Why Hunch Rocks

Yes the world is replete with a million new tools all clamoring for attention and interaction. Read Platforms vs. Websites and Curation The Next Web Revolution on ScentTrail on Technorati to find out why it seems like we are in an infinite loop of new content curation tools.

Don't let Hunch.com's magical tool get lost in the tool stew. Hunch.com is a magical mystery tour of a tool. Its crisp, clean and immediately easy to understand user interface makes you want to jump in and start making recommendations. I've been using Tumblr more lately, but am finding Hunch more fun, easier, faster and better looking without all the selecting and modifying a template pain I went through on ScentTrail on Tumblr (pain is too big a word, a couple of hours of building really isn't so painful).

Amount of build time on Hunch? Zero

Hunch's interface is so clean, the picture rendering so crisp and clear it makes you feel like you are scrape booking but in an incredible cool way. Tools that will stay are self reinforcing. Each time you use it you want to use it more. Hunch.com meets that test many times over. I think about it even when I am not using it. I also think about some of the very creative people and their fascinating and wide reaching recommendations. Here are a few of my favorite Hunch.com contributors:

Benjamin De Baets ictus

Jon Russell jon

Kookyukie 

jcarpenterclicks

Chris Dixon chris

Stephanie Terry stephanie4terry

and me (used Mobriff for this one):  MobRiff

Create a Hunch.com account. You will find cool new stuff, I just picked up The Noun Project from Stephanie Terry, with the least effort of any thing half as cool.

Note to Not-For-Profits - load your brands into Hunch. It is FREE and may help you build traffic, increase your donor list and donations. Just be sure to make a commitment to update your profile with fresh recommendations every now and again. Nothing worse than someone just trying to take out of these social network environments. 

To the talented, and I mean TALENTED, design and development team at Hunch.com I say THANKS. Amazing work, simply amazing.

Mobriffer :)

How To Write Viral Content

“How can I create great content I sell pens,” was a question I heard recently. This problem of "boring content" was also a common concern at Content Marketing World a couple of weeks ago in Cleveland. Today’s post shares 3 lessons in creating what Seth Godin calls “Purple” content:

• Tell a story
• Get others share a story
• Create a storytelling contest

Tell A Story
When I was in Mrs. Hill’s second grade class I couldn’t spell. Many of my letters were backwards, vowels were often in the wrong place or order, letters before endings were double when they should be single and vice versa and my writing looked more like a Pollack drawing than words a non-alien could understand. My saving grace was I could do math very fast. After several long conversations with Mrs. Hill my mother insisted she would take care of it.

My mother has never shared what Mrs. Hill plan for my future was, but my mother wasn’t having it. Everyday after school I left my friends, who enjoyed nothing more than running by my window screaming, to practice spelling with rules and cue cards. I was taught to sound out words with my hand under my chin in order to count out syllables.

With a lot of extra work I survived Mrs. Hill’s second grade class at Harry C. Withers elementary in Dallas. Graduating from second grade my tutor gave me a simple bic pen. The gift was symbolic because I’d only ever used a pencil. My writing was so incomprehensible I was only allowed a pencil. I often drew pictures above words I was attempting to spell trying to communicate meaning. Mrs. Hill would take my pencil, turn it upside down and erase my scribbles writing the word in perfect second grade teacher script. My tutor, I forget her name but she was an attractive, tall brunette studying for her masters at SMU, presented a gift-wrapped box with a bow with a huge smile. I remember what she said, “I’m very proud of the work you’ve done and it is time you graduated.” This was in the summer. I’d started summer school and was a little confused.

I tore into the box. Seeing the pen I understood. Mrs. Hill was gone. I didn’t need to use a pencil anymore. My tutor’s gift was a parting gift. I looked up and saw a small my tutor wipe a small tear. She hugged me, stood up, hugged my mother and left our house at 11410 Straight Lane in Dallas. Forty years later writing is a large part of how I’ve been able to make a living. I was selected to write the ScentTrail posts on Technorati based on submitted writing samples. I write business plans for investors and funding committees. I rode across America last summer and several people have shared how much they enjoyed reading Martin’s Ride To Cure Cancer blog posts. One friend even told me, “I felt like I was there.” This is how a pen changed my life.

When in doubt, tell a story to capture attention and create content others will want to share. 

Get Others To Share Their Story
We tell stories. Storytelling is what separates us from sloths and chimps. If your ecommerce site doesn’t have reviews then hire either Bazaar Voice or Power Reviews to add customer reviews immediately to your site. If you don’t have the Facebook LIKE button all over your content and site add it as soon as humanly possible. Byron White, creator of IdeaLaunch and one of the best search engine minds around, said he thought Facebook LIKEs were the new links in Google’s evaluation of a page’s value. Install evaluation tools everywhere and then ask your audience to review the reviewers. Once you find great reviewers who are loved by your customers elevate them above the crowd. Amazon elevates with their hotly competed for Top 1,000 Reviewer. You can’t tell me people break their backs to be a Amazon Top 1,000 reviewer for the free books. They do it for the social status, the social status created by the elevation.

When someone writes a great review ask permission to use it in different context. I know your terms say you own the content, but ask anyway. When you elevate a review’s value by using it in your content you send a powerful message. Our reviewers are smart, important and we care what they say”, is one clear message sent when you incorporate customer supplied content in your company, brand or product marketing.

Create A Storytelling Contest
Contests and games are Internet marketing currency. When in doubt crowdsource may be the motto of our connected marketing times. Contests are great PR catchers and can produce great content before, during and after. If you are having trouble creating purple cow content develop a contest and reap the traffic, new content and search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) rewards.

How Miles Davis Saved My Life

Read how Miles saved my life on Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer.

Related Posts:

Seeing Miles Davis & Seeing Miles Davis 2

Images are (c) the great Sony Music Legacy site MilesDavis.com.

Follow Sonny's Miles Davis Twitter.

Internet Marketing Relativity Meetup on Tuesday Oct 25

Internet Marketing Relativity Meetup
Durham, NC
on Tuesday October 25th
6:30 PM
Martin's House

Get details by joining the group.

JOIN HERE

Why Buy PPC When #1 Organic

All those years my gut told me the billboard impact of buying PPC even when the site I managed owned the #1 keyword is being confirmed by quants including this from SearchEngineLand:

I emphasized that there are a number of ways to get at this answer, only one of which we tried. In our case, however, the results were fantastic, as you can see by the positive slope of the regression line in the graph. The positive slope means that when we bought the ad above our organic listing, we actually increased the click through rate of the organic listing. What could be better than that? (emphasis mine)

 Next time your CFO asks you why you are buying paid search when your site is already #1 organic share this study and you will be more successful than using something accountants rarely understand or trust - a marketer's gut :).

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Internet Marketing By Andy Warhol

Teri Jenkins, CEO of W3PR an excellent marketing company with a specialty in search, left this comment after reading How To Create Plans In Uncertain Times:

Truly excellent post Martin! This is what all Internet Marketers struggle with. Glad to know I'm not crazy and alone thinking that the change is so fast that it's impossible to rely on data more than several months old!

Terri is on the front lines of Internet Marketing. She tries to dig holes in Google and fill them with client content to generate the link love necessary to move toward the magical Google page 1 listing. We Internet marketers, we lucky few, are becoming arbitrageurs, day traders. Soon we will have Bloomberg-like monitors telling us when a group of keywords are popping, the over and under on current bids and the return on investment for mashing up a landing page fast enough to matter.

And "fast enough to matter" will shrink from its current roughly two days to hours and then minutes. Andy Warhol may have been right with an important exception. In a search engine enabled time we may all be famous for 15 minutes but with a twist. We will be famous fifteen times for one minute. Like good day traders, MIT card counters and hedge fund quants knowing when to double down and when to run for the exits will separate winners from losers. Hedge and hit .400 gains entry to the Internet Marketing Hall of Fame (still in my garage). Hit below .200 and expect to be consumed. If this much math is making you nervous I relate. Turns out we all should have paid more attention in math class :).

Quants won't rule the world completely. Fast and massive as data may be reading it still takes right brained creativity and courage. Creativity because all Internet marketing measurements are relative. Want to drive your quants crazy explain how much uncertainty exists in a modeled Internet marketing universe based on Google's 200 algorithm triggers. Once 2 + 2 = 4 mathematical determinism dies replaced by multidimensional web marketing string theory the right side of your brain better light up like a Christmas tree or you will bet on the wrong numbers feeling good about it all the way to the poor house. 

Courage because being willing to bet your kid's milk money over and over again requires the kind of granite few posses. The rub is Internet marketing isn't unique. All jobs require lightening fast reflexes, reflexes that must only get faster as networks do what networks do - get faster. I was the worst hockey goalie of all time. I was #2 on the Choate JV. One day Beecher, the 1st string JV goalie, had to travel with the squad to an away game. I was left to backup the varsity goalie. The coach wanted me warm in case the #1 guy got hurt. Taking ten minutes of varsity warm up I realized a couple of things. If God granted that I survive warm up I would end the worst hockey career in Choate history AND how much varsity hockey was a different game than anything I'd ever seen. Watching speed from the stands isn't the same as having it hurled at your face.

