Ethofy’s Eye On: Free Content Curation Products (Part II)

Graham Sumioka — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:24:44 +0000

My early efforts in building a marketing Pearltree.

As discussed in part I of my free content curation product series, the vast number of content hosting sites is rivaled only by the number of curation products created. They have cropped up to help you discover, organize, and share all those choice pieces of content found in different corners of the web. I’ve been using Pearltrees for a couple weeks at this point and will provide a brief overview of the product and how it might be of use to you as a curator of content.

Pearltrees

Think of this as your web bookmark mind mapping tool with a dose of StumbleUpon. If you are anything like me you have done mind mapping exercises a handful of times over your career during project brainstorming meetings, continuing education, or even during phone calls. Something I do even less is update my browser bookmarks. I currently have a Mashable article from 7 months ago, and some site that apparently scours the web for photos for blogs (I don’t remember when I added this, and this is the first time I have clicked on either of them). So you can imagine my hesitation when I fired up Pearltrees and found that their premise is to marry these two rare practices.

The browser integration and organizational flexibility within the product make this much better than creating and updated multiple bookmark folders. I’ve “Pearled” a few key articles on various blogs that I follow and have found it very easy to add them to a new or existing pearl. Navigating to my specific Pearltree page presents me with features that allow me to see previews of my pearls, rearrange entire branches, and discover pearls of fellow users. It is worth noting that I have yet to double-back on any of the saved items, but they are still fairly fresh in my mind at this point.

The discovery aspect of the product is the one area that left me wanting more. Browsing content suggested by strangers doesn’t take that much coaxing with me, but I found it confusing to navigate a stranger’s pearl hierarchy. I have a hard enough time remembering how I do it myself let alone figuring out someone else’s madness.

Pros:

Simpler to manage than dealing with the standard browser bookmarking folder system
This could work particularly well for small groups of people working on a research project (and Pearltrees even has a collaboration feature)
Easy browser integration

Cons:

Discovery of content Pearled by fellow users is possible, but lacks an engaging hook
UI wasn’t immediately clear upon signup, and it could be friendlier in general

Overall:

I can see a few curating scenarios where Pearltrees could really shine, but I find that I am frequently looking for new and fresh content to share as I find it. Chances are that I will be hitting the search engines before I hunt through a branch of my Pearltree. I do like it as a way to organize educational pieces that I might need to reference down the road though. I’ll keep working with the product to see if I find any “pearls” to share with you all (couldn’t resist, sorry). Share your experiences with Pearltrees in the comments below. You can also sign up for a free account here.

Stay tuned for the next post of Ethofy’s Eye On when I will review Scoop.it.

Ethofy’s Eye On: Free Content Curation Products (Part I)

Graham Sumioka — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:10:59 +0000

Content curation is a big topic these days among social media enthusiasts, but there are so many to choose from. To save you some of the leg work I have made a few observations of sites that were suggested to me. I decided to sign up for Storify, PearlTrees, and Scoop.it and share my early impressions. I didn’t do a deep dive on any of the services, but I find that first impressions are usually enough to go on given the current state of the content curation scene. Free tools pop up all the time and there is a mad dash by the creators to sign up critical mass. The meaningful features that differentiate one tool from another are showcased front and center. Just like content, attracting eyeballs is the name of the game. Hiding innovative features too far below the surface of a low entry product isn’t doing anyone any favors.

Storify

Storify was my favorite of the three products I signed up for. They present you with all of the major areas where your desired content (pictures, videos, tweets, etc.) may live and then allow you to add it to your own content page. You even have the ability to add your own text. I was so interested in trying it out that I actually used the tool to get down some of my thoughts about this very post. If you are familiar with Flipboard then you can think of this as your page to collect the social content that you want to save and share with others. It wasn’t surprising to see that my finished page looked more like a blog post, but the ease and flexibility of adding or removing sections makes this ideal for the bulk of my content curation needs.

Pros:

Easy to get started
Conveniently search multiple content networks (including Google).
Simple drag and drop interface

Cons:

Layout options are limited to a single column.
Would be ideal if content could be more easily consumed from the search area. I found it tough sometimes to find exactly what I was looking (especially videos).
Small UX bugs/issues including formatting text and scroll bars are distracting

Overall: This is definitely worth a look. As I was creating my first page I was already salivating at the prospect of having some of the Storify funtionality in my WordPress admin dashboard. A quick note about the overview video below. It is a bit weak as far as web videos go, but don’t let that discourage you.

Stay tuned for the next post of Ethofy’s Eye On when I will review PearlTrees.

Social Media In Business – the future is now

Rob Savette — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:23:06 +0000

2012 has arrived and, as with all new years, it brings in the promise of the future as well as reflections on the past. When this happens we tend to get caught up in the line items – caught up in looking at specific things that did, or did not, happen. Don’t get me wrong – I love this level of accountability, and I think we are all the better for it. In fact, I find it so valuable I do it myself every year. However, in this post I’d like to take a brief moment to make a comment about the larger trend, it’s an obvious one, but an important one none the less. Social media in business is no longer coming soon, and it’s no longer about to explode – it is here and because it is here the market is going to go through a huge shift. I can’t help but shake my head every time I see someone publish data about how the growth of social media in business is slowing down and then draw the conclusion that it is not the market it once was. If you take a closer look at the numbers it rapidly becomes clear that the growth of the market isn’t slowing because companies are losing interest, it’s because they are already there. It’s easy to have eye-popping growth when a market is in its infancy but once it’s up and running those growth numbers inherently slow down. I believe the reason we are seeing some slowing in the adoption rate of social media in business is because the market is moving into a new phase – it’s tool time.

