Content curation has become an important element of social media marketing.
Sharing useful and relevant content helps you build trust and establish yourself as resourceful.
But successful content curation is an activity that should be established as an everyday process. A morning process that takes just the necessary time and energy so you can move on to more important things…
like running your business.
This process should allow you to curate quality content, quick and on the move. There are 3 steps for this process:
- Discovery – Finding the sources of content that are relevant in your industry
- Organization – Collecting and organizing these sources so they are accesible when you need them
- Distribution – The tools used to distribute this content properly
If you have this process on lock down, curating content will be a seamless activity in your day.
Mobile
I do most of my content curation on the move, while I enjoy coffee in the morning before hitting the office.
And today I want to share with you some of the sources, tools and tricks I use for discovering, organizing and distributing content right from my iPhone.
Here we go:
Discovery
1- Flipboard
You must be familiar with Flipboard. One of the most beautiful apps in the iOS universe with iPhone and iPad versions.
A great way to discover content on several different topics that are easy to organize. Content from established publications and also a great way to visualize content shared by your social connections like Facebook and Twitter friends.
2- Flud
Flud is another app with a stunning design. Also a great way to access publications of your choice and whatever your social networks connections are sharing.
Flud also has a social network aspect built in, you can follow people and you can “flud” content to your followers. Both these apps present very minimal interfaces for a great experience when consuming content.
Organization
3- Zite
Zite is probably my favorite tool. It’s a smart customizable magazine that learns your preferences as you use it.
The source of content is based on topics you choose from its menu, your Google Reader account and articles you “like” within the app. This is probably the most successful app in delivering exactly what you want to see.
4- NewsMix
I recently started using NewsMix. This is a different process, besides the suggested channels, you can create your own channels and add Twitter or Facebook accounts as sources.
For example, I added Kristi Hines’ Twitter account @kikolani to my “Blogging” channel. NewsMix will grab her tweets and turn them into visual pieces of content as you can see in the image above (right).
Tweets on the web version of this app are displayed visually in a format similar to Pinterest.
5- Feedly
Feedly is basically Google Reader on steroids. Another great way of making content visual.
It also has a browser extension that lets you subscribe to any blog without having to do so through your reader. And if you organize your subscriptions in groups, it makes a much better experience.
6- Pocket
Pocket, formerly known as “Read It Later” is an app that lets you save content from any source when you’re on the run. The concept is to save articles to read them later but it’s very useful to organize to share.
The new design is also beautiful.
Distribution
7- Twitter
Most of these apps already come with an integration of Twitter on the iOS. You can simply tweet right from the article without having to craft the tweet on your own.
You don’t need screenshots for Twitter, right?
8- Buffer
But when you want to schedule this content throughout the day, there is nothing like Buffer. Yes, in case you didn’t know, Buffer also has apps for iPhone and Android.
Some of the apps mentioned above allow you to connect to your Buffer account. If they don’t, I’ll show you a trick in a second.
If you are using these apps to send content to Buffer, you don’t really need the actual app on your mobile. But having the app present is still very useful, you can reorder tweets, you can customize them and you have access to quick analytics.
Tricks
9- ifttt
ifttt (If This Then That) is not a mobile app but a web-based service that lets you automate tasks. When something happens, an action is triggered. You can use already existing “recipes”.
It’s kind of hard to explain in a couple of paragraphs but I’ll give you two examples I currently use:
- When I post a photo on Instagram, it is automatically saved in a folder in Dropbox
- When there is a new post on the SocialMouths’ RSS, a bookmark is automatically created on Delicious
There are thousands of recipes similar to those that you can use. You can really make your life a lot easier by setting up a few recipes.
This is also a way to send content from your smartphone, for example, every post you send to Pocket is automatically added to your Buffer schedule.
10- Email to Buffer
You might not know this one. If you are getting your content from an app that has no connection to Buffer, you can email it. Follow these 3 easy steps to set this up:
- Go to your Buffer account and click on “Help Guides” in the footer
- On the left menu, click on “Email to Buffer” under “Mobile”
- Copy your “secret email”
- Create a new contact on your mobile, call it “Buffer” and add the email address there
- When you have a post you want to share, just “email link” and send the email to your Buffer contact
You can also do this with other apps such as Evernote, they assign you a unique email address that you can use to bookmark content.
Your Turn
Like I said at the beginning, if you have ways to discover content, organize your sources and you have the toolbox ready for distribution, you’re golden…
Not all mobile apps are awesome, be careful not to waste your time. Google Currents for example is a sad and weak little attempt that takes space on your phone and I predict has a very short life ahead.
On the other hand, there are rumors about Apple and Facebook going to bed together for iOS integration, this should be important in making mobile sharing more natural. I know you take it for granted but tweeting from an iPhone wasn’t as easy as it is now, after Apple baked it into its system.
But I’m sure you have your own weapons to share and curate content from your smartphone, share your sources, apps, tools and tricks!
