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MomentumCurator – Clarity. Focus. Context. Content Curation.

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At Momentum, we make it our business to keep on top of the latest developments in marketing and media. Then we share the best links, and our own insights, with our clients as a courtesy to help them grow their businesses. The feedback has been extremely positive. It started as an eNewsletter. Now, as with all things, it is evolving and we’re giving it a name.

Introducing – Momentum | Curator.

“Content curation” is a trending topic in marketing and media. It has come to represent the process of carefully researching, sifting, selecting, and sharing of content with others. Much the same way as a museum curator acquires and displays objects of relevance or an art collector selects and interprets artwork, a modern day content curator chooses and showcases material that is relevant to a particular tribe of users with specific preferences.

We know that our followers want to cut down their search for good reading on marketing and media. They want to understand how changing technology, techniques, and consumer consumption impacts their businesses. We are content curators for our own constituents!

Incredible mass appeal content curation tools are already at our fingertips – Flipboard, Zite, Google Currents, among others. These tools exist for one fundamental reason. In the context of our busy lives it has become a herculean task – nay, an almost impossible one – to navigate the sheer scale and depth of information that is relevant to one specific area of interest.

When we plug-in every morning, we conjure up an image of our clients starting their day – looking for solutions for their business challenges and opportunities. We don’t just blog and tweet about building brands and creating content. We do it every day. That’s why it’s only natural that Momentum is the curator that puts a carefully crafted collection of industry news and insights in our client inboxes and social feeds. We are their thought partners.

It is our absolute privilege and passion to provide much needed and highly valued clarity, focus, and context. We’d like to do it for you too.

Get your complimentary Momentum | Curator subscription now.

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B2B Marketing Has Never Been More Difficult… or More Fun.

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No matter the industry, it has never been tougher to engage prospects in a sales conversation than it is right now.

Let’s face it. No one – you and me included – wants to be “sold.” Most people avoid incoming cold calls like the plague. With texting, email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so many other ways to communicate, most desk phones are starting to sprout cobwebs!

Professionals still buy the products and services they need every day. But the impetus now begins with buyer. They seek out the information they need – usually via the internet – and they reach out to those that they perceive have the expertise, solutions, or goods they want and are prepared to acquire.

The challenge of B2B marketers is to:

1) Be easy to find – everywhere

2) Communicate a clear and consistent value proposition

3) Demonstrate industry-leading expertise (in your niche)

4) Allow easy sharing of your collateral and online sales assets

5) Be absolutely approachable and instantly responsive

No one wants to be sold. When they have pain, they want to connect with a trusted expert who can deliver real solutions that solve their problems. Someone who can help them move their business forward. It’s even better if the service or product comes recommended from within their known network.

If your sales approach is limited to cold calling and old school interruptive marketing techniques, you are missing a huge opportunity to connect with buyers on a whole new level.

Content marketing, advertorial campaigns, social media activity, and other relationship-building initiatives are all tools you can use, in tandem with traditional techniques, to establish expertise, make connections, and start conversations with prequalified prospects almost immediately.

Producing sales is more difficult and the old way is dead.

The great news is that, although it can be daunting at first, the new way is a lot more fun!

What’s the Value of a Facebook “Like?”

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The answer on Facebook is $0 if you don’t have a strategic plan to monetize it or otherwise leverage social media in a way that creates revenue.

Internet coffee shops are rife with “social media experts” who sip lattes and brandish the word “engagement” about as if business were as simple as chatting with friends. Engagement for engagement’s sake often results in a whole lot of yakking with little or no regard to whether or not the conversation is consistent, on brand, on target, or, most importantly, leading somewhere. In short, these “experts” can do a lot of talking and not much for the bottom line.

Almost every brand can benefit from unique and specific marketing initiatives that can be employed to drive revenue using social media.

However, if your social media strategy begins and ends with the word “engagement,” or worse, you have no strategy at all, you are missing out on the huge and essential opportunity to drive your business forward in a quantifiable way.

The truth about employing social media marketing is that it is challenging work. It requires great focus and skill. But when it’s done properly, social media will establish credibility for your brand, expose you to a social reach far beyond your current network of followers, and allow you to significantly impact the bottom line

This requires a unique and comprehensive brand strategy that is informed by specific goals for the brand, deployed with proven tactics and creative that is in-line with the strategy, and validated with a variety of simple measurement tools to ensure a worthwhile return on investment.

