SEO Werkt!

The 10 most-read AdFreak stories of the week:

1. Ikea Debuts Mänland, a Daycare for Men While Women Shop
2. Which Is Your Favorite Poster From the Fall TV Season?
3. Probably the Most Unfortunate Coupon Copywriting Ever
4. George Clooney Marries Random Commoner in Bank Ad
5. Schweddy Balls Leaves Sour Taste in Conservative Group's Mouth
6. Lingerie Model Grows a Pair for Testicular Cancer (NSFW)
7. Rick Perry's First Ad Is Like a Trailer for a Rick Perry Movie
8. NYC Billboard's Math Puzzle Will Make Your Brain Hurt
9. 3-D Safe-Driving Billboard in Colorado Will Rip Your Head Off
10. George Costanza Needs Google Wallet

When the dog days of summer hit Cambridge, I hit the movie theater to catch up with the movies already capturing buzz as early contenders for the Oscars. And this time of year never disappoints when it comes to new releases — from the go-to franchises like “Cars” and  “Kung Fu Panda,” to action-packed flicks like “Transformers,” to films that keep audiences thinking long after the credits end, such as “Tree of Life.” The qualities that make a movie compelling are similar to those that make a good curated news site:

Stick to a specific area of expertise
Imagine if Hitchcock made a comedy. There’s a reason he’s still the name in thrillers decades after his last movie. When curating, it’s critical to focus on a precise topic — within your industry — that you know well.

Be timely
When George Clooney’s “Up in the Air” premiered, it captured the public’s attention in a time when people were still feeling the impact of the recession, which is one of the movie’s main themes. To a similar point, movie execs regularly try to make sequels in short order to build off the original’s buzz. The same holds true for curators — provide your audiences with regular, timely content in order to keep them engaged.

Add some originality
If you’ve seen one romantic comedy, you may think you’ve seen them all — unless there’s a unique twist or originality making it worth the price of admission. Movies that have these qualities often receive the biggest box-office returns. Curated content sites featuring an original blog post or an annotation of an article often get better results in terms of traffic, engagement, and brand awareness. 

Highlight compelling characters
There’s a reason “Winnie the Pooh,” “Iron Man,” and “Captain America,” are all getting top-billing this summer. They’re familiar, interesting, and play a key role in their films. For curators, this translates into the inclusion of key characters in the industry on which you curate. With the help of content curation technologies, tagging concepts, people, companies, etc., audiences can easily find all the relevant content related to that topic.

Tease content to build interest
One of my favorite parts of going to the movies is watching all the previews. Trailers tease viewers — often with the best scenes — to pique their interest, but don’t completely give away the story. Good curators do the same by providing a short summary or introduction to a curated piece of content, but then requiring readers to click-through to the original publisher to read the entire post.

With that in mind, here are my picks for the Oscars in best curated content:

Best Costume Design: Adobe’s CMO.com
Just like the studio execs behind “Deathly Hallows Part 2″ know that  “Potterheads” are the key to their success, Adobe understands that chief marketing officers (CMOs) are key to growing its business. To engage them, Adobe launched CMO.com, a “one-stop shop for digital marketing insight,” which has become a well-designed go-to source for senior marketing executives. The site contains original thought leadership content and frequently updated curated content from various marketing trade outlets. It also does a tremendous job of sharing all of this information via a daily email newsletter. It’s the movie equivalent of those same Harry Potter execs expanding their brand with merchandise.

Best Documentary: The Drudge Report
Drudge is a great example of political news curation. It stands out because its links to third-party news content is augmented editorially through its internal team. And Matt Drudge, who runs the site, is the curator’s version of an A-list actor — his site is now ranks no. 15 on the list of  the most popular online news sites.

Best Directing: Cisco’s The Network
One of the most highly anticipated releases this summer for those who closely follow content marketing was Cisco’s The Network. The news portal, which launched in mid June, contains curated content from other sites frequented by its target audience, as well as original content from a team of experienced technology journalists. The Network made itself a blockbuster by sticking to the content areas it knows best and to what its customers care about most: data center, core networks, video, collaboration, Cisco’s culture, and social media.