There is courage and then there are fool's errands. I could afford NOT to become a great hockey goalie. None of us can afford NOT to become great marketing day traders (or whatever the equivalent is in your business). There is no junior varsity anymore. Tools are cheap, ubiquitous and changing every minute. There is no choice. We have to stay in goal and learn to be faster.

Books To Help (with the marketing not the goalie stuff)

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable by Seth Godin
Managing Content Marketing by Robert Rose and Joe Pulizzi
Infinite Inventory (my book if I ever get it written, in the meantime check out my 2008 post)

Follow ScentTrail on Twitter to be kept up-to-date on II.

VisualizeMe - The Future of Resumes

Looking for a job recently I was disappointed by two things. There aren't many great jobs out there and no matter how much I worked on my resume I didn't like the visual results.

Not until I found Visualize.me. This is a very cool new web application that creates an infographic from your LinkedIn resume in nothing flat (took all of ten minutes). Here is a snapshot of mine:

So if you are pounding  the pavement like so many others, get visual.

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How To Create Marketing Plans In Uncertain Times

I was twenty-three, sitting in a conference room in Buffalo New York being trained in the P&G way. “Plan your work and work your plan,” was a phrase I would hear repeatedly during training. Planning in an Internet marketing time fueled by constant and accelerating change is difficult and different because:

• Speed
•  Web 2.0 and King Customer
•  Fast Feedback Loops
•  Moore’s Law 
•  Golden needles

Speed
It is not just that the world is faster. It is. What makes a company fast is changing rapidly. Platforms vs. Websites explains how Amazon’s massive scale and search engine marketing tuned content engine makes Amazon the fastest draw in the Internet’s west. It may seem counter intuitive that hundreds of millions of pages of content could make a company fast, but networks and search engines change the equation. One of the logical extensions of Chris Anderson’s Long Tail is the ecommerce merchant who understands Infinite Inventory (see my 2008 Infinite Inventory post) wins. Infinity is an important Internet marketing concept. Amazon, with 300,000,000+ pages in Google, creates infinite content to sell infinite products. In a digital world adding more costs pennies and may net dollars – the ultimate Internet marketing arbitrage at the core of the new economics. Speed happens when systems are built for massive scale AND quick manipulation. One without the other is insufficient.

Web 2.0 and King Customer
In the MadMen marketing days customers were important but tolerated as long as they did what they were told. It is good to be the King until the peasantry revolts. Revolution is what digital tribes want, live for and are good at. There is a scene in the movie Khartoum where the Mahdi rebels overwhelm Charlton Heston’s beloved city. Swarming rebels overtake Heston’s staunch British imperialism (you may be laughing at the idea of Heston as a British officer but he pulls it off and the movie, though old and odd isn’t bad). Digitally empowered customers use web weapons such as reputation economics (soon everything and everyone will have easy to find reviews), Google’s lightening search results and more computing power for less money (Moore’s Law) to swarm and devour MadMen’s crops. Fully toppled dictators and middlemen are relearning what Customer Is King really means.

Fast Feedback Loops
Almost ten years ago I joined a direct marketing catalog company. Their marketing was intelligent, highly objective, based on testing and doomed. They would drop a catalog, wait six weeks, evaluate data for another week (or so) and then form new tests. Web 2.0 means testing is easier, faster and required. Going to market without real world feedback seems beyond stupid. Feedback loops are so fast they change how to plan. Marketing plans need to do a little something, get results and do a little something more. Creating A to Z campaigns without Tweeting, throwing it up on Facebook, polling and testing is crazy.


Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law, named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, explains the WHY of our new digital economy. Moore’s law is computes get faster as they get cheaper. Anything related to computers does well. Well means margins increase as costs go down. The further you get from computers the worse business is becoming. Computers is too general a term. Companies related to computers who understand network marketing gain (Amazon, Apple, Google). Companies that may be close to computers but don’t understand quickly evolving network dynamics can be pummeled (AOL, Yahoo, Pets.com). Companies who don’t understand networks or how to put integrated circuits to work in new ways are in serious trouble (print media, Microsoft, American car makers, any airline, Eastman Kodak).

Golden Needles
Hidden inside of vast data haystacks are golden needles. Companies who mine, curate and reshuffle user-supplied data via platforms are in GREAT shape (Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Mashable, Huffington Post). Companies developing small, static web sites are in trouble (RedEnvelope, American Red Cross, Barnes and Noble). Platforms encouraging user generated content (UGC) and easily manipulated data feeds are our Internet marketing future.

How To Plan
How do you create a plan in such an environment? A: very carefully and with the understanding nothing is written in stone and three years is an eternity. Some “evergreen” strategies require longer planning cycle. Evergreen, those projects that both take a lot of time and last a long time, is a huge gamble, Limit the number of evergreen projects. Three evergreen projects is a lot, five is betting the entire company on a positive outcome for all five and ten is insane. Evergreen is a crapshoot because they require the world to stay too still

Planning surprise and change in may be the biggest planning change. Internet Marketing Relativity explained how hard it is to know anything in a mixed up, fast and confusing world. Arbitrage Internet marketing by betting on many numbers (create many, varied campaigns). Read web analytics and watch fast feedback to learn how and where to concentrate marketing capital. In a twelve-month Internet planning cycle spend one quarter hedged as widely as possible. In the second quarter eliminate 90% and bet on the “best performers” limit to no more than 10%. In the third quarter keep 5% of the best performers and at least double their spend and create and test three times as many new projects. In the fourth quarter jettison all but the best performing 2% and at least double down on your spend. In the fifth quarter start all over again:

1st Quarter: Create as much and as varied Internet marketing as you can.
2nd Quarter: Eliminate 90% of what was created, keep 10% “best performers”
3rd Quarter: Keep 5% “Best Performers”, double their spend, create and test 3x as many new projects (3x the number of Best Performers)
4th Quarter: Keep 2% of best performers, at least 2x the spend
5th Quarter: Start All Over Again


Gordon Gecko’s Lesson
“Yeah but we finally know what works,” I can hear my Internet marketing friends say. Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko shared sage advice when he said:

It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.

The Internet, like all marketing now (and possibly everything else), is arbitrage, a network arbitrage. Last year’s winners can easily be this year’s dogs. Restarting marketing assumptions is the hardest thing all marketers (or people) do. Internet marketing exists in a perpetual NOW. What you did yesterday is interesting but its ability to predict what will happen today is less than zero. The only way to know what will happen today is to do something and watch. Use statistics and analytics to shape and create Internet marketing then assume nothing.

Muscle Memory Change
Tossing out and distrusting winners seems downright un-American. Networks only know an ever-expanding world of 1’s and 0’s. Our perceptions, how we read the infinite array of 1’s and 0’s, is relative. Observing network marketing behavior changes it. The only way to stay ahead of the creeping bias all Internet marketing creates is to toss out the winners and restart the arbitrage.

I can also hear friends saying they aren’t Wall Street traders. They are Consumer Products Goods Brand Managers and Internet marketers. Internet marketers must develop the ability to plan by not planning. Planning by not planning is creating campaigns and actions constantly trued by fast feedback loops and new perceptions, tested, reformed and re-launched. Internet marketers are day traders trained to arbitrage an infinite number of flexible positions.

Even if this theory of Internet marketing arbitrage is only half right traditional marketing is irrevocably changed. Most sentient beings believe marketing and sales are substantially changed, but we continue to try untangling a bowl of marketing spaghetti so complex attempts to unravel it only make it more complex and so less known. Our observations change the results and so must be limited and on the move. In the old days we believed we could, through force of will or intelligence, create space. When marketing worked we repeated it, and repeated it and repeated it.

Perhaps there never really was any space, or not nearly as much as we thought.. When customers are Kings space comes from customer involvement, advocacy and protection. The fastest way to lose recently won customer hearts and minds is to mindlessly repeat. King customers want an ever increasing cycle of relevant communications. Advocate King customers have core beliefs about companies that probably include:

• Company X is creative
• Company X cares
• Company X listens
• Company X is connected
• Company X understands me, my family and friends

Torch enough of these beliefs and advocacy is withdrawn. Torch enough of these beliefs and advocates become loud detractors. Torch enough of these beliefs and planning anything will be the least of the problems your company faces.

Programmers are smiling. Programmers recognize this new marketing paradigm as similar to “agile software development”. Agile software development is emergent. Solutions emerge and evolve through collaboration as Wikipedia outlines:

Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery; time boxed iterative approach and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

Think of the Internet as a collaborative agent, an organic thing with emergent properties too complex to be adequately or accurately forecast. Internet marketing is statistical modeling. Sounds like weather forecasting right? Internet marketing is weather forecasting with an arbitrage overlay. You aren’t just predicting Internet marketing weather you bet on it. If you bet on sun and it is pouring down rain you grab an umbrella and place another bet.

Achieve baseball stats; get 3 hits for every 10 at bats, and you are in the Internet Marketing Hall of Fame (currently in my garage). Have a year where you hit .500 and do two things. First have a huge party congratulating anyone and everyone who contributed in any way. Next CHANGE EVERYTHING because you are about to regress to the mean. Every marketing bone in your body will scream, shout and yell at you. Doesn’t matter, the only way to follow such an amazing Internet marketing year is to creatively destroy everything.

