Curation Revolution

Meme Marketing Can WIN or HURT
This post is a little fast and loose with their definition of a "meme". When Richard Dawkins coined the term he had something more robust than cultural ephemera in mind. 

The use of Nirvana's lyric is not what made Nirvana a meme. Nirvana came to represent a tribe of angry disaffected youth raised on irony and lied to repeatedly by authority figures from parents to politicians. Trying to tease art from inspiration is a fool's errand, so Nirvana and Kurt Cobain became archetypes representing a movement and a tribe.

The author may be fuzzy on what a meme is, but they have the viral power of memes just right. Memes live to do one thing - transfer cultural ideas. Think of the May Fly who lives for a single day. Memes live for as long as the act of transfer is met with ever increasing amounts of transfer. 

Meme Creation Tips

* Keep ideas simple.

* New Via Known - Use Made To Stick idea and connect NEW ideas to familiar (think of the duct tape on the book's cover) ones. 

* As Memes go sideways tweak YOUR messaging. 

* If Meme is WRONG stop feeding it (and hope others follow your lead).

* NEVER fight a meme. 

The reason you don't fight a meme is TO FIGHT is to add transfer energy. The more you attempt to restate the more ingrained the meme becomes. If your meme goes so sideways it is dead wrong STOP FEEDING IT. 

Often if the originator of a meme stops the feed it will slowly die. Note the use of "slowly". if your boss says they want that fixed tell them sure no problem and DO NOTHING. Do anything and you increase your problem. 

Memes vs. Cultural Ephemera
Memes have more backbone than cultural ephemera. Dawkins "Selfish Gene" idea is an example of a meme with powerful reach and robustness. Despite many leading authors including Wright (NonZero), Benkler (Penguin and Leviathan) and Shermer (Mind of the Market) the concept of man's innate selfishness is a strong meme. 

Dawkins must appreciate the irony since the book he wrote in 1976 The Selfish Gene that created or reinforced or given name to the "selfish man" meme doesn't say man is innately selfish. In fact, The Selfish Gene has a detailed discussion of The Prisoner's Dilemma where competitive collaboration is discussed. 

This misinterpretation brings up an important point. Memes transfer ideas FOR THE PURPOSE OF TRANSFER not accuracy. Expect your meme marketing to go a little sideways when exposed to the world. The smart move, when your memes go a little sideways, is to adjust your messaging to be consistent with how the meme has stripped your ideas down for transfer. 

If this is starting to sound like playing the MEME SEO game can be a tad dangerous you win a cookie. Just as Dawkins's amazing title created its own meme that was only partially related to his book your memes will take on a life of their own. 

Summary
BE CAREFUL with "Meme Marketing" and respect the power of the mob and you can WIN big as the author of this post shares. Memes are LIVE AMMUNITION so think about your end goals and test ways your memes will go sideways. If you can't live with a meme going sideways DON'T CREATE MEME MARKETING. 

David Meerman Scott writes how to ride fast breaking cultural ephemera and memes to your marketing advantage in The New Rules Of Marketing and PR and NewsJacking.  

"Everywhere Marketing"

I'm not going to pay Forrester the $500 they want for their Fragmented Path To Purchase Demands Everywhere Marketing report, but I bet I can guess what it says. 

When I was a Director of Ecommerce 2 years ago it drove me crazy that customers would leave our shopping cart looking for deals on RetailMeNot.com. The solution was to reduce the friction and make it easy to find our coupons on our website. 

Life was QUIET then compared to now. Social shopping is great when it is working in your favor, when friends and friends of friends are acting as a Greek Chorus and helping you move visitors into customers. 

The shifting sands of social media and real time marketing (see Expion panel from 2 days ago: http://sco.lt/68DJj7 for more on real time marketing) mean your brands are only as strong as their weakest point. 

What Forrester calls "everywhere marketing" I think of as "Tapestry Marketing" - the idea that the more tapestry you weave the more fish you catch (to mix a metaphor). The elements of Internet marketing play best TOGETHER so you are only as strong as your weakest link and your brand, messaging and campaigns need to be everywhere. 

Here's the rub, YOU can't get anything everywhere. The only way to achieve the spread you need, something marketing teams used to just BUY, is to create advocacy, to have a supportive tribe willing to carry your message across their social nets. 