Best Writing (Original): Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s Bio-IT World Weekly
A movie’s success lies heavily on the celebrity of an actor — the talk show circuit and E! Network are cases in point. For a publisher, curating content is a great way to boost the value of content over a longer period of time. Bio-IT World Weekly, an email newsletter produced by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI), combines five to seven original articles with a stream of curated content to engage readers with more material than its own editorial team can produce alone. In three short months, CHI has already seen its star-power grow dramatically by the increased length of visits on their properties.

Best Visual Effects: The Big Apple Circus
This movie-inspired list wouldn’t be complete without reference to an example of curated video. The Big Apple Circus has done an excellent job of taking its larger-than-life image to the web. Rather than solely relying on its own original content, which can be difficult and costly to update regularly (and can teeter on overly promotional), it publishes curated videos from third-party and user-generated content sites such as YouTube. It is smart marketing and fun for audiences — a one-two punch in delivering results.

Even though, I may not be part of The Academy voting on this year’s awards, I do reckon myself an informed critic of the qualities that make for good movies — and by extension, curated content microsites. Just call me the Roger Ebert of content marketing.

Pawan Deshpande is CEO for HiveFire Inc.

On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.

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George Clooney, last spotted celebrating his 50th birthday by doing a lame Italian commercial, has now done this slightly less lame Norwegian ad—for that country's largest bank. In it, some random woman awakens with no memory of the night before—when she apparently got married to Clooney, who was wearing a horse head at the time. The plot would seem to be tailor-made for Charlie Sheen rather than Clooney, but perhaps Sheen was unavailable. "Some have luck in life. The rest of us might want to save some," says the tagline at the end. Clooney, of course, doesn't do terrible ads for crappy companies, so you have to assume the bank being advertised is a classy joint. Via Copyranter.

Maatschappelijke belangenorganisaties, ook wel ngo's genoemd, schuwen harde communicatie niet. Die activistische methoden gebruiken ze steeds meer ook tegen elkaar. Arme George Clooney zit nu tussen hamer en aanbeeld van twee strijdende visies op duurzaamheid.
Lees Meer over: NGO hakt in op concurrentie.

David tegen Goliath. Fair Trade tegen Nestlé Sara Lee. De Viral tegen de corporate video. Er is weer een leuke case in de maak als het gaat om online reputatie management. Nespresso, het paradepaardje van Nestlé, ligt onder vuur van de Zwitserse actiegroep Solidar. De reden? Nespresso wordt niet gemaakt van Fair Trade koffie. Nestlé zou de lokale koffieboeren uitbuiten en dat proberen te verhullen door het gebruik van een prachtig eigen label, Ecolaboration AAA. En  volgens Solidar is het de hoogste tijd dat George Clooney ‘puts his money where his mouth is’. Via een parodie op de commercials wordt gevraagd om Clooney via een e-mail te vragen zich niet langer te verbinden aan Nespresso zolang deze geen Fair Trade koffie…

George Clooney is zoals we weten, de Nespresso-man.
Maar hij is ook een VN-ambassadeur, een zogeheten ‘Messenger of Peace’ en actief bezig met mensenrechten.

Volgens de Zwitserse fair trade-organisatie Solidar bijt dat elkaar.
Lees Meer over: ‘Of fair trade-koffie, of geen George Clooney’.

Late at night the Tuesday before Christmas my Twitterstream alerted me to reports of a plane crash in Jamaica.

I immediately clicked through on the link to find a story light on details about American Airlines flight 331 crashing after take off and breaking in two and this jarringly horrible contextual ad placement:

Yep, in the Miami Herald a headline ‘Flight from Miami Crashes in Jamiaca’ prompts a banner ad for George Clooney’s ‘Up in the Air’.

Text analytics – still doesn’t really work in many cases and contexts.