Tag: Curated Content

Turn Your Diet Into a Do It - On April 1st my 30 Day Do It Program begins! Sign up now! - Karen Salmansohn

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Zen and the Art of Content Marketing

image of zen master

Kelton Reid of CopyBlogger writes:

One of the best restaurants in the world lives under the fluorescent lights of a subway tunnel in the underbelly of Tokyo.

Of the hundreds of thousands of eateries across the globe, this one stands apart, not for its size, or its glitz and glamour, but for its Zen austerity and miraculous consistency.

Every day of the year, Chef Jiro Ono arrives at his cramped little 10-seat bar down in the subway to do the one thing he’s dedicated his life to … making the best sushi on the planet. Continue reading “Zen and the Art of Content Marketing” →

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Thanking a monkey

Kaveri Patel writes:

There’s a monkey in my mind

swinging on a trapeze,

reaching back to the past

or leaning into the future,

never standing still.

Sometimes I want to kill

that monkey, shoot it square

between the eyes so I won’t

have to think anymore

or feel the pain of worry.

But today I thanked her

and she jumped down

straight into my lap,

trapeze still swinging

as we sat still.

via Kaveri Patel – Buddhist Poetry Review.

On these days when our world slows down just a little bit, think about thanking YOUR monkeys…

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Hold Nothing Back

Mark Nepo writes:

I’m always surprised to rediscover that life waits behind a door that can only be opened when we give our all, when we hold nothing back. This video clip from an interview with Sounds True took place in Colorado during a week of recording my box set of teaching conversations, Staying Awake: The Ordinary Art.

Source: Mark Nepo: Hold Nothing Back

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It’s a new start!

 

Visual Inspiration: New Start!

Visual Inspiration: New Start!.

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Effective Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day

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Twitter snapshot for 3/20/2013

http://storify.com/e1evation/twitter-snapshot-for-3-20-2013

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The death of Google Reader

Ironically, Google produces no original content of their own but is engaging in a ‘shaping strategy’ than is killing products that curators use…

Ironically, Google produces no original content of their own but is engaging in a ‘shaping strategy’ than is killing products that curators use…

Ironically, Google produces no original content of their own but is engaging in a ‘shaping strategy’ than is killing products that curators use…

http://storify.com/e1evation/the-death-of-google-reader

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Looking for clues at the scene of the Google Reader crime…

KeepCalmStudio.com-[Crown]-Keep-Calm-And-Keep-Using-Google-Reader

Last week, I encouraged readers to keep calm and continue using Google Reader. While I still think that’s good advice, I’m not so sure any longer that Google will be rolling Reader into Google+. Why? I had forgotten at the time that Google had recently killed Feedburner and was not aware that Google had taken the RSS subscription extension out of the chrome Web store.

These three events together point to what innovation expert Tim Kastelle called a ‘shaping strategy’ on the part of Google to coerce people to publish and share in a way that Google wants them to. Tim commented “I definitely think that they’re following a shaping strategy – though I’m not sure about whether or not killing RSS actually helps it. For me the big issue is this: people that rely only on social media to find out what’s going on still need RSS, even if they don’t use it themselves.” Tim also pointed me to this article by Joshua Gans on The Social Structure Of News. In it, Gans says:

“The problem is that from what we know about the social structure of social media is that there are a set of roles available. Take Mark Thoma. His blog and twitter feeds have a huge following. Why? Because he reads all of the Econ blogs and picks out what he thinks is best. If you read Thoma, chances are you don’t need Google Reader. He is the social web.

But how does Thoma operate? My guess is that he uses a feed reader and has a system for tagging good posts and forwarding them on to others. Sometimes it is just a link. Other times he provides a quote and a little commentary. Remove his tools and his job gets harder.

Given this it should be no surprised that the most dismayed about the loss of Google Reader were the contributors to social web curation. There is only need for a few of these but they do an important job so disrupting them will harm many. In the Econ world, these people are well known. They are Brad de Long, Tyler Cowen and a few more specialized bloggers. In the days of old I used to do this too with multiple posts daily but the others were better and so I dropped back to being one of the many who hoped these curators would pick up their posts.

