Creators & Curators

Author

Philip Morgan
March 10, 2024

Hey hey! Sorry for no email last Sunday, a sandworm ate my homework. BTW, if ever you come to the AMC Classic 12 in Missoula, MT to watch a movie in their IMAX theater, bring earplugs! I think they got Los Lobos’ old hard-of-hearing soundguy to set the levels in there. Yeesh!

Lead Generation Learnings

In an information landscape that looks like the illustration below, who has more power?

Who has more power: the creators (they create that massive pile of stuff the guy at the computer in the illustration above can attempt to consume), or a trusted curator(s)? A Few Social Media Influencers Are Shaping AI, published on IEEE Spectrum, got me thinking about this question yet again. Here’s a critical moment from that article:

The UCSB paper analyzed more than 8,000 AI and ML papers, considering both social media mentions and the number of citations. Reviewing tweets from December 2018 to October 2023, the researchers concluded AI/ML papers shared by two specific influencers had median citation counts two to three times higher than those of the control group.

This is just one paper. However its core finding is more consonant than dissonant with my experience of navigating an overwhelming information landscape, which is: curators are powerful. They’re powerful because they perform a very valuable service, and it’s easier to leverage their curatorial contribution than it is to be informed about everything.

Are curators more powerful than any individual creator? Weeeeeelll, that one of those “what’s the sound of one hand clapping” unanswerable questions.

For sure, though, curation can be a powerful, valuable service when done well. How could the attention and trust that curation earns you be used to generate leads? Hmm… 😇 

Lead Generation Tip

What: Pick one of your professional peers, and compliment their recent work. (Be genuine, of course.) Repeat each week going forward. (Different peer each week, obvs.)

Why: Your professional peers can be a substantial business development “channel”, and this practice strengthens your connection with them.

  • If you don’t know who your peers are, that’s a problem that will be highlighted by attempting to implement this tip and hopefully you’ll rectify this underlying problem in your relationship to the industry/discipline you’re focused on.

  • If you know who your peers are but don’t know what they are working on, you’re impovrishing yourself. Fix that too. 🙂 Maybe instead of complimenting their recent work, write and ask what they working on that they’re excited about.

Random Curatorial Excellence

Sometimes Spotify’s algorithm is a good “curator” for music discovery. And sometimes Spotify’s curation pales in comparison to a human’s work.

If you’re into awesome 90’s underground hip hop, you’ll enjoy this, from curator DaRocknessMonsta:

Last Week’s For-Fun Poll

The question was: If marketing works for you, what activities have a track record of success for you?

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Inbound (5)

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Outbound (4)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 A combination of inbound and outbound (7)

16 Votes

A few respondents elaborated:

  • “I ticked outbound because I can directly attribute success to some of my outbound activities, but I’m pretty confident (but without evidence) that the inbound efforts have in some way help me to make successful sales. If nothing else forcing myself to generate useful content means I am much better at explaining the benefits of my approach which results in me being much more confident in sales conversations, which are in some ways often like an interview. ”

  • “Despite (or perhaps because of!) everything I do online to produce engaging and entertaining content on LinkedIn and to my email list that demonstrates my expertise to my ideal clients, it generates no leads. Outbound (primarily keeping in touch with ex-clients & people who know me / like me / trust me and asking them to refer me) is how I generate leads.”

Thanks to all who responded!

This Week’s For-Fun Poll

How many professional peers do you periodicaly or regularly interact with?

You get to define who you consider a peer.

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I hope something good happens to you this week,
-P