The network only has one truth – CHANGE. Network marketing’s one truth makes all Internet marketers day traders; a year is a “long term” plan, evergreen projects are another way of saying “never” and you are only as good as your last trade. Plan your work and work you plan, but understand and react to the Internet’s constant NOW, don’t be fooled by history’s seductive call and recreate your plan as many times and in as many ways as is needed. HINT: No matter how many times you reinvent, modify and change your Internet marketing plan it isn’t enough by half.

The most relevant experience of my life came early. When we lived in Dallas my parents converted our two-car garage into a playroom for my brother, sister and me. I loved to play with wooden building blocks so much my mother built in two large cabinets with large wooden dump bins on rollers full of blocks. I could roll my blocks out, build all day, destroy what I built and roll the blocks back into their cupboard at night. Sometimes I worked on building large abstract cities for several days. We might leave those up for a day or two before knocking everything down and tossing the blocks back into their bins. I’ve created thousands of Internet marketing campaigns, hundreds of sites and made million of online dollars for my employers. Almost everything I’ve built over the last fifteen years of Internet marketing shares one common trait – they’ve all been knocked down, thrown into the Internet archive’s bin and rolled into the cupboard. This, as Michael Corleone said, is the business we’ve chosen. The next time a senior manager asks for a five year plan share this post. If, after reading How To Create Marketing Plans In Uncertain Times, they still want a five year plan RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Picture above is of Claus Oldenberg's FREE next to Cleveland's City Hall. 

Books To Read BEFORE creating An Internet Marketing Plan
How by Dov Siedman
Purple Cow by Seth Godin
Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe
The Mesh by Lisa Gansky
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Internet Marketing - Platforms vs. Websites

Platforms vs. Websites – Why Platforms Win
My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t breathe for a minute. Panic set in. Staring at these figures made me realize a key Web 2.0 fact – no matter how much content we were or would be creating it wasn’t going to be enough. A simple Google command led to these astonishing results. The command was:

Site:Amazon.com returning over 300,000,000 pages in Google

I was doing research for a electronic gift site. Here are some other astonishing results:

Site: Etsy.com returns 50,000,000 pages then (88,000,0000 now)
Site: RedEnvelope.com returns 7,000 pages in Google


My consulting advice was to NOT create a web site. The time for web sites is over. Web sites are too closed loop and proprietary. Web sites usually have a group of content creators who dutifully publish content as fast as they can go. Problem is no matter how fast a team of ten or even twenty creates content a platform designed to incorporate and reward user generated content (UGC), also known as a crowdsourced mob, wins every time.

Platforms are built on Web 2.0’s guiding principles including the three most important Internet marketing words: content, content and content. Amazon will probably be the first content marketing platform with a billion pages in Google. A billion pages means Amazon exists in a separate search engine marketing galaxy. Amazon is hundreds of times bigger than Walmart, the largest retailer on the planet. Amazon's platform is built for speed, user generated content (UGC) and potentially the most sophisticated content creation algorithms built for search engines ever devised.

Amazon’s buy, sell, hold content marketing model is so sophisticated they know when to insert PPC ads, divide existing content into smaller yet distinct bites and ways to please Google’s algorithm like no marketing team ever. Trying to be Amazon may be fruitless, but learning from Amazon's platforms beat websites lessons can be powerful. Amazon’s lessons include:

• UGC is KING
•  Social Rewards Are Important
•  Subdivide and then subdivide again, and again, and again
•  Faster, always faster

User Generated Content is King
Amazon has changed the 1:10:89 rule (1% of visitors contribute content, 10% will vote on content created by the 1% and 89% form the audience for the 11%) by a system of sophisticated social recognitions and awards. Content creators fight to enter Amazon’s 1,000 top reviewer ranks. The scale of Amazon’s thinking knocks my Internet marketing socks off. Instead of a Top 10 or even Top 100 review program Amazon knew they needed massive scale. Amazon thought LARGE and IN CHARGE and so should you.

Social Rewards Are Important
Amazon continues to tweak design, page layout and content presentation. Some tweaks help sell things while others help reward contributors. Amazon understands contributors work for SOCIAL rewards such as making sure their reviews are seen and valued. Amazon’s “was this review helpful” or “review the reviewer” is important to social rewards. Writers feel valued by peers and Amazon can identify exceptional contributors (good or bad) quickly.

Subdivide Again
Amazon’s content isn’t duplicated as much as subdivided and then mashed up. Google hates duplicate content so Amazon doesn't copy they blend. Ever notice how Amazon has a page dedicated to the subject or author you are looking for? These “landing pages” are built for search engine keywords when those keywords show enough gold to afford the mining. Amazon knows how to play the content shell game like Internet marketing geniuses. Content snippets are extracted, blended with other snippets, stirred vigorously and well and then viola a new page emerges on Amazon’s trek to a billion pages. The speed of Amazon’s content creation means sophisticated algorithms are at work, but you can take their mix and match lesson to heart. The hidden magic of tools such as PowerReviews is as an aid to this most important Internet marketing content mix and match shell game.

Faster, Always Faster
Network content marketing has its own velocity - FAST. Events happen, bloom to maturity and die in hours now. It might seem Amazon’s bulk is in opposition to the need for content marketing speed. Bulk provides speed of response. No matter what happens Amazon either already has a page or can easily subdivide a page out of existing content. If the Brooklyn Bridge falls down tomorrow Amazon will have a landing page with books on disasters, the bridge’s history (great book by David McCullough) and art related to the famous bridge. Amazon’s content bulk means they are prepared to respond FAST and rank on Google first page even for a new keyword storm such as “Brooklyn Bridge Collapses” before your site can inventory related content. Content bulk creates speed of response.

Platforms Are Different
Creating a content marketing platform means less control. Platforms need more management based on exception reporting. Set up business rules to alert when something is on TILT in your content garden’s north forty and then let go. Letting go will be the hardest lesson for many Internet marketers. Here is some depressing good news – you don’t have a choice. No matter how much content you create on your web site it isn’t enough by half. No matter how fast you are responding it isn’t fast enough. Yes, this is one of those blow it up and start again moments (keeping in mind NEVER to remove indexed content see: Internet Marketing Relativity 2 for why). Blow up your website vision and replace with platform thinking. Moving from web site creation to developing fast content generating machines should be every Internet marketer’s obsession because Platforms beat Websites.

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Cancer Samurai Logo Design Contest

Go To Cancer Samurai Logo Contest on 99Designs

Notes from the Design Brief on 99Designs:

Why Cancer Samurai?
Everyone fights for beliefs, passions and loves. Cancer patients may seem accepting. We are NOT! Cancer treatments wear us out and beat us down, but every cancer patient is fighting for life. Fighting for life brings a Samurai-like coda that includes:

• telling the truth
• valuing experience
• loving friends and family immediately and well 
• summoning courage you didn't know you had 
• learning to ask for help (cancer is a team sport)
• honoring strangers fighting to save your life (and anyone else)
• creating justice (righting wrongs)
• looking for ways to serve and be humble (even and perhaps especially if this is not a natural or well practiced trait).

Cancer Samurai is about hidden trails, secret strengths, evident courage and a guiding loving way. The Cancer Samurai logo should capture the fighting spirit cancer patients, their friends and family share daily. This is an eastern "fighting", a quiet, strong relentless fight that is its own reward. Every cancer patients fight is won. We win by getting up, aspiring and living. We win by being.


How do we capture the Bushido warrior grace of those fighting cancer, their friends and families and the strangers who are bent over microscopes and computers trying to defeat an old enemy? How do we create an emblem, a symbol of our universal fight for love, magic, courage and honor?

I wrote a post recently about Why We All Have Cancer sharing important ideas for the Cancer Samurai logo. Chances of facing a cancer challenge in a lifetime are roughly 1 in 2 (men) and 1 in 3 (women). If 50% will face a cancer challenge directly the other 50% are their caregivers, friends and families so everyone is a Cancer Samurai some are more aware of it than others :). The key design point is the logo needs to speak a universal language. It can't be seen as exclusive to cancer. Young, old, man, woman, rich, poor and fearless or fearful don't matter. We are all Cancer Samurai.

My vision for the use of the Cancer Samurai logo is still forming, but there are two clear immediate uses: products and as a trust mark. We will immediately develop ready-to-wear products (t-shirts, polos, caps, jackets, socks, shoes) seeking partnerships and licensing to extend product reach. We will also use the logo to identify "cancer products" such as toasters (important during chemo because toast is the only thing you can eat), Swifters (easier to clean when no energy) and outstanding supporters (Cancer Samurai of the Week awards to outstanding people, organizations or companies).