And most importantly, there are a variety of specific metrics that will determine the value of a “Like.” You will know and you will like it!

How to Get Your Social Media on Track

• Restart with a solid strategy.
• Avoid BS. Get qualified help.
• Develop a unique plan that addresses revenue.
• Formally define rules for social deployment.
• Monitor all activity for consistency.
• Measure. Adjust. Repeat.

What’s The Value Of A Like?

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Great Content Is A Godsend

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A client recently offered those words at the close of a conference call. And right then it dawned on me: Our clients tend to be experts in their particular field – not experienced multi-media communicators like we are. That’s in our DNA and we sometimes take it for granted. It’s our secret weapon.

Content Marketing is an oft-overused term originally conjured up to describe paid print editorial. In a platform agnostic marketing environment of 2012, truly great content must be deployed across multiple platforms, where consumers want, and how they want.

Any organization can leverage its expertise to create compelling media content – especially if it enjoys a thought-leadership position in the marketplace. An experienced and quality content creator can help these brands literally evolve into media properties that can engage followers with a myriad of specific interests and motivations.

North America’s largest trade association and the leading producer of housing market data had several goals. It sought a way to deliver information on buying, selling, and owning a home as well as other housing market information directly to consumers.

NAR previously relied almost exclusively on the national media to interpret their releases and present the information through their varying lenses. The Association also wanted to create and disseminate credible and timely messages that represented the immense collective expertise and professional acumen of their 1.1 million REALTOR® membership.

With the help of media marketing experts, Real Estate Today was born and within 24 months the weekly 2-hour audio program, hosted by award-winning talent Gil Gross, and its associated web-deployed and social media-driven content became America’s #1 real estate program.

Real Estate Today is now available on on-air, on satellite, on-line, via mobile, and is consumed by over 1 million consumers every month. www.RETradio.com

Example: The National Association of REALTORS® – Real Estate Today

The winning formula for producing great content starts with a comprehensive brand strategy and is fulfilled with highly produced and informative, engaging content that can activate the target audience in a natural and powerful way.

No tactic can rival the successful deployment of superior multi-platform content marketing delivered by a credible organization by proven and professional content creators. It truly is a godsend.

Need Great Content?

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What Happened To Kashi Could Happen To Your Brand

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…if it stands for something you can’t stand behind.

The image appearing on social feeds across the globe is one that is still hard to erase.

The shock is still palpable to masses of Kashi cereal lovers, including myself, who woke up over the past few months to the fact that the all “natural” breakfast food they loved and trusted was found by the USDA to contain genetically modified soy, and that certain grains contained pesticides that are known carcinogens and hormone disruptors.

Undoubtedly consumers everywhere need to wake up to how our food is grown and processed and to take responsibility for what we put on our family’s tables. That’s a matter for another article.

But, from a marketing perspective, why was there such a massive consumer backlash on social media?

Kelloggs – the corporate parent of Kashi – maintained it did nothing wrong. Finally, on Facebook, they blamed food supply and then the USDA for not regulating the term “natural.”

Kashi clearly missed the point. They did not understand and value the true connection they had enjoyed with consumers all this time.

Consumers felt betrayed because they believed Kashi shared their values. The products were being marketed as “natural” at a premium price point ($5-$8.00) through reputable health food and organic retailers. Health professionals touted the benefits of switching to Kashi cereals to their patients. Friends told their friends, and so on. Kashi was a company you could trust to help you live a healthier life.

Instead of understanding the power of this connection with their followers, Kashi remained silent for days. When they did speak, Kashi went on the defensive and denied wrongdoing instead of taking responsibility in a head-on approach crisis as a “partner in nutrition.”

Kashi missed a priceless opportunity to share the values – even in a time of crisis- with the one group of people with whom they had an opportunity to build consensus; people who are relatively aware of and are concerned about the presence of unhealthy ingredients in the food chain; people who were already putting money where their mouths are.

What can be learned: It is so important to take stock in what makes your brand tick. Are you fortunate enough to share certain beliefs with those who use your product? Do you fully appreciate how your consumers view your brand? Does your brand live up to its actual or perceived brand promise? Have you reviewed every aspect of your operation to ensure all the elements are in alignment and you can stand behind what you stand for? And are you prepared with a proper social media crisis plan when the unthinkable happens?

If you answered “no” to any of the afore mentioned questions, you had better get ready or risk getting “Kashi-ed!”

Enter your name and email address below for more information.