Information Technology & Social Media News

30 Ecom Strategies & Tactics To Master
No wonder most ecommerce teams feel overwhelmed. Off the top of our heads we came up with 30 complex "mini-systems" that must be mastered to create greatness in online commerce.

Gone are the days when a little of this and that could win the day in online retail. Today all 30 of these tactics and strategies dance together requiring sophisticated understanding of individual trends, tools and ideas to win.

Things change too fast to really KNOW anything. Instead teams must surf waves, learn and fail fast and then wax up their boards for another wild ride.

Did we miss any BIG IDEAS your ecommerce team is managing. Soon we will support this infographic with a http://www.Curagami.com post to further explain each strategy and tactic. In the meantime let us know what we missed in comments or email martin(at)Curagami.com.

Thanks and remember DEEP SLOW BREATHES and if you aren't having FUN your visitors will know. They will feel it.

How can you use social media to boost your brand?

Imgur is home to the web's most popular image content, curated in real time by a dedicated community through commenting, voting and sharing.

20 Scoopiteers who've taught me more than I can repay in one lifetime about #contentmarketing and #contentcuration are #MustFollows :

@Robin Good

@maxOz(Michele)
@Ally Greer

@Ana Cristina Pratas

@ janlgordon

@Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com

@Dr. Karen Dietz

@malek

@Thomas Faltin

@Jeff Domansky

@Alex Butler

@The Fish Firm

@massimo facchinetti

@Giuseppe Mauriello

@Mariano Pallottini

@Jesús Hernández

@Guillaume Decugis

@Cendrine Marrouat - https://www.cendrinemedia.com

@Neil Ferree

@Jesús Hernández

Here are the content marketing tips for #startups and #smbs shared in this post:

1. Create content before, during and after events.

2. Support great posts about you by writing about them.

3. Don't SELL, CURATE instead.

4. Create content with an eye toward what you want.

5. Tools matter.

http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2013/11/5-quick-easy-content-marketing-tips.html ;

As the proliferation of the web continues to create more independent and informed consumers, sales and marketing teams have had to evolve their strategies to cater to a generation of consumers that no longer wish to be “sold” to.

Do you remember the house that Jack built? No, I can’t remember much about the nursery rhyme either, other than it became less about Jack’s house as each of the inhabitants ate one another…

Are you looking to create content that engages?

Does your content connect with people and encourage them to engage?

In this article I’ll show you 26 ways to make content that engages people, in an A-Z guide of tips.

The Internet is full of people sharing interesting things all day. From liking pictures on Facebook to retweeting cool articles, sharing is something everyone enjoys doing in one way or another. Yet receiving likes and retweets can seem impossible.

When you're in a great brainstorm meeting and the creative juices are flowing, it's easy to get carried away. Before you know it, you're pitching ideas about cats in tuxedos and wondering if there's any room in your video budget for a Michael Bay-style explosion. And while that all sounds great in the room, those ideas may not get you the results you really want. Effective branded content is created strategically with the intent to serve your brand's goals. Next time a light bulb goes off, ask yourself these 5 questions to find out if your branded content idea is really that good.

How do you build a website and marketplace to sell your products and services? Here are the 5 Best Companies for creating an eCommerce platform and marketplace.

Scenttrail Ratings
We've built stores with three of these five recommendations. Each has its good points and bad. Each is perfect for some and not so good for others. Here are our ratings:

ShopLocket
They don't mention this option, but we love the idea of being able to add a shopping cart to any piece of content without paying a big hosting operation like the 5 mentioned. If your ecommerce needs are small and located in social take a look at https://www.shoplocket.com/ .

Caveat
When you are camped on someone's ground THEY will always gain more benefit than you. The chance of a Shopify store outranking Shopify.com is zero. This issue is only a big deal for stores greater than 50,000 Stock Keeping Units and/or greater than $10M in sales. If you think you will eventually sell $10M+ you may want to create your own store / site. If you think it will take 10 years to reach $10M Shopify may be your best bet for ROI and speed. The PAIN comes when you transfer OFF of their platform, but we can discuss that at another time.

Shopify
Would be our first choice for most small to medium sized ecommerce implementations. The UI is clean and easy to understand. You can be up and running on Shopify in a matter of days. Inventory load is always the biggest pain and they have some ways around that.

Big Commerce
Sounds like Big Commerce fills the promotional hole we felt with Shopify. Most websites aren't very sophisticated in their coupons and promotions. If you are you will find Shopify limiting. Sounds like Big Commerce stepped in to fix the issue. And it can be a big issue since cross talk between offers and coupons can cause a train wreck. If you are sophisticated enough to make free shipping, % off and BOGO offers you may want to use Big Commerce.