Fighting vs. Quiet
The rough example I've attached shows a Samurai in aggressive warrior stance with a sword. I like the idea of this image better than its reality. Cancer is the fight of your life, but you can't win with brute strength. Winning requires changing your life's patterns, ideas and habits. Winning requires letting go of the idea of winning. I think this is why I've selected Cancer Samurai as the "house" brand for the Cure Cancer Store (please LIKE Cure Cancer Store on Facebook).  I want our products to speak to the courage it takes to fight differently, to fight even when there may be no "winning" or nothing we would have identified as "winning" before cancer. There is a bold, quiet majesty in a chemotherapy ward. There are Samurai there. You can feel it.

I realize I've created inherent design contradictions. Cancer Samurai is a logo that splits large differences such as quiet yet strong, fighting yet loving, bold yet humble and wise yet curious. Cancer survivors know life is a graceful and delicate balance between opposing forces. This is a universal truth, a truth we all know, but cancer survivors feel life's contradictions up front, in the moment. Life is here, but its opposing force is near too. If, when someone sees the Cancer Samurai logo, they feel strong even if they were sure their last ounce of strength and courage were long gone then we've done our jobs. Then we are Cancer Samurai.

Enter the Cancer Samurai Logo Design Contest on 99Designs or tell you left brain creative friends. 

Thanks, Martin

---
Martin Smith
Cancer Survivor
Founder, Cure Cancer Store (coming soon and now on Facebook)
Founder, Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer
@ScentTrail
@MobRiff

Internet Marketing Relativity Part 2

Internet Marketing is a different marketing environment creating new “laws” marketers ignore at their peril. This is the second installment of Internet Marketing Relativity with laws 4, 5 and 6.


New Internet Marketing Relativity Law #4:
Networks are only ever “add to” environments. Never remove or dramatically change content already indexed by Google unless regular change is part of the page’s history (such as reviews on product pages).

New Internet Marketing Law #1: No Absolutes means you can’t know fully and completely how anything relates to anything else. How Google’s 200 algorithm triggers see and understand your website is an organic thing – it changes moment to moment. Even if Google wanted to share insider information on your site, business category or campaigns they can’t and won’t. Network content marketing has too many variables to be understood in a 2 + 2 = 4 way. Modeling, experimentation and testing are the only “true things” when marketing in a network environment.

“What if we make a mistake,” I can hear my audience asking. Mistakes happen. Don’t compound your mistake by removing substantial content Google has already grabbed. You can fix spelling and grammar problems without knocking Google’s all knowing, all seeing “spider” for a loop, but never substantially change a page indexed in Google. There are ways to remove a page from Google, but I wouldn’t remove any page until it is decayed to zero (or as close to zero as you will get).

“Decay to zero” means Google’s PageRank has moved to zero (if it wasn’t already there) and any inbound links to the page (yours or from other sites) have been redirected with a 301 redirect (never use a 302 temporary as this is spam bait) or changed at their source. “Change at their source” means you contacted the site linking to the page, alerted them to your change and asked them to change their code to reflect the new location. If this sounds like a lot of work then you understand law #4.

You may be wondering about simply redirecting the page. I wouldn’t because any redirection of an indexed page to a new page with different content looks like you are trying to pirate the PageRank something Google considers “spamming”. Google doesn’t or can’t tell the difference between stupid mistakes and a black hat attempt to spam the index (gain top listings when they aren’t deserved or earned according to Google’s many stated and unstated organic listing laws). Ignorance of the law doesn’t work any better with Google than with State Troopers. Best to keep your Internet marketing efforts well within the posted limits. If you don’t know about or understand the many unstated ruling codas hire someone who does because this is a case where what you don’t know can kill your web site and Internet marketing efforts.

Google is almost exclusively an additive marketing environment. Once a page is in the Google index change it at your peril. Any substantial change may topple an unseen house of cards. Optimization is possible, but should be undertaken carefully, in small steps and with a “Do No Harm” Hippocratic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) oath.

New Internet Marketing Relativity Law #5: 
Time and Behavior are linked in a networked marketing environment.

This law can be confusing. We discussed how simultaneous events are not necessarily related events inside of Internet/Time in New Internet Marketing Law #2. Google’s algorithm models the networked world. If you have pages on the web you are part of Google’s model. Once web assets (blog, site, social network pages) are indexed they must act within an acceptable range of their modeled behavior. Dramatic deviation makes Google’s math want to know why. The explanation may be innocent, but dramatic moves aren’t good. Google’s investigation means “editors” may be looking at your site trying to determine why you showed up in an “exception report”.

Once humans are involved interpretation enters and who knows what will happen. You may think you are well within Google's stated guidelines. The sad and disturbing thing is what you think doesn’t matter. Your honest efforts don’t matter. The only thing that does matter is what Google’s editor determines. You may or may not get much feedback and you will never get “how to fix” instructions. Google may refer you to a group of “approved” fixers such as Bruce Clay and you may eventually recover, but expect to spend lots of time and money.

This rule doesn’t say NOT to do unexpected and new things that make your web traffic skyrocket since such a result should be the goal of all Internet marketing. Law #5 says when planning campaigns that deviate from your norms do so with a firm understanding of Google’s stated and unstated rules, so make sure you:

• Have the serving power to handle the surge since slow = dead as far as Google is concern
• Watch inbound links carefully. If you see a spam attack (thousands of shoddy links from bad neighborhoods usually originating in a rogue state) report these links immediately using Google’s anti-spam report within Web Master Tools). Be aware when you’ve done something great you’ve increased traffic to a point where an unscrupulous entity may try to sneak in and do some damage to the way Google views your site
• Wear belts and suspenders meaning be extra careful with basic Google rules such as organic keyword density in your copy, not spamming alt text, keeping titles unique and non-spam and eliminate duplicate content with judicious use of canonical URLs. If any part of the last sentence reads like Latin HIRE SOME ONE who understands these concepts.

Note: The New Google Math Always Wins
Google knows everything you own, do and are thinking of doing. At a recent conference someone was saying, “Micro-sites are the answer.” Spoken like someone who has never created mirco-sites, sites designed to capture a handful of keywords. I’ve created micro-sites and, with limited exception, I would not recommend this tactic. Your 2nd site isn’t 2x the work of your main site it is more like square the amount of work. Driving traffic to one site is hard enough.

If you think you will game Google think again. What you do and how you do it is so well modeled it is an online fingerprint. Exporting that fingerprint to a new URL location even on a new IP block doesn’t change Google’s algorithm’s ability to catch what you are doing and potentially devalue the jewel in your crown (the site you are trying to drive all that micro-site juice toward). The math always wins. Don’t even try on a grey hat because the costs are far greater than any benefit. Spend the time you would spend creating micro-sites making your core selling proposition and products better. Always wearing a white hat brings us to New Internet Marketing Law #6.

New Internet Marketing Relativity Law #6: 
Its not YOUR web site it is OUR site.

The idea of the web as a large common with many keepers will be tough for my American Internet marketing friends. Americans like to own things. Anything that remotely smacks of “community” sounds socialistic and therefore opposed to Americas rugged individualism. Networks exist in some new dimension. They are emergent like a bee’s hive or ant colonies. The sum of our networked parts is greater than the whole of our parts considered individually. Some portion of what you create (or “own”) contributes to the Internet’s social commons. The web isn’t your exclusive domain. If your published content is overly self serving you will be talking to yourself about yourself and conversions will tumble. Successful content marketing on networks requires broad interpretation about what business you are in, a non proprietary curatorial approach and a willingness to share first and convert second.

Martin Note: Sometimes The Best Online Sales Idea Is Not Selling
I’ve been selling one thing or another since Vassar graduation in 1980. I love selling, but I’ve always viewed salesmanship as service more than manipulation. Understanding how any direct sales effort hurt our Internet marketing goals was one of my hardest realizations as a Director of Ecommerce. Our site could have a voice, but our voice had to be one of many. We created a “buzz team” to add a Greek chorus to our Internet marketing. Slowly it dawned on us (my team of three) how our roles were changing. Our most effective sales ideas were changes to our approach. We needed to create a platform where customers felt safe to contribute and interact with each other and us. In fact, we created a new Internet marketing equation to guide our efforts – the 1 to 3 rule.

The 1 to 3 rule set our talking proportion at 1 part for every 3 parts listening or curating. When our product copy was the only copy on a product’s page we asked five or ten Buzz Team members to try the product and write reviews. We never wanted to have the ONLY voice on our product pages since that was the definition of talking to ourselves about ourselves (hard to make sales or conversions that way). Our job was to create tools so our customers could sell each other, to referee the environment keeping it within clearly stated guidelines and value every contribution.

We also used Yahoo’s 1:10:89 rule. We recognized that 1% of visitors would contribute content (of some kind), 10% would readily vote on content created by us or the 1% and 89% would ride quietly but importantly along providing the audience for our Internet marketing play.