The even trickier part is you can't pay for true advocacy. Advocacy, for all but the 30% of mercenaries you can buy, is an issue of intrinsic not extrinsic motivation. Your tribe will help you because they LOVE you and are willing to sacrifice to help. 

Wow, if that felt like your marketing just got CHANGED you are getting the idea. No matter WHAT you sell from the dry cleaner on the corner to an Internet only B2C play generating millions you depend on the kindness of strangers (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-kindness-of-strangers-and-new.html ). 

This slide deck provides good "everywhere marketing" supporting facts. If you can't sell social media to your C level, drop back and see if you can pass Everywhere Marketing by them.  

Everything is in the commons now. 

Great @KISSmetrics Post. Their 10 Ways:

1. Treat Customers Right - Genuinely Interact.
2. Don't Come On Too Strong - Have Respect.

3. Listen - Hear what customers are saying.

4. Continue - Offer ongoing 

5. Partners not customers - communication is 2 way.

6. Build Trust - No Surprises good or bad.

7. Be Transparent - HONESTY always wins in the end. 

8. Keep Your Promises & Only make keepable ones.

9. Customer is always RIGHT.

10. Say THANK YOU and be KIND.

These are great and I would add:

1. Know YOURSELF, be consistent and true.
2. Have FUN (fun is contagious).

3. LOVE what you do (passion is contagious).

4. LOVE who you do it with (or fake it until you make it).

5. Stay Calm, Carry On

6. Change the World

7. Share and then SHARE some More.

8. Align your company to Stengel's Brand Ideals.

9. LISTEN more than you TALK.

10. Curate more than you Create.

 Do any five of these consistenly and like, trust and respect may just turn to LOVE. 

Tech Cures Cancer Movement
A passel of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have created a Breakthrough Prize In Life Sciences. This is cool as it adds momentum to our Cure Cancer Starter project to crowdfund cancer research. 

Watch Cure Cancer Starter Video. (http://www.curecancerstarter.org)

In fact, it feels like there is a larger movement happening. We know we live in technologically rich times. We also know the so called "War on Cancer" is all but over and we lost.

There is good news. The good news is technology is helping cancer patients live longer. As we inch toward a cure for cancer one thing is clear - technology will lead the way.

We welcome such creative and powerful valley luminaries to the #TechCuresCancer movement.  

Outlaw Josey Wales IM Advice CONTEST
What advice do you thihnk the outlaw Josey Wales would give today's Internte marketers? Enter on Atlantic BT's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/AtlanticBusinessTechnologies

Don't Piss Down My Back & Tell Me Its Raining
Josey Wales had a way of using a few words to say amazing things. The article linked here discusses a company that got their Internet marketing a little right and a lot wrong. 

Writing the piece I wondered what other advice the outlaw Josey Wales would share with today's Internet marketers. What do you think? Share your outlaw advice on Atlantic BT's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/AtlanticBusinessTechnologies

Deadline is Friday Feburary 15th.

Prize: Outlaw Josey Wales Internet Marketing badge. 

Had fun writing an update to one of my favorite books - The Cluetrain Manifesto. Here are highlights from the CoSoMo Manifesto:

* We (your customers) are POWERFUL beyond your wildest dream.
* Our (your customers') everyday needs are more than MET.
* Our (your customers') aspirational desires will never be satisfied.
* Greatness is the cost of the poker game you are playing.
* We can't tell You how to be GREAT, but sure know it when we see, feel or buy greatness.
* Our TIME is our most valuable resource, so don't waste it.
* We may know you better ONLINE than you know yourself, so be authentic and real.
* Together we are more powerful than either of us alone.

What about you? Have ideas we should add to the CoSoMo Manifesto? Share in comments and we will curate in. Marty

Why does our increasingly social economy make some companies uncomfortable? It isn't easy to embrace an ever-increasing amount of vulnerability; to not play or cling to the tyranny of perfection are both doomed strategies already extinct. 

This piece explores how companies can dare to be great in a socially connected time.  

3 Things You Can't Know, Until You Know
Apparently I've entered that "professor emeritus" space that befalls all Ecommerce Directors as they age (lol). Before I link off into the sunset here are three things I could have told you back when I was an Ecom director only on pain of death (yours or mine :). 

1.  Internet Marketing Isn't What You think
I wrote a piece about how misinformed most people are about what Internet marketing IS:

http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/why-internet-marketing-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/  

Internet marketing is the extension, amplification and feedback loop every marketer depends on. For every moment you obsess about look and feel you lose money because THEY (your customers) will tell you everything you need to know if you only LISTEN. 

