Let’s face it, you only have so much time in the day to write quality blog posts – a blog post that is relevant and useful to your audience. This year, one of my goals was to provide my readers more quality posts throughout the weeks and months ahead. My specific goal is three times a week. To fill in the times I’m not writing I scour the internet looking for content from other sources and I handpick and share it to my audience on social media. This idea of handpicking valuable, useful content from other sources is called content curation.
Over the years I have come to rely on many content curation tools to find the best content for my audience. Some have come and gone (Google reader), and others continue to emerge. Other good reasons to share other people’s content:
- Keeps the conversation and engagement going.
- Appreciation/possible reciprocation from authors of content you are sharing
- Increases top-of-mind awareness
Here are my top 5 content curation tools.
BuzzSumo
I’ve been very impressed with BuzzSumo and all of its great features. BuzzSumo allows you to discover the most shared content across all social networks and run detailed analysis reports. Find influencers in any topic area, Alerts on content mentioning your keyword; or when an author or competitor publishes new content. For a complete overview of BuzzSumo watch this video.
Topsy
Similar to BuzzSumo, Topsy instantly analyzes any topic, term or hashtag across years of conversations on millions of web sites. Find influencers and see key metrics.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a one stop shop. I use it exclusively to schedule and share content. Recently Hootsuite introduced Publishing beta which included finding content around three key words. For me I use business, security and social media. I then select from the search results which ones to schedule and when. Hootsuite will also notify you when your account is out of content. Another feature I like is the ability to add curated RSS feeds to your schedule.
Feedly
Feedly is a fantastic RSS aggregator. It nullifies the need to go to everyone of your favorite websites to get curated content. Simply add any curated RSS feeds to Feedly, add it to or create a category for it. I have over 50 feeds. I glance through each one, and having a paid version, I add it to Hootsuite for scheduling.
Swayy (now defunct)
I’ve been using Swayy for the last few months since it was mentioned on Mike Stelzner’s Social Media Examiner Podcast. Swayy helps you discover the most engaging content and share with your audience on social media based on their interests and engagement. For example, I have my personal Twitter account connected to Swayy. Swayy picks up keywords and phrases from the content that have shared and others that follow me and produces a dashboard on the most shared content on those keywords. I pick and choose from the dashboard which articles to share and the articles manually to my Hootsuite schedule.
What are some of your favorite content curating tools?