Internet Marketing Relativity Summary
Internet marketing is moments after its Big Bang. We are a long way from understanding all the new laws of marketing in a content network world, but some things are clear such as:

•  There are no absolutes
•  2 + 2 = 4 doesn’t apply inside of networks
•  Modeling is the only way to interpret Internet marketing
•  All modeling is relative to who, how and why variance
•  Internet Marketing uncertainty principle says you can’t know what you don’t know

• Events that seem simultaneous may or may not be
•  Marketing in a networked environment changes time
•  Time exists as a constant NOW and
• Google never forgets so a constant THEN

• Google is an exclusive additive environment, removing indexed content is not a good idea
• In a modeled network marketing environment dramatic change must carefully created or fully vetted (or both)
• It isn’t YOUR web site it is OUR web site
• Contribute to the social common
• Don’t be overly self serving
• Think about your business broadly
• Curate relevant information with a non proprietary approach

There are more “Laws” to our new Internet marketing physics. As they become apparent I will add more pages on ScentTrail Marketing. If you have ideas for New Internet Marketing Relativity Laws please share or let me know if you would like to be a ScentTrail Marketing guest blogger.

Links
Internet Marketing Relativity Part 1

Interesting discussion about brands and Silicone Valley Brand forum on Stevelogy blog

New Internet Marketing Relativity

All attribution is correct. This was a light bulb moment I had driving home to Durham from Content Marketing World in Cleveland listening to Walter Isaacson’s “Einstein: His life and universe”.  I realized Internet marketing in the age of Moore’s Law, Google and Facebook is controlled by a new physics, a new paradigm.

Internet marketers, myself included, try to fit new Internet marketing into an old geometry. Direct marketers think about Recency, Frequency and Monetary (RFM). Internet marketers think about campaigns, unique visitors, conversion funnels and dollars per visitor (among other Key Performance Indicators or KPI’s), Every metrics approach shares a common flaw- they are founded in a world of absolute determinism. They believe if we dive deep enough, look long enough or construct complicated enough algorithms we can understand the Internet’s NOW and predict our marketing future. We are asking the wrong questions in the wrong way. Instead of an absolute Internet marketing determinism maybe we are all Einstein’s children.

Why We Are Einstein’s Children
Einstein’s many discoveries so influenced our fast, furious and globally connected world it seems appropriate to steal a few ideas and see how they fit a new web marketing metrics. Old marketing analysis fails in a network-marketing world because of:

• Speed
• Attribution
• No Failures Rule
• Friends of Friends

Speed And Internet Time
Einstein wrapped space and time together in an inseparable fabric called Space/Time. Displace Space/Time as planets do and gravity makes sense. Tracking how light is bent during an eclipse proved Einstein’s universe making Albert a physics rock star in the 1920’s.

Displacement happens on the web too. Scale Free, networks a term created by Notre Dame network researcher and author of Linked: How everything is related to everything else Albert-laszlo Barabasi, describes how all networks tend toward hubs as a result of “proprietary linking”. The Rich Get Richer is another way of understanding “proprietary linking”. Amazon has over 300 million pages in Google due to proprietary linking and a deep understanding of how a networked economy functions. Many large competitors such as Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, barely have more than a million pages in Google. Amazon’s dominance is dramatic demonstration of the advantage of content marketing networks and a reminder why platforms capable of generating User Generated Content (UGC) beat their much more static web site cousins (beat the pants off of web sites wouldn’t be an overstatement). Amazon also dramatically demonstrates the first of a handful of new Internet marketing laws or relativity:

New Internet Marketing Relativity Law #1:
There are no absolutes. Internet marketing is relative to who is observing it when and how.

Internet or network time is not the same as clock time. There is always more happening online than we can ever know. Things happen faster and different online. Our linear always moving forward idea of time may hamper our ability to understand Internet New Marketing Law #2.

New Internet Marketing Relativity Law #2:
In a networked marketing environment events that appear simultaneous may not be.

Dropping a well-crafted email with an attention getting subject line increases conversions on most web sites. Cause and effect seem clear, but some conversions assigned to the recently dropped, brilliant email will be unrelated. False attribution happens because we apply linear time in a nonlinear network environment. In a network marketing environments there is a distinct and constant NOW coupled to a giant elephant’s never forget memory (Google) creating a constant THEN too. Keeping two such seemingly contradictory ideas in mind can cause dissonance or confusion, but Internet time is faster and different than human time.

People are messy. People traveling across content networks are VERY messy. Your customers see your paid ads on Google (PPC), receive your catalog (direct mail), heard about your offer from a friend on Twitter (friends), may hear about it again from a friend of a friend (friend of friends) and type your URL directly into Google choosing to click on your site’s organic (nonpaid) listing. When they buy where do you attribute the sale or conversion? Even the most sophisticated web metric attribution algorithms can’t clean up the mess. Internet Marketing’s Uncertainty Principle states when you look and how you look changes the results. Looking, as it did for Heisenberg, changes the results.

Einstein created a thought experiment to help realize the relativity of human perception. A man sitting on a hill sees two lightening strikes on either side as simultaneous, but a man on a train directly in front of the same man (the one on the hill) sees one (the one closer to the speeding train) and then the other. If lightening strikes are relative to our position and movement so is any analysis of Internet marketing bringing us to Internet New Marketing Law #3.

New Internet Marketing Relativity Law#3:
The only "failure" in Internet marketing is doing nothing.

Some Internet marketing may appear to drive more traffic, conversion and other positive web metrics. Internet marketing relativity means we may be looking at a small thing standing on the shoulders of an unseen big thing, a small person standing on the shoulders of a giant.

All Internet marketing campaigns are important even, and possibly especially, outright “failures”, Failures may be contributing in ways we will never see, know or appreciate. The web is too complicated and quick moving to know, analyze or include every influential element. No matter how good your metrics the Internet Marketing Uncertainty Principle applies – you don’t know what you don’t know and may never.

In a network marketing world the only true failure is doing nothing. Networks either grow or fade. Some forces withing the Internet such as Google algorithm changes, competition and decay erode content value similar to how inflation reduces money’s buying power, or water erodes stone leading us to New Internet Marketing Law#4....

Look for the conclusion of Internet Marketing Relativity on ScentTrail on Technorati on Saturday. Please share new rules of Internet marketing you've discovered in comments or email to MartinSellingZoe(at)aol. If you would like to be a guest ScentTrail Marketing blogger that would be great. Send an email to my aol address and we can work out details for your guest post.

Related Links:
ScentTrail on Twitter


ScentTrail on Technorati

Moore's Law on Wikipedia

Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography on Amazon (great listening to this, thanks John)

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Cure Cancer Store now on Facebook

Cure Cancer Store Facebook Page
Ever work on something so long you aren't sure if it will ever get done? My friends and I have been working on the Cure Cancer Store for what seems like a long time (about a year). Projects, especially big technically complicated projects, always take more time and money than you think, realize or plan. If we were climbing Mt. Everest we've arrived at the bottom of the Hillary steps, the final steps before being on top of the world.

Creating A New Kind of Ecommerce
The Cure Cancer Store is a new kind of electronic commerce one we've named "Shopping to cure cancer." Shopping to cure cancer means doing what online shoppers already love - shopping online stores they trust. When shoppers start their online shopping journey at the Cure Cancer Store we get to Robin Hood cash from leading online retailers to help cure cancer. Cost to shoppers $0.00. Potential Benefits: HUGE. Fun: Lots. Community: Absolutely. Sharing: Tons.

Despite our vantage point looking up at the summit we can't make our final steps without help from thousands and maybe millions of people. The Cure Cancer Store is almost ready AND we are close to curing cancer in our lifetime (read my Thoughts On Curing Cancer describing the UPenn's breakthrough research on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia or CLL). Now is the time to double down.

We need your support, here's how:

• Like the Cure Cancer Store page on Facebook
• Alert Friends
• Post Cure Cancer Store Facebook Page links on your Facebook or Twitter pages
• Grab The Cure Cancer Store LIKE Banner (below and on Flickr) and include on your blog or on social networks
• "Stumble ON" the Cure Cancer Store on Facebook page
• Ask your friends to tell their friends
• If you are a blogger please build links to the Cure Cancer Store page on Facebook since "linklove" will be important to getting a running start
• If you know people in influential positions in the press or at work, tell them about the Cure Cancer Store idea
• If you area an artist, watch for our "Artists Cure Cancer" contest starting in October and ending on Christmas (as a warm up to our launch)
• Follow the Cure Cancer Store on Twitter 
• We will have a "Free Stuff For Cancer Patients" section where I'm donating all my audiobooks and CD's, if you want to donate email MartinSellingZoe(at)aol
• Other things we missed

Special Thanks
Many climbers arrive at these last summit steps and have to go back down the mountain. Others are able to make the last steps to the top of the world. My team of volunteers including Eric and Cynthia Garrison and Erica at World Trade Solutions (creating the store), Derick Thompson at DailyDigital, Red Maxwell at OnRamp Branding, Bill Bing and Mitesh Patel at Loyalese, Doug Kaufman at Spring Metrics, Alan Fitzpatrick at mailVU, Phil Buckley and the Bomerang Society at CapStrat, Karen Cochran (and many others) at the Duke Cancer Institute, Brooke and Dr. van Deventer at UNC, friends and former teammates at Sinclair (Peggy, Kathy, Heather, John) and friends from Choate and Vassar have been beyond helpful. We've had to slay dragons and weather considerable storms, but we are approaching an important finish line - launching a store dedicated to helping cancer patients whose mission is to Robin Hood cash from online retailers to help cure cancer.