My point is that if you say you don’t use Google Reader because the social web takes care of you, then you are mistaken. The social web needs its tools and indirectly so do you.”

In their content guidelines published 11/1012, Google says

“One of the most important steps in improving your site’s ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content.

However, some webmasters attempt to improve their pages’ ranking and attract visitors by creating pages with many words but little or no authentic content. Google will take action against domains that try to rank more highly by just showing scraped or other cookie-cutter pages that don’t add substantial value to users.”

Killing Google Reader goes beyond Google’s usual move to force users into the walled garden of Google+; I now believe this is a shaping strategy to kill curation and auto posting as a form of content marketing and to give Google more control over publishers in much the same way book publishers had control over authors in the ‘old days’.

There’s still really no rush to find a replacement for Google Reader — if you’re using Google Reader you’ll be able to export your sources before July 1 and import them into the next great RSS reader. What to do about Google is another issue altogether. Google has ‘exceeded their brief‘ and is getting evil…

How about you? Do you see the ‘shaping strategy’ or do you have a different perspective?

Related articles
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Got content marketing? Here’s a special year end offer to help you get ready…

Got content marketing? Here's a special year end offer to help you get ready for 2013…

Embedded Link

Grasshopper or ant: which one are you? @e1evation
The wikipedia tells us: “The Ant and the Grasshopper, also known as The Grasshopper and the Ant (or Ants), is one of Aesop’s Fables, providing an ambivalent moral lesson about the virtues of hard work…

Google+: View post on Google+

Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

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A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research

Beth Hayden @ CopyBlogger has a great post I’d like to share with you…

Keyword research is one of the most important types of research you’ll do throughout your content marketing career. It’s also one of the most difficult.

In this series, we’ve already discussed the fact that research isn’t sexy, glamorous, or fun. We’ve also talked about how you need to do research consistently — just like you need to work out in a consistent manner in order to see the real physical fitness results you want.

But there’s something particularly arduous about conducting keyword research. Many of the tools available are confusing and counter-intuitive. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be looking for, and we often don’t have a system in place for how to do keyword research effectively.

But, in putting this series together, I took a very close look at the process of keyword research, and I realized that there’s a better way to find the keywords I needed for my work … without tears, gnashing of teeth, or the desire for hard alcohol.

I always seem to get lost in the data of keyword research. I feel like all of the information I find is incredibly important, and I can’t figure out what to focus on and what to ignore.

Sometimes I make a half-hearted effort to research the keywords I should use in my content, then get aggravated and toss my lists aside in favor of doing less frustrating work.

In the next two posts of this research series, I’m going to give you the solution to your keyword research woes. I’ll teach you …

  • How to stay focused when doing your research
  • How to avoid getting bogged down in the stuff that doesn’t matter
  • How to take a shortcut that will save you tons and time and energy

Let’s get started…

Get focused on your goal

Your goal when conducting keyword research is to identify the topics that matter most to your target audiences, and then discover the exact language they use when they search for information and discuss their questions on social networking sites.

To reach that goal, you need a simple, effective system for keyword research. Follow these three steps to clear up the fog of procrastination and confusion that surrounds the process of finding target keywords for your content.

Full story at: A 3-Step Process for Painless Keyword Research | Copyblogger

Discovering the exact language people are using is the key to aligning your writing with the value demands of your target audience. You may want to elevate your status by calling yourself a ‘purveyor of fine previously owned automobiles’ but the target audience is just looking for a good used car. If you don’t discover what people are looking for and bring your message into alignment, you’re whistling in the dark! Get a grip by following the link and reading the rest of Beth’s perspective. I’m always here to help, too! Comment below or connect with me so we can talk about how this applies to you and your situation…

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Love blogging? Hate writing? Don’t despair!

There are ways you can engage in content marketing without wearing your fingers to the bone! Here is a dynamic [translate: under construction] list of tools that you can use to create content for your website without ‘lifting a finger’. Here’s the list…

[listly id=”2aE” layout=”full”]

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Do you like TEDTalks?

My family and I are positively addicted! What could be better for homeschooled 8 and 13 year olds than to have a smorgasbord of some of the worlds greatest thinkers [no, not me and my wife] feeding them a steady diet of brilliant thinking?