Oh, and make sure you LISTEN to Google too. Good to do what the KING tells you to do WHEN she tells you too. 

2. Everything Balances and Dances Until There Is A Wobble
Metrics are tied to each other. When your traffic goes up chances are your bounce rate will inch up too. When your time on site goes up because you've created great gamification or video marketing your SEO gets easier, you generate more Facebook LIKES and life is good. 

Then there is a wobble. 

Wobbles are inevitable so staying calm and carrying on no matter how severe the wobble is the only way to be an Internet marketer (otherwise you end up jumping off the roof LOL). 

Wobbles can come from Google, competitors or the war in Iraq. Death, taxes and that there will be costly wobbles in your Internet marketing future are life's new immutable truths. Your Internet marketing will dance again after a period of rehab and if you stay calm and carry on. 

3. The Secret Is There Is No Secret
I spent valuable TIME trying to find the FREE LUNCH of Internet marketing, the silver bullet, the one action that would solve all problems. Some may be able to do so, but someone wins the lottery too that doesn't mean it makes statistical SENSE (lol). 

Your best Internet marketing bet is to:

* DO THE WORK.

* LISTEN to the responses.
* Rinse and Repeat. 

The MAGIC of life and Internet marketing is in the JOURNEY not the destination no matter how rich it makes you. In the end your money goes into a trust or to your children, so what matters is what is happening NOW, this MOMENT.

If you are doing the work, no matter how "bad" you think it is, you are ahead of many. If you LISTEN you are ahead of more and if you relentlessly rinse and repeat you will be at the far right of Internet marketing's bell curve. 

Good luck to all the Supermen and Superwomen out there thinking that surely their head will explode if they have to learn one more thing (it won't) and never trusting they are really THERE (they are).

You NEVER need anything MORE than what you have as you read this. You are fully armed and ready right NOW to change the world, to change YOU. 

Do the work. Listen. Rinse and Repeat. 

And suddenly Cure Cancer Starter has a quorum with four great cancer centers:

* University of North Carolina's Lineberger Cancer Center.

* Roswell Park Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York.

* University of Wisconsin's Carbone Cancer Center.

* Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina.

Both of my treating institutions have signed on to be part of Cure Cancer Starter's pilot program. Cure Cancer Starter is our "Kickstarter for cancer research" platform to bring cancer doctors and researchers together into a common community with an important goal - curing cancer.

Atlantic BT, where I am Marketing Director, is helping create a platform for cancer patients. Cancer patients can take an empowering action by funding research.

The most devastating thing about hearing your name and "cancer" in the same sentence is how helpless you feel. You are sure your life is now beyond your control. The invisible hand is playing with your life like a marionette. 

For a year I trained and then rode 3,300 miles on a bicycle I wasn't sick. No colds or sniffles despite riding 10 days in the rain. For 60 days I "cured" my chronic Leukemia. 

I had to go back into chemo within weeks after Martin's Ride ended, but I didn't feel helpless until chemo kicked my butt again. Cure Cancer Starter is Martin's Ride 2. 

This time, instead of a team of 3, I hope we can create a big "cure cancer" community, a community where doctors and researchers share their projects with people willing to donate and be a part of the cure for cancer. Can't tell you how much it would have meant to send someone $100 and be part of a team working on Leukemia after my diagnosis. Would have been MAGICAL and EMPOWERING.  

Thanks to all my Scoop.it friends for help, ongoing support and best wishes. If anyone would like to help by reviewing beta designs, helping form plans and other foundational work for Cure Cancer Starter let me know. There are GREAT smart people on Scoop.it. 

Please LIKE Cure Cancer Starter on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CureCancerStarter 

Please FOLLOW CureCancerStart on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/CureCancerStart 

After shooting a video with our resident photographer, Andrew Bartlett, I realized that SEO in a post Panda and Penguin world is easier than ever. Do the basics well, connect everything so Google knows YOU and be consistent and life is good. 

Here are the 5 SEO Tips this piece shares: 

* Keywords in URL.

* Keywords in image Alt text.
* Tell a story with Keywords.

* Content With Call To Action is King

* Be consistent With Other Marketing

Easy right? What are your 5 favorite EASY SEO Tips?