We couldn't have gotten this far without a lot of help. We can't get to the top of the world without more. Please contribute ideas, linklove, follows and LIKEs and we will be sure you know the latest Cure Cancer Store news.

Thanks and with all my heart, passion and love,

Martin Smith
Cancer Survivor
Founder, Cure Cancer Store (now on Facebook)
Founder, Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer
Founder, NeoGoGo
on LinkedIn

Cause Marketing - A New Product Dimension

Thirty years ago P&G taught me to sell based on features. A product’s features were things such as case pack, unique selling proposition, how green it is (though “green” wasn’t an issue back in the day) and where (and how) it worked. We were taught how to tell a story albeit a very quick one since we were usually standing in a grocery aisle talking to a Store Manager who was doing something else or about to be doing something else.

I continue to use P&G’s presentation outline:

1. Summarize the situation (make the business case)
2. State the Idea (what you want your buyer to do, be specific)
3. Explain how it works and provide at least 2 choices (we can put the 10 case Bounce display by the Downey or in Aisle 4)
4. Provide The Benefits (only 2 make or save money)

Many presenters at Content Marketing World last week could benefit from such simple structure and better PowerPoint (Read Seth Godin’s rant against bad PowerPoint). The irony of being at a conference about storytelling without many stories being told didn’t escape me. People who told great stories such as Sally Hogshead, God's storyteller Regina Brett and the Content Marketing Institute's Strategist In Residence Robert Rose stood out. People with 300 words on 20 slides have long since been forgotten. The conference was excellent and the topic of content marketing can't be hotter. Sitting in one bad PowerPoint presentation, my mind starting working on a familiar problem – is cause marketing a new product dimension.

We tend to sell products based on logic. Stories and emotional are important, but few ecommerce web sites tell great stories. Most write logical specifications heavy prose. Emotion and stories come from product reviews. There is NOTHING wrong with this perspective. If you don't have gifted copywriters on staff customer reviews can take up slack, but you may be missing a new and valuable product copy dimension - Cause Marketing.

• Product Copy Dimensions: Logical
• Specifications
• Pricing & Deals
• Shipping
• Instructions
• Guarantee Info and Return Instructions
• Story (or description)

• Product Copy Dimensions: Emotional 
• Story (or description)
• Customer Reviews
• Guru and Staff Reviews
• Awards
• Social Network Presence
• Video (will be cost of ecommerce poker soon)
• Loyalty (rewarding existing customers is about to be very important)
• CAUSES

We Buy With Emotion
Thirty years ago Russ Mills, my first P&G boss, told me, “People buy with emotion and justify with logic.” I’ve seen the truth of this statement many times over thirty years marketing everything from bar soap to Magnetic Poetry Kit. Futurologist Faith Popcorn echoed this idea with “People don’t BUY brands the JOIN them.”



Product logic is easier to write than emotional stories; so most ecommerce merchants keep product copy neutral. I wrote about why companies need storytelling and connection skills from not-for-profits and nonprofits need search engine expertise from the for profit crowd in 5 Secret Social Media Marketing Trends.  Some companies such as P&G's Mr. Clean are telling stories:

Brighten up your home by helping to renew its surfaces. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Original will help your walls, baseboards, floors, switch plates, blinds and more look like new again by easily removing scuff marks and dirt. To discover the cleaning possibilities, simply take a swipe. Its water-activated micro-scrubbers reach into the surface grooves, lifting away built up grease and soap scum. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Original is so powerful that each swipe removes more grime than the leading all-purpose spray cleaner, and it has no harsh chemicals. Before long, you’ll be back to the things you love best in a brighter, cleaner space.

Here is some great, emotional cause marketing copy from Tide Loads of Hope

Our hearts go out to the South.

Tide Loads of Hope is deeply saddened by the devastation from the storms that have swept across the nation in recent weeks. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected, their families and friends.

We just finished helping the state of North Carolina doing over 2500loads of laundry for families affected there and are currently setting up our truck in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where we will be offering FREE full-service laundry for all families affected by the Tornado last week.

How does the good product copy for Mr. Clean change after reading about Tide Loads of Hope? Killing soap scum is a valid challenge as customer reviews on the Mr. Clean page illustrate:

"I had tables at my church that had been covered with perminant marker and nothing would make the stains budge. As soon as I started using the mr. clean magic eraser the marker began to disappear almost instantly. This product is great on cleaning shoes, floors, counters, I've even used it on my guitars. I highly recommend this product. Thanks Mr. Clean"

Benjamin ,
Toledo, Ohio

 ###

"So I used to use nylon scrub pads to clean the soap scum off my tub and shower walls. It was a lot of work, slow going, and I had given up cleaning the textured tub floor. This was after using scrub pads, brushes and various cleaners, liquid and powdered, with and without bleach.

Then I had remembered we had bought some Magic Erasers that were still on a shelf in the garage. Okay, I'll try them.

When I first opened them, I thought wow, what's this light, airy almost nothing feeling pad going to do that all those other "heavy duty" scrubbers couldn't. But then I used them. I was amazed at how it cleaned the tub and shower walls. The walls are now white again. The soap scum wiped off easily and it even cleaned the textured tub floor. It's now white again.

A previous review complained they fall apart with use. Yes, they seemed to be "consumed" as I used them. I used almost 3 cleaning my tub and shower walls (I had a lot to clean). What was left of the 3rd I tried on my kitchen sink and it really cleaned that as well. The brownish stain wiped right off. So much for abrasive powdered cleaners. That the Magic Erasers get consumed doesn't bother me at all given the cleaning power of these things. If it falls apart, you are scrubbing too hard. Let it do the work.

I still don't know how they work, I just know they work. It made my day how good the shower and tub look now. I will be exploring the other uses for the Magic Eraser.

I was going to post this on Facebook, but I thought this was too long for that, so I signed up here just so I could write this review. Take care."

Nubz ,
Austin, TX

 ###

"I have purchased every type of shower cleaner that I can think of to remove the shower scum in our bath/tub combination. Yesterday it hit me. I haven't tried the magic eraser! What an amazing little product!!

The shower is clean...finally and it took me only half the time of using other cleaners. I do wish that I had taken before and after photos. You could have based an entire commercial on my disgusting shower.

Thanks for providing such great products."

WorkingMom ,
Wilmington, NC

Is there anything BETTER than having two customers sell each other? Nubz in Austin defeats the “fall apart” objection better than any P&G product copy ever could. Note how complimentary P&G’s reviews are with their copy. Also note P&G didn't correct spelling errors. Spelling errors make reviews sound real instead of canned or paid. Reviews and copy are aligned, both talk about:

• Soap scum
• Better than spray
• Lists of where they work (counters, tables, etc… even guitars)_
• Easy (implied by P&G and confirmed by testimonials)

One of my favorite uses for product reviews is alignment. Marketers tend to speak a unique language that doesn't search engine market (SEM) very well. Better to grab keywords and ideas from customers actually using your products because doing so keeps your copy aligned with customers and Google.



Adding Cause Marketing
294 people feel strongly enough about Magic Erasers to write glowing reviews. Magic Erasers could create a new dimension of social support by taking a page from Tide Loads of Hope. As Sally Hogshead stated so conclusively at last week’s Content Marketing World – being best isn’t enough. Adding a Tide Loads of Hope dimension to Magic Erasers would quadruple the product’s already healthy buzz.

Want to see emotion? Read about current floods in the northeast on a fan page for Tide Loads of Hope begging for the truck to come north:

Tide Loads of Hope Fan Page

After reading about floods in the northeast I want to do something to help. Don’t you? How do you feel about Tide? Besides wanting them to have 10 trucks I want to be part of Tide's Tribe.




Cone Cause Evolution Study
Every few years the Cone Group asks consumers how important is it for their favorite brands to support important causes. The most recent study (2010) shows just how important thinking about your product or service in a wider context is:

• 88% of Americans say it is acceptable for companies to involve a cause or issue in their marketing, a 33% increase since Cone began measuring in 1993 (66%).
• 85% of consumers have a more positive image of a product or company when it supports a cause they care about.
• 90% of consumers want companies to share how they support causes.
• More than 278 million Americans want companies to support causes.

Anytime 278 million people want you to do something do it is a good general marketing rule. Why the strong growing trend (up 33% in 17 years)? Is cause marketing becoming more important because of social networks such as Facebook or the other way around? Who cares and it doesn’t matter. Jump in, find a good cause consistent with your brand (read my Cause Marketing Is On Technorati post for ideas on how to find a great cause) and appeal to what we buy with - our emotions. We will love you for it.

ScentTrail Social Media Marketing Exclusive on 9.14

Five Secret Social Media Marketing Trends
Finding exclusives was an often mentioned theme at Content Marketing World this week. Thanks to Derick Thompson and DailyDigital ScentTrail will have an exclusive first look at a new tool sure to make Internet marketers very happy - a way to create Return On Investment (ROI) from Facebook. I raced home from Cleveland to put finishing touches on the third social media marketing secret (How To Be A Social Media Juicer) and just sent a draft to Derick to make sure facts are correct.

