Curation Revolution

Buffer's Social "Failure" = Your Success
Make Buffer's Social Failure Your success with lessons from three great web marketing books including Superforecasting, The Silo Effect and The Black Swan. The post builds on a Buffer post sharing their shocking 50% decline in social media traffic. 

The real question is - ARE THEY FAILING.

They seem to think so and that thought may point to bigger issues. Issues well outlined in 3 great web marketing books (note if you buy using the links to Amazon below you make a contribution to curing cancer TY)

SuperForecsting: The Art and Science of Prediction  

The Silo Effect: The Perils of Expertise

The Black Swan:  Impact of the Highly Improbable

How web marketers THINK about what they are doing matters and this Curagami post shares tips on how to THink Like An Internet Marketer along with links to some of our favorite web marketers including several from Scoop.it:

@Guillaume Decugis 
@Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com 
@Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com 

Among others.

Start thinking like a web marketer, read this Curagami post
http://www.curagami.com/buffers-social-failure-your-success/?v=7516fd43adaa  

There are no "right' or "wrong" ways to use social media, but there are ways to grow your following faster and get more return from your social efforts.

Swarms, Storms and Flocks

As a Director of Ecommerce I became fascinated with swarms, storms and flocks. Things happen inside the world’s largest content network for reasons that are beyond logical explanation. As the founder of Cure Cancer Starter, a crowdfunding platform for cancer research, I am fascinated with swarms, storms and flocks again. 

Swarm Storms is my name for the strange combination sentient mob behavior. Much like ants and bees the web forms with a collective consciousness that can feint and move like a school of fish or a flock of birds. 

If you've ever been fishing just prior to a storm you know the activity gets fast and furious before stopping almost entirely. Fish feel changes in pressure and react. Storms influence the creation and path of swarms.

Much of Internet marketing is weather forecasting. You model and predict where you thin your Internet marketing and website need to go. Sometimes you want to be out of the path of the storm while other storms you want to ride like a wave. 

All Internet marketers are weather forecasters and swarm storm creators. The linked post is the first post on swarm creation from Swarmise, a new book by Swedish political activist Rick Falkvinge. His a piece from the post describing a "swarm organization":
 

Excerpt 
"A swarm organization is a decentralized, collaborative effort of volunteers that looks like a hierarchical, traditional organization from the outside. It is built by a small core of people that construct a scaffolding of go-to people, enabling a large number of volunteers to cooperate on a common goal in quantities of people not possible before the net was available.

Working with a swarm requires you to do a lot of things completely in opposite from what you learn at an archetypal business school. You need to release the control of your brand and its messages.

You need to delegate authority to the point where anybody can make almost any decision for the entire organization. You need to accept and embrace that people in the organization will do exactly as they please, and the only way to lead is to inspire them to want to go where you want the organization as a whole to go."

*****
Rick is sharing the book one chapter at a time online. Stay tuned and buy the book when it comes out in the summer.  

Biggest challenge to great web marketing may be learning to THINK like an Internet marketer. Here are 5 Secret Tips to help you become a great IMer.

Group boards on Pinterest can be your secret to increased followers, improved engagement, and reaching a larger audience with less effort.

Marty Note
Great Curation Revolution suggestion from my friend Bill Gassett (@MassRealty). I love group boards too because they crowdsource great Pinterest content. My Group Board include:

King of Pinterest (2,047 followers, 121 contributors)
http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/king-of-pinterest/

Queen of Pinterest (3,290 followers, 325 contributors)
http://www.pinterest.com/scenttrail/queen-of-pinterest/

Love these boards since the share GREAT stuff and my work load GOES DOWN even as they get better. One caveat is Pinterest can be strange about allowing you to invite contributors. I could easily have 1,000 contributors to both boards if Pinterest didn't have such a tight and strange grip on the invite reins.

Great tips for how to make sure your images arrest and develop on Facebook. 

Great example of what works here from Coffee-mate. Tips include:

* Put Call To Actions In The Image. 
* Add a little competition into the mix (where you win either way). 
* Always take time to create IMAGE and text.

* CTA simple and clear. 
* Make sure real time feedback is in the mix (rich get richer). 

We live in visual times. Make sure your Facebook visuals arrest and develop. 

Google can feel like a dungeon master. If your website is mission critical, and whose isn't now, and any traffic source controls more than 30% of your websites traffic and/or conversions you are in trouble.

Diversification is the key to online marketing success. This post is about 3 Giant Steps to creating your own Internet marketing destiny. Following these steps mean Google's moves will hurt less.

If you've just been tagged with a traffic penalty don't rush out and start changing things. Organic change is needed, but you should do so with a plan.

BUT, you can double down on PPC, up your email marketing fequency and increase social. Those moves may close the gap left by a Google algorithm change while you begin to remove links (with RemoveEM.com) and do the other things that will get your Google train back on track.

Here is the piece about how to diversify your traffic sources and build your list:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102639884404823294558/posts/Maf8cEcEBGu