Since my article “Become a Content Curator to Build Your Social Media Presence” received such a strong response, I thought I’d expand the topic by listing some of the content curation tools available for building your social media presence.
These tools not only help you collect content, but they also allow you to present what is found in many different ways.
If you do, or plan to, use any of these tools, please share your experiences in the comments section below.
Content Curation Tools
- Paper.li – I use this to create my “Business Guide to the Online World” which is automatically updated daily and posted to Twitter.
- Scoop.it! – this tool is more hands-on than Paper.li as all entries within your curated topic are hand-picked by you either from links that have already been “Scooped” or from sites you come across while you are surfing ( you can “scoop” a link using their handy browser plug-in).
- Storify – hands-on like Scoop.it, they allow you to search many sites (e.g. YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) for relevant links all in one place.
- ShortForm – this tool allows you to become a “VJ” by creating a video channel. This channel is similar to a YouTube channel except that the videos can come from any of the popular video sites (as well as Facebook and Twitter) as long as they are public.
- Curata and CurationSoft – these are both robust products and services for content curation which tie into your site and blog and help you make the most of the benefits that curating content brings.
Weekly Link Roundup
Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I’ve read and share them with you here.
These posts focus on small business solutions or resources online (or both!).
Enjoy!
3 New Ways to Market Your Blog: A few creative ideas for attracting attention online.
51 Free Resources For Small Businesses: A handy list of online sites and tools which you can use for free to manage and market your business.
13 Crowdfunding Websites to Fund Your Business: If you’re looking to raise money to fund your business, here are some great sites where you can do just that.
7 Twitter Tools To Get More Engagement: Very interesting set of tools. I’m currently playing with InboxQ and can’t wait to try some of the others.
The Social Media Map: A powerful guide to the social media landscape, this map lists networks, sites and tools by purpose. You can download a functional version (with active links) at http://www.ovrdrv.com/social-media-map/
A Look at Pay-Per-Click Tools for Small Businesses: Pay-per-click marketing can be confusing – these tools and services are aimed at helping you makes sense of it and use it effectively.
3 Mobile Apps Poised to Change the Consumer/Brand Relationship: These community-building apps can help propel your brand to stardom.
Some handy Facebook advice from Social Media Examiner:
How to Use Facebook Places and Facebook Deals for Local Business: Step-by-step details on harnessing Facebook to bring folks in your door.
6 Daily Habits for Facebook Marketing Success: Actionable steps to use to make Facebook work for your business.
How to Combine QR Codes With the Power of Facebook: I’m a big fan of QR codes (see here and here and here) and this is just one more way to make they work for you.
There is a pretty comprehensive comparison of curation platforms available at social compare: http://socialcompare.com/en/comparison/curation-platforms-amplify-knowledge-plaza-storify It might be useful to get a feel of all that’s available out there.
And if you wish to try out an easy to use alternative, you can try Bundlr, the service we’re building. You can reach out to me if you need any help 🙂
Sérgio,
Thanks for the link the list of tools – very handy!
Also, thanks for the heads-up on Bundlr…I will take a look.
-Matt
Yet another, in-the-trenches, top-shelf informative post! Great timing, too – was just beginning to look at options in this area and BOOM – here it is!
Question: Curious why why you chose Paper.li over Scoop.it? Also, do you use Curation Soft for MAB? Seems like a tool that would work well for you – if so, will you or have you done a review on it any where? Thanks!
Thanks Bruce – glad you found this useful!
I selected Paper.li over Scoop.it because at that time, Scoop.it was JUST getting off the ground. Today I would have certainly included it on the list and likely would be using both. Paper.li is great for automating curation while Scoop.it is awesome for more active curation efforts.
I do not use Curation Soft or any curation products for my site (I collect content based on my own browsing) and have not yet looked deeply into any of the products which supposedly automate this for a website. If you do jump in, I would love to hear about your experiences with any of these solutions.
-Matt
Interesting, Matt – that you do not use any formal curation pruning software or products with all the information you pull together.
You are OLD SCHOOL, man! 😉
Like me! But I am looking to try and streamline my content curation leads more quickly and get better results(and save time) – the price of CurationSoft is reasonable enough to ‘give a try’ and see how it goes so I”ll be taking the plunge and will keep you posted…..
I have, also, scheduled a formal try of Scoop.It in January…..Glad to hear it’s solid from a more traditional active curaging methods – exactly what I was hoping for!
Yeah, yeah…I also code my web pages in text files. 🙂
Hey, take a look at Pinterest.com also – playing with that today (http://pinterest.com/mattmansfield/) – it focuses on visual content curation.
Let me know how the curation soft trial goes…
-Matt