B oost your online content (without getting lost in the web)
There are a TON of articles out there about where to find the best sources for content curation – that’s the fancy lingo for finding content for your website’s blog, social media posts, and more. We are increasingly providing our clients with advice and consultation services on how to write quality content well and frequently for their websites.
The content curation tools we’ve tested out are great for many types of businesses from design inspiration to real estate news, and will help you find topics and sources for the next blog post or social media plug.
Feeling overwhelmed by Google searches? Here are a few of our favorite resources for sorting through the massive amounts of content on the Internet.
Facebook Interests
In the left-hand column of your Facebook news feed is the Interests tab, which allows you to subscribe to certain topics – kind of like an RSS feed created by other Facebook users. Can’t find where to click? Try going to facebook.com/bookmarks/interests and click on “Add Interests.”
This is also the area where you can sort out those dozens of Facebook fan pages that you’ve liked over the years. Simply visit that page, mouse over the “Liked” button below the cover image, and click on “Add to Interests.” If you haven’t created a list topic already, you’ll still be able to do that. For instance, create an interest called “Fantastic Facebook pages” and add Zbra Studios to it!
TweetDeck’s search capabilities
The best part about Twitter is its searchable content using hashtags and phrases. Applications like TweetDeck or Hootsuite (both of which are free!) make it easy to sort those out into different columns for easy and real-time tracking.
For instance, one of the searches we’ve set up to see what’s going on in the world of Graphic Design is a hashtag search for (you guessed it!) #GraphicDesign. We get some great ideas and articles coming in to help keep us informed.
Flipboard is a mobile app for Android devices and tablets like the iPad. It connects your Twitter account and Facebook account to make it easy to share articles, but mainly acts as a news feed that takes the content you follow and formats into cool, magazine “flippable” layouts.
It allows you to create different boards by source (like ABC News), people, or topics, so it does act similar to an RSS feed but is much prettier. Our favorite boards or “feeds” are Geekologie, Dwell, and Flipboard Picks.
Zite
Functioning like Flipboard does as a magazine app, Zite has some very unique content feeds that we’re not seeing anywhere else. Some of the sections to choose from (if you’re not searching and customizing your own) including Web Design & User Experience, Graphic Design & Typography, Photography, Social Media… all sections currently on our Zite!
RSS feeds
Although Google Reader has kicked the bucket, RSS feeds are still a great way to follow all the blogs and websites via a subscription-style format. Feedly is a favorite of ours, although there are a lot of options, mainly because it allows you to organize those subscriptions into categories. It’s easy to share articles on other social media outlets, view in a browser or on any mobile device.
LinkedIn has really made a come-back in the last couple of years, and is now a great source of information for all kinds of professionals. No longer just a place to look for a new job, LinkedIn is a social sharing hub. It has a news feed with updates and shared articles from people you’re connected with, Groups you can join with like-minded individuals, and subscriptions to all sorts of information by topic.
Aside from joining a Group where professionals are sharing their own articles (which helps drive quite a bit of traffic to their websites), on LinkedIn Today you can subscribe to a lot of different topics with trending articles. It’s really a great resource we always recommend to clients!
Any of these options are a great way to stay in touch with your industry and boost content at the same time.
Don’t forget to head over to Facebook and like us for more tips!