Derick and the DailyDigital team heads west for Demo Days sponsored by Demo.com taking place from 9.12 to 9.14. Demo Days is where the big Venture Capital dogs get to sniff, look, try and decide what their money will support. DailyDigital will have roses thrown at their feet. DailyDigital solves a big business problem. Content creation costs are LARGE and IN CHARGE on any Profit and Loss (P&L) statement. Return on a company's content creation investment, the dreaded ROI, is not nearly so clear. As an Ecommerce Director my gut told me there were many hidden content marketing benefits to the work we did on social networks. CFO's don't want to know from "gut". They want numbers they can trust.

Creating a cool store inside of Facebook gives small publishers (like ScentTrail) the ability to merchandise and sell content for micro-payments. DialyDigital also gives ecommerce merchants an attractive way to move traffic out of social nets to sites they own making ROI easy to follow and clear. If you missed my Technorati profile of DailyDigital (Hope, Heroes and Startups: DailyDigital) you may want to take a look since you will want to signup for this cool new tool. Stay tuned for ScentTrail's first exclusive on 9.14 (on ScentTrail on Technorati).

Internet Net Marketing Trader

No Trend Is A Trend
Looking directly in the camera an already exhausted, sad man said, "There isn't a trend anymore we trade on the soup de jour." CNBC was interviewing a trader after yet another tough week. The VIX volatility index is high, trades are happening fast and without any clear reason. "Welcome to Internet marketing my option trading friend," I thought.


As David Meerman Scott author of Marketing Lessons From the Grateful Dead and Real Time Marketing and PR explained at Content Marketing World in Cleveland Internet marketing is about what is happening now. Scott began his career on the bond desk and boy did that turn out to be prescient. Internet marketing is functioning more and more like an active bond desk because:

• Google prizes content and judges content based on inbound links (other stuff too)
• Inbound links come pouring in when you are first on a trending topic
• News feeds and social networks mean it is easier to co-opt breaking news within you category
• The only time that ever matters online is NOW
• Legitimacy and brand presence grow with trend leadership
• Once the PR snowball is rolling down hill it gets bigger and bigger until media calls you looking for a quote (always a better way to interact with writers and editors)

Managing a multi-million dollar ecommerce web site as an Ecommerce Director I couldn't find the right analogy. I needed to explain the speed, creation, interpretation, action, feedback, action, keywords, campaigns and offers my team and I dealt with daily. Over the course of seven years speed went from fast to light speed. David's "trading desk Internet marketing" analogy perfectly describes what Internet content marketing is becoming.

Traders make money acting immediately on trending news. Mobriff launched on Twitter yesterday. Mobriff's mission is harness mob marketing trending power. If you feel, see or hear mob trends please tweet to @MobRiff or send email to MobRiff(at)Gmail.

Keep riffing.

Martin

Content Marketing World Where God Never Blinks

Sitting, exhausted, looking out at Cleveland's cityscape I'm thinking how Content Marketing World rocked the house today. If I can find ONE thing at a conference then money and time is well spent (especially when spending MY money and irreplaceable time LOL). Today's sessions were powerful, informative and entertaining. Seems appropriate Content Marketing World would rock the house in Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (if you go U23D is a MUST VIEW).

Here are just a few of today's magic moments:

Sally Hogshead gave one of the best How To presentations on marketing with archetypes I've ever seen and Jungian inspired marketing is an old passion. Sally's presentation has me wondering how to help 5019(c)3's like the Cure Cancer Store use her 7 Fascination Triggers:

• Power – Take Command like Warren Buffet
• Passion – Attract With Emotion like Apple
• Mystique – Arouse Curiosity and mystery like Dolce and Gabbana
• Prestige – Engender Respect and Aspiration like Tiffany
• Alarm – Create Urgency like any late night infomercial
• Rebellion – Be A Change Agent like Steve Jobs
• Trust – Build Loyalty Over Time like Amazon

Take Sally's fascinating F Brand Personality Test. No surprise I'm a Passionate Rebel and Sally was nice enough to Tweet me what that means:

@ScentTrail Here's what your Fascinate triggers mean: Passion + Rebellion = creative, optimistic, open-minded, curious, playful.

What's your brand personality? What's your F Score?

Content Marketing World's creator Joe Pulizzi's kick off was impressive. Content marketing is here Joe's stats prove:

• 600 attendees from 18 countries
• 65% of 600 attending conference have blogs
• 74% create content on social networks
• 52% create videos (watch for The Coming Internet Marketing Video Tsunami soon)
• 15% are ahead of the mobile marketing tsunami already creating content there
• 60% are increasing their content marketing budgets
• 60% aren't happy with the content marketing they are doing

Not sure I agree with Joe's assertion we don't have to make the business case for content marketing anymore. Wish it were so. Naysayers and content marketing deniers are out there using phrases such as, "what's the ROI", "don't have the resources" and "who cares".

Marcus Sheridan a.k.a. The Sales Lion cares. Marcus rocked the house with an impassioned story about content marketing saving his pool business. Marcus doesn't believe in keyword tools. He found his pot of gold with Q&A content. I AGREE. I wrote about the Hidden SEO Power of Q&A Content in July. The Sales Lion's testimonial has me redesigning NeoGoGo adding Q&A content. Wish I could lock naysayers and content marketing deniers in a room with Marcus' magnetic personality for an hour. They would leave as evangelical as Marcus.

God's Storyteller is surely Regina Brett a journalist from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Regina, a fellow cancer survivor, can tell a story. After Regina's NO POWERPOINT stories I know her entire family: her working class hero of a father, her cute and loving grandmother, and her growing grandchildren. I know Regina. She is my friend and fellow cancer survivor. We are friends despite never having met (yet). I bought a copy of Regina's book God Never Blinks. Anyone who tells stories so well tears welled more than once can teach me about writing, storytelling and life. Thanks Regina.

God may not blink, but I do. I'm more exhausted than some days on Martin's Ride To Cure Cancer (the non-mountain days LOL). I have several posts about Content Marketing World in queue for ScentTrail on Technorati (in fact my post on God's Storyteller was just published). Watch @ScentTrail for when they go live.

Thanks to everyone who is working so hard to make Content Marketing World a hit. Cancer changes you. As Regina pointed out so beautifully today, life isn't an infinite journey. I guard my time and money like a junkyard dog. Glad I came to Cleveland to spend time with some of the most creative, talented content marketers on the planet.

Thanks,

Martin Smith
Founder Cure Cancer Store (launching in January, 2012)
Content Marketing World
Cleveland, Ohio  

P.S. Regina I agree Newspapers like the Plain Dealer can't die as long as there are magical writers like you :).

Five Secret Social Media Marketing Trends

March 2013 Note: This post quickly became a "Most Popular ScentTrail" with 1100 views and great comments. It holds up well with many of these trends happening bigger and faster than a year ago. Marty

Social Media Marketing Secrets

Sat down, started writing Five Secret Social Media Marketing Trends and hit two thousand words before lunch (lol). My friends are laughing because they know my tendency for long posts. Instead of posting a single too long post each trend is now its own post.

5 Secret Trends #1: Profiteers and Not-For-Profiteers

Things were easier. Lines where clear, bold, understood and rarely pushed, blurred or obscured. Put a quarter in the machine and out came some not overly inspiring marketing. Who needed inspiration? It was easy to float few boats with a thimble of rain.

Then a hard social media marketing rain fell, and fell and fell.

Now thanks to Moore’s Law, Google and Facebook there are millions of boats all heading in different directions creating a huge boat scrum. Some boats float aimlessly with resigned apathy. “Our time is gone,” their mournful whistle blows. Others frantically search for a slip they will never find. Some have almost convincing false confidence. One thing is sure, as Oscar winning Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman famously quipped, “Nobody knows anything.”

Goldman’s quote was about the entertainment business. These days who knows where business, art, entertainment, profit, not-for-profit or anything begins or ends. One trend is LOUD and clear. Social Networks are messing with for profit companies' heads. “What we have to talk to them now,” you can almost hear from the WeDon’tUnderstand, Inc’s conference room. L. L. Bean, Google, Zappos, Apple and other great customer service companies know what to do with cool new social network tools - CONNECT.

Who can’t learn cool Internet marketing ideas from Apple, Google and Zappos?

If your company is playing in the social network marketing minors start small and steal from some GREAT but less intimidating not-for-profits. Not-for-profits, ironically, are perfectly positioned for Web 2.0’s desire for connection and story.

Story and connection is bread and butter for most not-for-profits. Missing the search engine marketing boat has been and will continue to be expensive for many 501(c)3’s, but story telling and connection are strengths. Companies should steal the following from their favorite not-for-profit:

• Video Storytelling
• Connection - the art of having others tell your story
• Story Telling through site architecture
• Story Telling with pictures
• Story Telling with powerful (and keyword dense) emotionally “live” testimonials
• Clear Calls To Action

5 Secret Trends #2: Video Storytelling

Captain John Sikes Salvation August 28th Army Video
I love this Salvation Army video. It is noisy, unpolished and unscripted. I love it. The video creates a feeling of inclusion. Viewers are being let in on something happening now. As you strain to hear you want to join, to become part of Captain John's mission.