Social get’s results – we can argue about what kind of results and we can argue about measuring those results, but it’s pretty apparent that social media can have a huge impact on your business. What will that impact be? The question is, what do you want it to be? The answer will depend on several key questions you have to ask yourself about your market, customers, culture and objectives. Currently there are many powerful tools on the market that can help you pursue, and hopefully achieve, your objectives and there are many more coming to market everyday. It’s hard to keep up with the flow of new things to look at – but that’s because the market has arrived and now it’s time to carefully select the products and services that will allow you to achieve your goals. So we’re back to an age old question – what do you want to do? The clearer you are with the answer to that question the more successful you will be in finding the products and services that deliver results that matter. But be careful – it’s easy to say ‘I want to grow sales’ or ‘I want to have a million customers’ but you won’t find tools that speak to those results. Your mission is to answer the question ‘how do I get from where I am today to where I’d like to be tomorrow?’. In other words, you’ll still be asking yourself the same questions you always have, however now you’ll be shopping for social media tools to help you get there.

Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2012

Graham Sumioka — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:33:38 +0000

In an interesting exercise started by the Content Marketing Institute back in 2009, predictions from content marketing thought leaders are compiled then shared in an online publication. I wrote a quick summary of the predictions last year, and I have done so again this year. The latest version with predictions from over 75 contributors can be found here.

I will get to the 2012 predictions in a bit, but it would be a waste to not do a quick look back to see how the top 2011 predictions fared.

2011 Review:

Meaningful content will be king. True – Spoiler alert! This is still one of the top predictions for 2012, but that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Unless you are competing in a holiday light decorating contest, quantity is rarely valued above quality. For example, Facebook made several updates (not without controversy) over the past year that changed the type and frequency of content that appeared in user’s newsfeeds.
Brands that direct resources to mobile marketing will win. True – A Comscore report from October of 2011 stated that 6.8% of all web traffic occurred via a mobile device. Smartphone user demographics make this seemingly small number a very sought after target market. Emarketer also reports that mobile usage is up over 30% from 2010 numbers.
The focus on metrics and Return On Social Investment (ROSI) will be big in 2011. True (Sorta) - I agree that the focus was high in 2011, but it seems that little movement has been made towards a measurable standard. Various dollar amounts for the value of a Twitter follower, or Facebook like have been floated around, but the scrutiny around influence measurement tells me that marketers and their management are still on the hunt for the ROSI holy grail.

The popular marketing predictions for 2012 haven’t changed dramatically, but there are there are a few things to keep in mind as 2012 kicks off.

2012 Popular Picks:

Mobile optimization will be even more important. This could be a fan favorite for a while. The market research firm IDC is saying that mobile web usage will eclipse PC web access by 2015. Considering that smartphone ownership amongst US adults hasn’t even hit the 50% mark yet, there will no doubt continue to be record growth with anything mobile.
Content must match the needs of the consumer, not the brand. This pick is a carryover from the previous year, but a common thread in 2012 is that in order for content to be successful it must be properly tailored to each channel, audience, and goal. Social media levels the playing field between consumers and marketers, and forces marketers to constructively provide information or risk being shut out from the dialogue completely. Marketers with the skills suited to maximize results across a wide range of platforms will be in high demand.
Google+ will be a big player. This is the only newcomer to the top predictions of 2012, but it isn’t a surprise to me considering my feelings on the potential for Google+ and business as written about in an earlier post.

I look forward to a great 2012, and maybe I’ll see you on a Google+ Hangout on your phone while we discuss social marketing. What are some of your predictions for the coming year? Add them in the comment section below.

Best in ‘12

[Image Source: Flickr user Creativity103]

Marketers should rejoice as financial metrics are decreasingly used to justify value of social marketing

Graham Sumioka — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:20:40 +0000

I’m not down on financial metrics by any means, but if social marketers can get more funding without them then I am just that much more bullish on the future of social marketing. Earlier this month the Duke Fuqua School of Business posted the results of their semiannual CMO survey. As usual, there were a number of questions posed to senior marketing executives about their current and future social marketing plans, and a few of the results were particularly interesting when analyzed together. Here are two conclusions that raised my interest:

Budgets for social marketing are still on the rise
Social media metrics used by firms have shifted importance away from financial metrics and increased focus on engagement metrics (hits, followers, buzz, etc).

Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) continuously work with numbers and projections to judiciously divvy up their budgets, yet social media budgets are able to charge ahead on simple tallies of likes and shares? The rosy outlook for social marketing budgets is particularly encouraging considering that financial motivations aren’t fueling the fire as much as in previous surveys. Customer service, product planning, community engagement are just a few of the pillars that have been transformed for the better through the power of social media. I see this as a strong sign for the social media industry because once the impact to financial metrics can be shown even more money will be carved out for social marketing.

Think back to the late 90’s when online advertising started to see substantial growth. Rich LeFurgy, who was the then IAB Chairman and Senior VP, Advertising, ABC News/ESPN Internet Ventures stated in an IAB post that “The multi-tasking nature of the medium ensure its future growth.” Fast forward to 2011, he wasn’t wrong as internet ad revenues have never been higher, and there is nothing that represents multi-tasking better than social media. Not only will social marketing persist well into the future, we have only seen the tip of the budget iceberg that will be made available.