your potential (suggestions) scoops may come from. Making sure you refine your sources is key to helping you find great content to curate. “

Favorite curation tool: My number one content finding tool is my defined Scoop.it managed sources for each topic I curate. Next would be the people I follow on Twitter who share great content. I’ve setup private Twitter subject lists where I place specific Twitter users, and then I watch the content they are tweeting so I can scoop it into one of my topics.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: I follow so many great curators includingMarty Smith, Robin Good, Karen Dietz and Jesus Hernandez. One of my favorite Scoop.it pages is the main page where I can see the scoops from people I follow. Which in turn helps me find great content to rescoop into my topics.

Interesting curation: One of the most unique uses of Scoop.it is by Marty Smith and how he uses the power and  community within Scoop.it to build a community of friends and followers for his Cure Cancer Starter support team. 

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Website Home: Drumheller, Alberta

Guillaume Decugis

Scoop.it Profile (225.2K views): As CEO of Scoop.it, you’d expect Guillaume Decugis to be a passionate curator. But it’s not his shared business curation that gets your attention – curation and the future of publishing, Scoop.it on the web and the Scoop.it team. He curates on a bunch of fun, personal topics too, including online gaming, astronomy, freeride skiing, andgadgets I lust for.

Best curation tip:

“The most helpful to me was to realize that reading was 80% of the work. If I thoroughly read an article or watched a video (meaning I finish it instead of giving up half way), it’s probably a sign I should also share it with some insights on it. Instead of wondering what my blog should be about or lacking inspiration writing, I discovered I could have an impact by curating and sharing the content I already was consuming anyway on the same 4/5 topics. This transformed my content problem into an opportunity. And I believe many professionals are in the same situation: they already read a lot of content on their areas of expertise.”

Favorite curation tool: Well I’m biased but I’ll say Scoop.it ;-) In several ways actually: through the content suggestions of course but now more and more from the Scoop.it curators themselves by following topics that I find relevant, by searching or by using the new interest feature on the iPad or the Web version.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: It’s hard to choose because there are so many amazing curators on Scoop.it but I’d say Entrepreneurship, Innovation by Marylene Delbourg-Delphis who’s an amazing woman (the first to become CEO of a major Silicon Valley company).

Interesting curation: I just love what the team at cancercommons.org do through their Cancer Commons pages on Scoop.it, using cancer research news & knowledge curation to improve the survival chances of patients. On such an important cause, we can all realize how sharing important knowledge better and to the right people really can make a difference – just like it did for Marty Tenenbaum who founded Cancer Commons and survived cancer after having personally gathered a lot of information on his particular cancer, something that proved critical in making the educated guess that saved his life.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Website Home: San Francisco

Giuseppe Mauriello

Scoop.it Profile (190.3K views): Giuseppe Mauriello is a social media, marketing and sales consultant. He curates news, trends and new tools about content curation, social media and marketing. He’s another great example of how the curator adds value with additional insight and commentary to the articles that he filters and shares.

Best curation tip:

“Filter great stuff, and new people will listen to you. Publish great content, and your listeners will share your story for you! More than ever before: Excellent content is your competitive advantage. Context is king! Curation Time” © Giuseppe Mauriello.”

Favorite curation tool:  My favorite content news discovery tool is Prismatic. In addition, I also use Topsy and Feedly and in the past sometimes I’ve used Trap!t and Bottlenose.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: The master curator is Robin Good on Scoop.it; IMHO, he also one of the best in the world.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter Home: Naples, Italy

Ally Greer

Scoop.it Profile (142.9K views): You’d think that working at the leading curation platform in the world wouldn’t leave much time for being a talented curator. That’s not the case when it comes to Scoop.it Community Manager Ally Greer. Her own curation topics include lots of topics related to her work including curation and the future of publishing, Scoop.it on the web, the Scoop.it team, lean content and social marketing. Her personal topics are fun as well: the best of Buzzfeed, personal branding, resources for professional women, healthy corporate chicks, Green homes, sounds and much more. She shows you just the right approach to mixing curation business and pleasure.