I've worked for some of the best marketing companies on the planet (M&M/Mars, P&G and Monsanto / NutraSweet) and those companies would have a hard time making this video. I would have to tie most of the Brand Managers I've ever worked with to a chair to launch this "imperfect" but very real video.

After tying them to a chair I would explain this video is immediate and real. Immediate and real are online currency. Most marketers want to DO THINGS, SELL THINGS and PITCH THINGS (me included). Sometimes the best pitch, as Captain John demonstrates, is no pitch all.

Include me and I want to contribute.  Polishing this video is risky. Will a polished version feel as immediate and real? Will I feel as included? When excluded I don't feel a need to contribute. Our quid pro quo meters read the other way. Exclusion = we watched your ad now you owe us. Altruism is lost to the push.

Storytelling With Site Architecture: Salvation Army Homepage
Salvation Army's web designers are gifted. You may notice similarities to Apple's large hero site design (heroes are the largest image on a web page). Salvation Army isn't quite as design gifted as Apple, but they tell stories with site architecture.

Note the great story telling hero with clear calls to action (read more and donate now) to the right.  Area to the right of a large image is very "hot" meaning many eyes will go there so, like the Salvation Army, put important and clear calls to action there and in other "hot zones".

Immediately below the hero is another "hot zone". Notice how Apple has their main calls to action immediately below their HUGE and BEAUTIFUL hero.

5 Secret Trends #3: User Generated Content

Every company reading this post should STEAL THIS page:

RobinHood.org Be Robin Hood Page

RobinHood.org doesn't climb Everest alone. They make it easy to enlist an army of Sherpas.  Suggesting supporters include their embed code as part of their email signatures is social media marketing genius. What does this embed action accomplish? 

It magically moves RobinHood.org's communication into a million emails and costs nothing other than the request and setting up the page. Spam you might be thinking, but these are emails from your friends. RobinHood anticipates the objection creating artistic, creative communication around poverty factoids. Robin Hood creates ads that don't look like ads.

Why doesn't P&G or Pepsi have a similar page?

I can hear a Brand Manager worried about the liabilities of this kind of branded communication in someone else's email. Patiently I would tie the worried brand manager to a chair again and explain how WE control the code and the ability to change the creative.

"We would be spamming," I can hear the next objection. If we blasted specials, coupons or promotional stuff my anonymous brand manager tied to his or her chair would be correct. The smart move would is to riff cause marketing such as Tide Loads of Hope (P&G) or Refresh Everything (Pepsi).

Driving traffic to a landing page for cause marketing means P&G or Pepsi wouldn't be spamming promotional messages in friends of friends emails. The astronomical and low cost search (SEO) benefits of so much properly coded traffic coming from so many locations is huge. Co-opting people's email signatures with special creative in support of cause marketing is one of the most creative Internet marketing ideas I've seen in a long time!

Great job RobinHood.org. Every one reading this post in a position of authority on any site should STEAL THIS.

5 Secret Trends #4: Tell Stories with Pictures

LiveStrong does a great job of telling stories with pictures. The homepage image (the first one in their rotation) doesn't use the space or its hero (Lance) great, but it isn't bad. A couple of things to keep in mind about images. Your viewers will follow sight lines of people in your pictures. Visitors eyes go where people in your pictures are looking (** note: this post was written before Lance was in so much trouble).



This is why I like images that stare straight at the viewer. Eye lines in images such as the boy above aren't an issue. Pictures like the boy are looking at YOU the visitor. If people in your pictures look off camera make sure you plant something important where their sight line stops. Keep the "hot zone" immediately below and to the right of images in mind when designing too. Use those areas wisely. This is what I don't like about the current LiveStrong's homepage starting image. There are too many people with confusing sight lines and no clear hot zone.

5 Secret Trends #5: Tell Stories with Testimonials

James Noble is a lawyer not a nonprofit, but I love his testimonial:

"I am a convicted felon with an extensive criminal history.  I had just been arrested for a felony that could have potentially landed me 6 years in prison.  I had already been through a Public Defender and another paid counsel.  I was beginning to feel hopeless and was exhausting tons of money because no one would listen to me.   

Mr. Nobles listened, he really listened to me and he didn't presume my guilt.  He followed through on my ideas and thoughts and I ended up with no prison time and a little probation.  He communicated with me every step of the way and never made me feel indifferent.  I will continue to use him for any situations and refer him to everyone."  — ASM

That is a magical testimonial. It tells a story with a clear hero - James Noble. James Noble understands an important Internet marketing idea. Tell your story and no one cares, have others tell your story and everyone may care.

Not-For-Profits Need Ecommerce Skills

Being a great story teller without an audience is like putting on a play in an empty theater. You remember your lines and can go through the paces, but without an audience why bother? Unlike their ecommerce cousins, most not-for-profits missed the new rules of search engine marketing 7 SEO.

First rule is Google is KING, second rule when in doubt refer to rule #1.

Even the most powerful online not-for-profits have a small passel of pages in Google compared to ecommerce giants such as Amazon (over 800,000,000) or Walmart (well over a million). If you are a not-for-profit with great story telling and connection skills in need of a larger audience steal some of these ideas from pirate profiteers:

• Learn User Generated Content curation from Amazon, Etsy.com or Facebook. If you want to start small add reviews or comments (see review note about why reviews are so important).

• Learn great email marketing tips from Bronto in Durham.

• Create and host cool competitions for social good with back end software from Convio Software.

• Learn how to create great social media marketing campaigns from OXO, Sharpie or REI.

• Learn content marketing and mashup skills from Amazon (platforms beat web sites), Etsy.com, TechCrunch, Mashable, Huffington Post and the New York Times. Note how important comments are becoming. 

• Learn voice skills from the BoingBoing.net, Woot.com, NewYorker.com, Slate or Rolling Stone.

• Learn how to manage the paradox of too much choice with simple, clean user interface design such as Google. Use Occam's Razor liberally and remember you can always cut more.

Internet and Social Media Marketing Not A Salad

Despite seeming to suggest stealing food from many plates Internet marketing isn’t a salad. You can’t take a crouton from here, a carrot from there and dressing from over at the other table. Borrow from too many plates and you just make a mess. Find one mentor, some ecommerce or content marketing site that fits your brand like a glove and then steal everything.

I mean STEAL IT. First iterations never really count, so steal them blind. Your second, third and fifth iteration will spin words, designs and approaches back your way. You, your site and your cause will benefit from being a thief for a little bit. Don't forget Google's memory is forever. If you have pages in Google ADD TO THEM never take things AWAY from Google.

Special Note: Importance of Reviews for Not-for-profits

Reviews seem product focused so most not-for-profits don’t think reviews have a place in their content marketing. They are wrong. Reviews have many benefits including:

• Helps with Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Know what customers think - better being on your site
• Facebook's LIKE button 

Reviews bring feedback to your site instead of pushing it out to the growing number of review mashup sites such as Yelp.com. If bad things are being said better to have them on your site, but, as Bazaar Voice taught me, most reviews are positive. Positive reviews help shape marketing with real world feedback. It is easier to respond to flames (negative comments) when you know about them. The fact someone shared anger or upset with you is a sign of earned trust, a backhanded compliment but a compliment none-the-less.

What, you might be wondering, can the Salvation Army or other not-for-profits review? Anything and everything as Facebook’s ubiquitous LIKE button proves. Maybe I haven’t sold you on adding Power Reviews or Bazaar Voice to your site, but putting Facebook’s LIKE icon all over your site is a must. Facebook likes helps SEM and, as if that wasn’t enough, the LIKE button is quickly becoming a trust stamp. Plaster the thumb as many places as you can and consider adding reviews from Power Reviews or Bazaar Voice.

Five Secret Social Media Marketing Trends Summary

Profiteers want not-for-profit’s story telling and connection skills because they fear being skinned alive on Facebook or Twitter without them. They are right to want them.

Companies need to tell emotionally resonate stories, stories that grab us by our skeptical but always willing to give hearts and minds. Story telling and connection aren’t core competencies for many companies save a lucky and hard working few. Not-for-profiteers are singing around a smoldering campfire worried a cold, hard rain is about to fall when a big SEM storm has already blown through.

Not-for-profits need to get tough, learn to rebound inside the paint and throw an occasional elbow reminding everyone they are in the game. Most not-for-profits have been in this new to many companies social game LONGER and do it BETTER. Now not-for-profits need to steal SEM skills from their profiteering cousins.

NeoGoGo For Not-For-Profits

I'm working with a dedicated team of friends and volunteers creating a company called NeoGoGo developing new FREE tools to help 501(c)3 not-for-profits make up for lost search engine marketing time. If you would like to be alerted when NeoGoGo's tools become available (probably early 2012), please email MartinSellingZoe(at)aol.


I will add you to our "alert" list. Friends and I are creating these tools for our Cure Cancer Store and are plan to give them to any not-for-profit who would need help with SEM. NeoGoGo's tools and important causes is how shopping saves the world.

March 2013 Update: NeoGoGo morphed into CureCancerStarter.org.

I continued this piece on Technorati: 5 Secret Social Marketing Trends

Martin

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