Monday's Links- This Week, On Wednesday!

I tend to think that the social media tool ecosystem is pretty much set. You know, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. There may be a Google +, or Quora, or Pinterest bouncing around, but to me, they have to prove themselves worthy before I can really devote any of my limited (although large) amount of social media time.

That having been said, one must always keep an eye on what tools or apps are bubbling up from the thousands of Mark Zuckerberg wannabees toiling away endlessly. Which is why I found this article on Entrepreneur.com so valuable...


10 Little Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using -- Now by Neil Patel
You should read the whole thing but here is the abbreviated list

1. EditFlow
2. TweetReach
3. ArgyleSocial
4. Hootsuite for IPad
5. TweetLevel
6. ReFollow
7. TwitterSearch
8. Traackr
9. SocMetrics
10. Social Scope

Why Videos Go Viral- CBS News
Apparently, YouTube's Kevin Allocca knows how to make videos go viral. He should know, as his TED talk on the subject is getting picked up everywhere, including on this hunble blog. Good job, Kevin!

The secret sauce? Taste Makers, Communities and Participation, and Unexpectedness.


Content Marketing Delivers Traditional PR Value Too - Chris Parente
I'll just go ahead and quote my good friend Chris-

All that said, a well crafted and executed content marketing program can also deliver more traditional PR benefits like awareness and earned media placements. This was clearly illustrated recently for one of my B2G clients. The company sells commercial satellite communications to the government, a market that is going through significant changes due to the federal budget climate and corresponding cuts in Pentagon spending.
My client’s senior management are focusing on this market evolution with thought leadership content that is both candid and creative. In the past two weeks, this content has resulted in tangible market benefits such as:

• A blog post being mentioned verbatim in a government agency presentation on the state of the market; 

• An offer to repurpose a blog post as a a full page byline, again verbatim, in a leading industry trade magazine; 

• An offer to expand a blog post into a 2,000 word article from a leading academic journal. 

All these benefits from a program designed to directly support revenue growth. The choice isn’t always black and white. A well executed content marketing program can deliver many traditional PR benefits along the way to measurable ROI.

Monday Reading List

Facebook Launches New Mobile Web Standards Initiative, Easier Payments for the Mobile Web - Silicon Filter

During a special lunch-time event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Facebook's CTO Bret Taylor introduced a number of new industry-wide initiatives for the mobile web. Facebook is also working with a number of other vendors to define better web standards that can be implemented across devices to ensure that users can get a consistent mobile web app experience across devices. The Core Mobile Web Platform, as this new group is called, will work to ensure that there are very specific mobile web standards that developers can expect to be available across devices and mobile browers.

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine  - BrianPickings.org

COMMANDMENTS

• Work on one thing at a time until finished. 
• Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’ 
• Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. 
• Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! 
• When you can’t create you can work. 
• Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers. 
• Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it. 
• Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only. 
• Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude. 
• Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. 
• Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

10 Tips on Writing from David Ogilvy - Brainpickings.org

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.
Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.
Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:  

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it. 8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

Interview with Matt Langan- Social Media and Content Marketing

Last week, I interviewed marketing consultant Matt Langan on the Straight to the Point podcast series. Matt is the CEO of L&R Communications and is also the editor-in-chief of GotGeoInt.com, the nations preeminent geospatial intelligence blog.  

Two years ago, as social media was starting to be adopted by marketers targeting the government customer, Matt and I had a great discussion about how companies needed to adopt a more aggressive content marketing approach in order to successfully grow their government business.


What has changed since then? Did our predictions turn out to be accurate? 

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with Matt Langan

What did we cover?

• How the slow economic recovery is influencing marketing budgets?
• Are marketing executives rotating funds into social media and content marketing?
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started with Mobile Marketing

Last week, in the first of a two part series, I interviewed mobile marketing consultant James O'Brien on the Straight to the Point podcast series about how companies can get a mobile strategy started and where mobile marketing is headed.

I've known James for twenty years and admire the expertise he gained from working with commercial, political and government clients in his career. An expert in online marketing, email compliance and privacy regulations, James is the founder of J Obrien Global and is currently a partner with MobiMKT, a mobile application development agency.

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started

What did we cover?

• How marketing is being transformed by mobile technology and the movement of the audience onto mobile devices
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• For a firm without a mobile strategy, what is a good first step? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

All Companies are Publishers Now- Are You Making News?

Have you really taken to heart the idea that social media channels require new kinds of content? Are you really making an effort to create stories that people will value, or are you still just tweeting your press releases?

You (and your company) are a publisher now...don't believe me? Do you believe the New York Times?

Read, Blogging Site Tumblr Makes Itself the News, by Brian Stelter.

The takeaway?

By creating in-house content, social Web sites can increase the amount of time that users spend on their sites, thereby increasing their value to advertisers.

Andrew McLaughlin, a vice president at Tumblr, said that in telling stories about its users, the company wanted Mr. Mohney and Ms. Bennett, the only two hires for the time being, to “do real journalism and analysis, not P.R. fluff.”

“Of course, it’s obviously in our self-interest as a company to surface more compelling stories about creators on Tumblr; at the same time, though, we think Chris and Jessica will be able to do so in ways that embody professional rigor and first-rate writing,” he said in an e-mail message.

In the savage battle for mindshare, web traffic and influence, do you have ex-journalists and editors crafting professional stories, or did you assign that job to the twenty-something who is on Facebook all day?

Something to think about...