Best curation tip:

“My favorite curation quote comes from Clay Shirky, an NYU Professor and author of Here Comes Everybody. He said, “It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure.” I completely agree with this statement, as I hold the opinion that there isn’t really such a thing as having too much information. If I have a large amount of useful information, it just means that I can continue reading and learning. However, it’s when this information is buried among useless or redundant content that that overwhelming feeling manifests itself. The point of curation isn’t to reduce the amount of information out there; it’s to help the quality information surface. Naturally, it’s not possible for robots to do this on their own, which is why the human touch that curation entails has become so important.”

Favorite curation tool: Of course, I love the Scoop.it Suggestion Engine. I feed it with all of my RSS feeds and searches and find content in the place where I want to publish it. Aside from that, I use social networks to find content – I’m very careful with who I follow and tailor my streams to be filled with content that I think I would be interested in finding.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: My favorite Scoop.it topic page is Ideas for Entrepreneurs by Guillaume Decugis  (and not just because he’s my boss!). Coming from a family of entrepreneurs and working at a startup, I’m extremely interested in the world of entrepreneurship and hearing the different stories of how awesome companies have come to be is super inspiring to me.

Interesting curation: Some of the most creative uses of Scoop.it I’ve seen are Karen Dietz and Brian Yanish (and I’m sure some others) putting email subscription forms on their pages to generate leads – who would’ve thought?! – and Seth Dixon creating a custom textbook for his college class.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Website Home: San Francisco

Marty Smith

Scoop.it Profile (100.6K views): Marty Smith is marketing director at Atlantic BT. His background includes traditional brand marketing, several business startups and he is a cancer survivor. He curates on digital and traditional marketing, technology, startups, e-commerce, personal branding, collaboration and cool stuff.

Best curation tip:

“Don’t get stuck in a curation rut. Be open to new sources of information and use meta-search engines like Topsy or, if you can afford it, Radian6. Watch YOUR brands closest, competitor’s brands next and be sure to regularly watch, read and curate industry experts. Don’t be afraid to curate competitive content if it is great, but never snub anyone’s content. Your authority GOES UP when you act less proprietary and more universal.”

Favorite curation tool: Topsy, Flipboard and Zite are my favorite “BIG NET” tools. Twitter, Gplus and Scoop.it are my favorite “SMALL NET” tools.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: Robin Good for tools, Jan Gordon for analysis of latest cool Scoops and Jeff Domansky for PR. Also Brian Yanish is smart and gets it.

Interesting curation: I use Scoop.it as a fast feedback loop. I believe we should curate 90% and create 10%. Curation has more reach and lower cost per unit of work, so it is the “content radar” and this blog post is a perfect example. I got the idea for this post from the receptionhttp://sco.lt/6Kym0X on Scoop.it received. I knew, from that reception, 1,000 words on our Atlantic BT blog would do well (and it did).

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Home: Durham, NC

Karen Dietz

Scoop.it Profile (101.8K views): Karen Dietz is a business consultant and professionally trained storyteller and the only Phd Folklorist I know. Fortunately, she’s not only a heckuva business storytelling trainer, she’s a wonderful curator on storytelling and personality types @ work. If you’re looking for a good story, you’ll want to start following her.

Best curation tip:

“Write reviews! Let your voice be heard. Help your readers sift through the mountains of information out there, tell them why you selected the article, and what they should pay attention to when reading it. Don’t write a dissertation, just a few sentences. This provides value to your reader, and makes your valuable. If you curate as part of a business/marketing strategy, this builds your business.”

Favorite curation tool: I love Prismatic!

Favorite Scoop.it resource: Robin Good — because I learn so much about curation from him.And I’m fans of Gimli Goose’s (Kim Zinke) on How To Find and Tell Your Story, as well as Gregg Morris‘ Story and Narrative.Baiba Svenca keeps me straight about presentations. And Susan Bainbridge is my go-to gal on Transformational Leadership. Then Marty Smith and Brian Yanish‘s curations help me with marketing and social media along with Jan Gordon.