I’m blessed to have the opportunity to work with two ‘TEDTalkers’ — Nilofer Merchant and Nina Tandon. Nina’s talk is the featured talk of the day at TED.com today…

Nina was referred to me by Nilofer. She needed a new, dynamic website in preparation for last Friday’s appearance on The Katie Couric Show as a Dove “Woman Who Should be Famous”. She did an excellent job as you can see from the show segment here:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Before Nina and I began working together, her site looked like this:

Here’s what it looks like now [with a little help from Manca Ahlin of Mantzalin on the logo side]:

Most people seem to agree that the second site is one a little more appropriate for a woman of Nina’s stature. If you’re one of them, I could help you, too! Comment or contact me to talk about how this applies to your situation…

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Test post via Jetpack

Testing the new post via email feature…

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Creating a ‘personal news agency’…

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David Allen on How to Fix Your Life

English: David Allen, creator of the Getting T...

One of my favorite clients sent me an article from one of my favorite writers [James Fallows, Free Flight, et al] about my favorite productivity thinker David Allen and I share it with you here. Fallows writes:

As I mentioned… I’ve been writing about and learning from the productivity expert David Allen for nearly a decade. Eight years ago, I wrote a profile of him for the magazine. In our newest issue I have highlights from a conversation I had with him, about coping with the modern nightmare of email and all-hours connectedness.

Source: David Allen on How to Fix Your Life – James Fallows – The Atlantic

Here are some highlights from the article online…

Everybody’s going to top out at some point, where your psyche just can’t manage any more. I was just reading that J. S. Bach had 20 kids. People complain now, “I’m so busy with the kids.” Okay, have 20 kids and see what happens. If you’re a musician or a writer, you could always be doing more work. So I don’t know that it’s ever been different for someone with an open-ended profession or interest.

So again, back to my general philosophy, [which] is: look, make as few plans as you can, capture every single thing that is potentially meaningful, and make sure you’ve got the appropriate maps to be able to know where to focus. It’s always been true about GTD, but I think [you need] a way to be able to see: How do you set priorities about all this stuff? Well, you need maps. You need maps to orient yourself. You need a map that says “Hey, in the next three years, what’s coming toward me that I need to be aware of?” “In the next three minutes, what’s coming toward me?” Those are different maps. By the way, you know, a “map” would be any list that you have that orients you: “Here’s my whatever-it-is project.” That’s a map. Obviously your calendar is a map. So having all the potentially relevant data determined so you can populate your appropriate maps and then spread out [in] your map room and say “Okay, what do I need to look at right now?” So the ability to be able to decide what needs to go on what map and then building the behaviors to make sure that you’re then negotiating with those maps appropriately.

What’s different these days? Nothing is different really, except how frequently this occurs. You and I have gotten more change-producing and priority-shifting inputs in the past 72 hours than your parents got in a month, some of them in a year. I was reading that in 1912, someone was complaining about the telephone, exactly the same things you hear people say about e-mail: “Oh my God, it’s going to ruin our quality of life”; “conversations are going to become surface-only and not meaningful”; “all the interruptions and distractions!” It reads like right now. I am hearing the same things I did when I first got into these issues, at Lockheed in 1983. In those days, if you even had a pocket Day-Timer, you were considered something of a productivity geek. The difference is that rather than a small minority of people experiencing this stress, it’s a much larger group of people, at every level.

Allen is brilliant and Fallows captures him at his best! Read the full story and then go back and consider how to apply Getting Things Done [GTD] to your internet tasks as I have outlined in this ongoing series! You might also enjoy this audio interview I did with David Allen several years ago…

Full story at: David Allen on How to Fix Your Life – James Fallows – The Atlantic

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The Tools David Allen Uses to Get Things Done


Lifehacker curated this story from The Atlantic:

GTD guru David Allen recently spoke in an interview with The Atlantic about all the things that keep him organized and productive. He uses a combination of low-tech tools and digital applications to accomplish what he says is the number one thing people need to do to gain control over their lives: “externalize” all the stuff thats coming in.” Full story at:The Tools David Allen Uses to Get Things Done.

