Curatti Best Articles of 2015 – Part 2
2015 has been and gone, and we now welcome 2016 into our lives. May it be the best year yet for you and yours.
Once again, we’d like to offer a big thank you to all of our readers and advocates. And of course, we’d like to thank our great writers, who make Curatti what it is.
Happy New Year to all!
Here is Part Two of a recap of original content by our regular contributors (2 or more original pieces). One piece per person – not an easy task – chosen to complement each other, and presented in alphabetical order or author’s last name. There’s a little comment from me, followed by an excerpt. Some very interesting and helpful stuff here! Enjoy!
Cendrine Marrouat
Content Curation: A Case Study in Doing It Right
The title and words say it all!
Curation is an art form. It goes beyond the simple acts of copying and pasting a paragraph or two from an article, adding a link, and sharing the whole thing with an audience. Great curation “adds meaning to isolated beautiful things” — to quote Rohit Bhargava.
In his excellent article for MarketingProfs, the author and marketer explains that curators have five things in common: They are inquisitive, observant, thoughtful, ‘fickle’, and concise. Fickle because they have learnt to “save ideas for later digestion.”
Dorien Morin
15 Great Tips To Boost Curation and Sharing of Your Articles
Broad dissemination of our work. It’s what we all want, right? Before bringing you the 15 tips, Dorien said this:
As a new blogger, I often wondered what made someone share an article. I was looking for a ‘magic’ formula. After nearly four years of blogging and having written and published over 350 articles, I have a much better idea of what makes an article get shared and curated. I also know there is no ‘magic’ formula and ‘going viral’ is just that: a viral post, coming out of nowhere! However, knowing what types of articles get shared within your industry and knowing what to adjust before and after you publish makes your hard work have a much better shot of being shared and curated.
Raymond Morin
Generation C: The Rise Of Independent Entrepreneurship
These are articles about sociological, generational change – a departure from the usual Curatti content, but entirely fascinating!
Since 2010, there has been a boom in entrepreneurship, and small businesses run by young people from Generation Y. According to a recent study published by the Bentley University, and written about by Forbes, 67% of young people under 35 already have their own business or considering doing so.
In Canada, according to the latest government statistics (2012), there are already more than 1 million small businesses with less than 100 employees, employing over 5 million people, or 48% of the active workforce in the public sector. In 2011, there were 2.67 million self-employed, or 15.4% of workers employed in the Canadian economy.
Albert Qian
How to SMAC the Competition
Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud – the four cornerstones of modern business
For major Fortune 500 companies, this has been a boon for innovation. Hardware companies like Cisco are now able to integrate Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud (SMAC) into networking and the Internet of Things (IoT), while startups like Fitbit can cash in on the quantified self-movement where people can socially compete with others on fitness and measures of their progress. Even though automation seems to be taking root, there’s still quite a bit to be considered in terms of what the future may hold.
For the past couple of years, B2B SMBs have stood on the sidelines wondering what their role in all of this is. While solopreneurs and big companies get all the clout, they seem to have been left out, but the industry is now changing. If anything, given recent industry market changes, SMBs are the largest growing sector as Fortune 500s start fragmenting into smaller, leaner and more efficient teams.
Luckily for SMBs, there’s no need for a billion dollar budget to get in the game and stay there. In today’s blog post, we’ll take a look at how SMBs can stay agile and SMAC their competition into the wall.
Nicholas Scalice
7 SEO Trends You Need to Know Now
SEO is changing! Nick presents the trends many of us have been reading about
From quantity to quality
Just a few years ago, search engines were just search engines, in the most basic sense of the phrase. Google was a system than could be gamed. Search rankings were less complex, and the goal was to simply get visitors to the site. Traffic was king and all visitors were treated equally.
What mattered was quantity over quality. Essentially, SEO was a numbers game.
Today however, search engines–especially Google–are by far the closest thing to artificial intelligence that humanity has ever created. Keywords and rankings are becoming less and less important with each passing update, with the algorithm shifting the focus to value, education, and relevance. Simply put, if your content is trash, you might as well not write it. In fact, it’s even better not to write it; at least you won’t get penalized that way.
Ron Sela
7 Advanced Thoughts On Content Marketing
As stated in the title! Not aimed at beginners!
Business goals can be achieved through content marketing, but it needs to be carefully planned, optimized and measured for return on investment. Content marketing will generate revenues and provide a positive return on investment if you follow strategies that will help you build up a good understanding of your audience and to produce strong content that is linked directly to your selling cycle.
The aim of building strategies for content marketing is to bring leads to your business by showcasing expertise or a solution that your business provides. The best way to develop your strategies is through knowledge of your target customers, how they use content and how your content can be matched to their persona.
Ileane Smith
Savvy Podcasting Tips for Small Business Owners
Podcasting had a breakout year. After this introduction, Ileane, known for her Basic Blog Tips blog, offer helpful hints
Podcasting is such a unique platform and you’ll often hear it referred to as the best way to nurture an “intimate” connection with your audience. It’s so true because many people are consuming podcasts while they’re working out at the gym, or on riding on the train or in a car on their daily commute, or even when doing chores around the house. These devoted podcast listeners are many times using headphones or ear buds which literally puts your message right inside their heads. This puts the quality of your audio front and center in the thoughts and minds of your audience and potential subscribers for your podcast show.
Ann Smarty
Turn One Research into Dozens of Awesome Articles!
Bloggers: Some useful stuff here!
While still at the research stage, make sure to record and capture all different angles, related tools and concepts you come across. I usually start multiple article drafts and drop those raw URL with some related thoughts there.
The trick to making multiple blog posts is not to focus on the topic you had originally intended to use it for. Instead, think of all of the other neighboring topics and different angles that information could be related to.
For example:
So, I decided to write an article on visual marketing and in the process of my research I’ve discovered various angles. So I wrote three different article:
- 20 Sites to Diversify Your Visual Marketing
- How to Simplify & Scale Your Visual Marketing Strategy for More Efficiency
- 5 Ideas to Make an Extra Profit from Your Visuals
Deborah Tutnauer
Respectful Foundations of Social Selling for Business
What other first building brick can there be?
In this piece, Deborah uses the allegories of good and bad interactions at a cocktail party, drawing parallels to Social Selling contacts:
As a business owner, you must keep in mind the cocktail party –whether an informal gathering like a picnic, or a professional meet and greet – there are ways to be viewed as approachable, respectful and interested and there is bumbling man in the rumpled suit with no understanding of personal space boundaries, nor appropriate initial meeting conversation. Respectful foundations of social selling for business, begin with genuine respectful interaction much the same as do all meaningful relationships.
Image: Copyright: ‘http://www.123rf.com/profile_pixelsaway‘>pixelsaway / 123RF Stock Photo
Jan Gordon
Latest posts by Jan Gordon (see all)
- Curatti Best Articles of 2022 (And Happy New Year 2023!) - December 28, 2022
- Curatti Best Articles of 2021 (And Happy New Year 2022!) - December 31, 2021
- Curatti Best Articles of 2020 (And Happy New Year 2021!) - December 31, 2020