Interesting curation: Hmmmm – I love street art and really enjoy Kuniko‘s curation World of Street an Outdoor Arts. I also thoroughly enjoy Jane Dunnewold‘s curation on Creative Civilization.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Website Home: San Diego

Gregg Morris

Scoop.it Profile (64.7K views): Gregg Morris calls himself “a Renaissance man in a niche world.” He curates on narrative, storytelling, writing, customer experience, marketing, PR, sales. The real story to his curation is his skill at finding great storytelling material to share.

Best curation tip:  

“We’re filters for our readers. Always put yourself in their shoes and think about what they will enjoy/learn from most.”

Favorite curation tool:  Still Twitter for me but I am liking Prismatic more and more.

Favorite Scoop.it resource: Karen Dietz for storytelling.

Interesting curation: I don’t know if this falls into one of those buckets butAlly Greer uses Scoop.it as creatively as anyone I’ve seen or read.

Connections: Scoop.it, Twitter, Blog, Home: Chapel Hill, NC

Continued Here 

 

If you are not hosting a blog on your website start one. If you are not posting relevant information and blogs to draw in potential customers do it.
 

Bring the traffic to you and become a destination resort for updates and information so you can reap the benefits and attention that this personal form of content marketing is commanding.

Blogging is like having your own newsreel that provides a direct channel of communication between you and your potential customers.

 

When you communicate with and encourage people to get to know you as well as your business (A name and a face they can related to), your relationship with them becomes more personal and makes you more credible.

Since starting the blog on my Company website traffic has shot up over 2800 percent per month and people are spending time there. Also on our Facebook Page for our Foundation, Funlicoma Foundation, by just finding and posting interesting articles on different subjects draws hundreds of readers per week.

This astounding increase led me to do some research on how blogs ranked in terms of overall Content Marketing.

I found that Studies show that over two thirds of consumers will spend the time to read content on a subject they’re interested in. And blogs and articles that contain images get 94% more views.

 

Blog content is one of the benchmarks by which success in Social Media is tracked. Blogging can also improve your search ranking. Based on a Wishpond Infographic put out this year, companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages and see 55% more traffic to their sites.

 

Blogging is a main component of content marketing and provides many benefits– including increased traffic and visibility and SEO optimization. A company blog is also an effective form of inbound marketing.

 

Blogging is highly beneficial when it comes to improving your social presence. In fact, according to Wishbone, interesting content is one of the top three reasons consumers follow brands on social media.

 

Blogging is cost effective with time being the only real cost. Make your Social presence today and become a part of this social phenomenon mainstream and become a Social Media Destination Resort and you will have customers coming to you.

Written by Bill Cosgrove
DealerNet Services

#2 – Feature or write about industry influencers

When you start any content marketing campaign, one of the first things that you should do is map out the influencers in your industry – think about the type of people that you follow and whose opinion that you value.

I recently published a group interview on my blog where I invited a number of industry experts to talk about how they build reader engagement with their audience. You can view the post here.

I started by inviting a number of influencers within the marketing industry to answer a number of questions on improving reader engagement – something that all of the people I asked did very well.

In the end I managed to publish responses from Seth Godin, Anita Campbell, Neil Patel and 30 other industry experts.

 

What did I do to promote it?

I reached out to everyone that took part using social media sites such as Twitter and Google Plus – sites that would notify them that they’d been mentioned.

This was then followed up with an email to let the participants know that the post was live, where they could find it along with a call to action.

The call to action was to help share the post and vote for the post on BizSugar.

The post was then imported into my Triberr account – If you’ve not come across this before, it’s a platform that allows you to link up your Twitter profile (along with Facebook and Linkedin) and join tribes of like-minded bloggers, marketers or business owners that will see your content and get the opportunity to share it with their followers.

 

What about the results?

In just over a day the post was the 2^nd most popular post on BizSugar in June:

The post has gained quite a significant amount of traction on social media:

The post also earned some good links according to Ahrefs.com (Majestic shows more referring domains, but I prefer the graph in Ahrefs):

It also helped me get contributor of the week on BizSugar.com:

You can find the post here.

Continued Part 3:

http://onebigbroadcast.com/autospeakstraighttalk/view/287/_Part_3__There_Is_More_To_This_Content_Marketing_Than_Just_Clicking_Publish.html


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