Go to the source if you’re interested in David Allen’s approach…

Me? Here’s my list of GTD tools. Almost all electronic and besides the hardware, free or freemium and completely cross platform:

[listly id=”25l” layout=”full”]

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How to Get the Biggest Boost from Sharing Content

A rich infographic with valuable tips about optimizing your curation:

Full story at: http://contently.com/blog/2012/10/09/how-to-get-the-biggest-boost-from-sharing-content-infographic/#

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Stick to the 3-B Plan when Emailing Busy People

Gregory Ciotti writes this:

If you want to get in touch with influential people (aka: BUSY people), you need to know how to contact them. Despite the buzz around social media, far more people use email to communicate than any other online medium, and business today still gets done over email, not through tweets. Sparring Mind’s Gregory Ciotti explains how to make things happen over email with the 3-B Plan.

Why it’s Important to Know

Knowing how to write outreach emails might seem like a no-brainer or maybe even an unnecessary skill to have, but I can assure you the opposite, on both accounts. If you’re serious about networking and building your platform/personal brand, you MUST know how to email important people. Important people are busy people. You can’t rely on random encounters to get in touch with people who can help you flourish; while it may happen once in a while, the rest of the time it’s up to you.

Due to the fact that tweeting is so impersonal and a cold phone call is so annoying, email is the ideal platform for reaching out. For busy people, even their inbox is something that is viewed as a “task,” meaning they want to get in and out as quickly as possible. Understanding how to properly email people is a skill that sets you apart from others (trust me, I’ve received some truly awful emails) and is essential for making things happen with influencers.

The 3-B Plan

When deciding whether to read or delete an email, our brains go through this common evaluation process:

1. Who is emailing me (and is this spam)?
2. What do they want?
3. How long will this take?

Getting a “pass” on all 3 of these can be tougher than it looks, especially for busy people. Here’s my 3-step technique to avoid the trash bin.

I call it the 3-B plan. I always double-check my emails to make sure they follow the guidelines below, and I’ve been able to get some fantastic response rates.

Brevity

If there is one thing that busy people value above all else, it’s brevity. If you were receiving upwards of 50-100 emails per day, or had so many obligations that you were only left with a short amount of time to check email, it’d be easy to see why. In order to get your messages read ASAP, it’s best to make sure your opening email follows the ASAP rule: as short as possible.

I wouldn’t put a set limit on email length, because it’s a case by case basis. The important thing to remember is to always edit your emails at least once to trim unnecessary information. People don’t need your enthralling life story over email, they just need “who, what, why” so they can get back to business.

Blunt

Being blunt doesn’t mean not being persuasive, it simply means getting to the point without trying to be clever. Stories and jokes are essential for other forms of writing, but NOT for emails. Get to the incentive on why the other person should respond right away.

If possible, list a number in the title to signal commitment time (Ex: “3 quick questions”) and state exactly what the email is about in the subject line.

Basic

I sometimes am in disbelief that this one needs to be said, but it’s so true. I’ve had emails where people send what looks like a newsletter, emails with tons of images in them (so I have to click “display images” to even read it), and emails with a DOZEN attachments. When it’s your first time emailing someone…

Keep it simple, stupid.

Read Greg’s complete 9-step email guide here.

Source: Stick to the 3-B Plan when Emailing Busy People
To this I would add one thought that is becoming obvious to me lately. I divide information into two categories; just in time and just in case. Just in time is information that affects relationship and revenue and should go in an inbox. A link, however, is most often just in case information. Now, think about the context of the person receiving the information and where they will receive it. If your communication is ‘just in time’ then follow the rules above to get a response – I even go so far as to try to limit my communication to the amount of space available in a single smartphone screen or limiting the message to a single thought so that the busy person on the other end [who is hopefully a Getting Things Done [GTD] practitioner] can do it in two minutes or less. If I’m sending a link, however, why not send it to them in their favorite social network? You will find them in a context where they are already looking at links anyway! I believe that if you think about the context in which a busy person will be reading your message and you communicate accordingly, you will eventually move to the top of the heap. What do you think?

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