Volusion
I wasn't wild about Volusion, but can't remember why. The security stuff the review mentions is marginally important. If you need highly secure ecommerce maybe they are better, but their inner-workings didn't seem as friendly as Shopify or as promotional savvy as Big Commerce.

Magento GO
I built our Story of Cancer store (now down) on Go and was impressed with the powerful business rules they include. Less than 10% of ecommerce sites need such power, but if you do Magento Go is probably your best bet. This is the power to say on a rainy Wednesday you want the price on yellow tops to be down10% when pared with shoes A, B or C. The cross-sale and up-sale wigets are powerful. The promotion, free shipping and coupons are powerful (once you figure out the convoluted logic and that problem is endemic).

Presta Shop
I don't know this option and am suspicious of FREE. Free is a risk because things go BUMP in the night on ecom sites. If you aren't a techie or don't have a techie working for you its good to have someone to call or email in an emergency like if you are bleeding personal information all over the web (say for an example lol). My concern here would be can the code keep up with needed changes (since how do they make money) and is it secure since security thanks to crazed hackers can be a real moveable feast (and I only meant "crazed hackers" in the nicest of ways so to do or say otherwise risks a "just because" attack, you know the attacks they launch just because they can).

Scoop.it Study
I've often thought Slideshare was the great underutilized weapon of content marketing. Thinking that and having the data to prove are two different things.

Thanks to the team at Scoop.it we now have the data to prove what I've FELT. In an extensive study the Scoop.it team shifted my thinking on Slideshare.

Always knew Slideshare was POWERFUL SEO VooDoo because I've had several decks BLOW UP such as:

http://www.slideshare.net/martinmartysmith/storytelling-new-seo 
Absolute #1 position on "Storytelling is the new SEO" and has been top ranked for over a year.

http://www.slideshare.net/martinsellingzoe/content-marketing-network 
This deck held on for a year and has slide out of ranking now.

You don't get much more SEO competitive than "Storytelling is the New SEO" and "Content Marketing Network so personal validation supports the Scoop.it team's great work here.

The other paradigm they shifted for me today was thinking of Slideshare as an important "visual marketing" tool. Decks are LEAN, FAST and VIRAL so great ways to share and build authority and traffic. Just wish I could get my Slideshare profile styled better. Anyone know the secret sauce for that?

Great work Scoopiteers!  

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is no longer what it was a couple of years back. Now, an SEO specialist needs to widen his skill-set to survive in his profession, and shift towards Search Marketing Integration or SMI.

We hear a lot about content marketing these days. It is a phrase a lot of folks throw around to make themselves sound smarter but not many folks understand or

Content Marketing 101 "Wow you create a lot of content," a friend said at lunch yesterday. I felt the need to apologize (again). "I love Internet marketing,

Content Marketing is the New SEO.

Having a Content Marketing strategy for your online business is key to online success in 2013. However, Content Marketing should be done correctly by following certain guidelines.

Take a look at this infographic which shows the Do’s and Dont’s of Content Marketing.

Here are 6 reasons your content won’t get shared (and it absolutely won’t go viral):

1) No Sharing Buttons (or they’re hidden)

In order to help your content spread, you have to reduce the friction of sharing. In other words, make it very easy to share via Facebook, LinkedIn Twitter, Pinterest and via email.

2) You Have a Boring Headline

Headlines are the first things people see when the visit your website or blog.

3) You’re Not Connected In Social Media and/or You Don’t Share it Yourself

If a tree falls in the forest but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Translated into blogging, this is, “If a post is written but there’s no one around to read or share it, was it really written at all?”.

4) Your Posts Are All About You

I have nothing against you, your company, your products, the benefits of your products, the different colors you offer, your financing plans, your client case studies, your demos or your company events. It’s just that it’s not that interesting for me as a reader.

5) You Don’t Have an Artisanal Attitude to Crafting Content

Blog posts that are produced as “check the box” activities will never be exceptional. In other words, an inspired piece of content can get hundreds or thousands of shares while an uninspired one can get zero.

6) You Don’t Post Often Enough To Become Good At It

Every content creator starts off producing average (or below average) content. Get over that fact.

You have to produce enough content, get enough feedback, see what people respond to and find your own voice…and that requires that you put in some time.

by Tom Treanor

The 4 C’s of Social Media illustrates how tech buyers and marketers are currently using social media, and how these four strategies can be used to g