How to master the art of content curation

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Content curation is not a new concept, but what’s impressive is the fact that it still remains important, despite all the changes in content marketing.

Content curation is all about discovering, optimising and sharing interesting and relevant content for your audience and despite its quite simple definition, it still needs to be treated as part of your wider content strategy.  

Why content curation?

There is an increasing need for content nowadays, with time and budget affecting the quantity of content a brand may create. Even if it manages to find both, the audience won’t necessarily appreciate content leading only to the brand’s owned media.

That’s when content curation is needed, as a way to mix the brand’s written content with what can be found throughout the web, with both matching the audience’s interests.

As we are all becoming addicted to content consumption and always seek for more of it, content curation is the ideal solution for the “hungry” readers who keep expecting new content from the brands that try hard to stay on top of their field.

Thus, content curation serves as an integral part of the content strategy, using the experts’ wisdom as an opportunity to boost a brand’s value.

After all, it’s not just about the creation of the content that you’re judged, but also about your critical thinking and your ability to discover (and share) the right content for your target audience.

Think before you share

There is a thought process involved in content curation and it has to do with the factors that make you pick the content you’ll share.

Curation aims to help you:

• Add value
• Be relevant
• Serve as an expert
• Find influencers
• Reach a wider audience

There’s no need to curate content if it doesn’t contribute to your brand’s authority, value, or relevance, as curation is still part of your content strategy.

How to excel in content curation

Optimise the content

Curation is not just about the automatic sharing of content, as it is important to optimise the curated content in a way that it is appealing, properly formatted, by also focusing on properly attributing the original source.

What’s more, a post may be more effective when shared at the best format and the right time for your audience, so never skip this step during curation.

Avoid these 10 online marketing mistakes at all cost! 😱😱😱 --> https://t.co/sgR5bdnAF6 via @spartanmedia pic.twitter.com/35Ru92CeHx

— Larry Kim (@larrykim) February 23, 2016

Keep your unique perspective

Except for optimisation, the content you’re curating should also include your brand’s voice, in a way that it enhances the initial message with your own perspective.

In fact, you don’t even have to agree with the shared post if you’re able to express your brand’s opinion along with the original content. It’s all about blending optimisation with authenticity.

Love this post from @JasonFalls @Workfront_Inc. #oddcoupleFTW https://t.co/YkE60A5enZ

— Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) February 20, 2016

Engage with your audience

A topic that your audience will appreciate may be a great opportunity to spark further discussion, exchange opinions and start an interesting conversation.

After all, a brand should always seek for new ways to interact with its followers.

Find opportunities to interact with influencers

What if the content you curated allowed you to network with important influencers in your niche?

Think of it, all you have to do is share their content, mention them, and (hopefully) you’re minutes away from a highly prestigious reply!

Keep a balance

Yes, content is everywhere and it’s certainly easier to curate rather than create, but you still need to find a balance between these two, in order to show that you’re able to master both of them.

Your audience will appreciate and your brand will serve as an industry expert in its particular field.

Tools to organise curation

There are many tools to help you organise your content curation and I’ve personally tried:

Twitter Lists

Pinterest

Pocket

Paper.li

Scoop.it

Nuzzel

However, if you feel that you need to consider more options, then this list is what you’re looking for.

Where to curate content

Blog

How about compiling a list of the most important news of the week in your niche and turn them into a highly informative post?

By creating an appealing post, which also provides the right attribution the original sources, you are proving that you are able to discover (and present) the best content for your audience.

Social Media

Your content on social media is never enough, so curation is ideal, especially for social networks like Twitter, where the feed keeps updating and engagement may be instant. And of course, you can also use hashtags, which may turn out really effective.

Twitter lists, Buzzsumo, Klout, and Postplanner are some of the options you have when looking for new content, depending on your interests, the people you’re following, the topics you’re reading, etc. Invest time to use and organise any of them and you might be surprised with the results!

Content Hub

If your business heavily relies on content, then you know how challenging it may be to organise it and even more, to share it with your readers.

That’s when you need to consider the idea of a content hub, a special page, which will help your audience find your content in a creative and structured form.

Thus, the promotion of your content hub could lead to increased clicks towards your posts and could attract an even wider audience.

Ready to curate?

Content curation offers numerous benefits for your brand, providing that you’re ready to include it as an integral part of your content strategy, by investing both in time and resources that would help you find the best available content! And this is an accomplishment on its own!

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12 Easy-to-Use Content Creation Tools You Will Fall in Love With

As far as marketing on the World Wide Web is concerned, it’s safe to say that the most important aspect of it right now is inbound marketing. As opposed to shoving your service or product down your customers’ throat and sounding like a used car salesman (“For you, my friend, I make special price!”), and doing so through paid campaigns, spam, or online ads, you need to be more focused on providing high-quality content, such as blogs, ebooks, or webinars potential customers can actually use, before they decide to pick your product as a solution to their problem.

Providing informative content establishes you as an authority in the field, and instills trust into your reader’s minds, which are then more likely to make a purchase, because you went the extra mile to help them. This approach works because it’s organic, and it’s here to stay.

That being said, inbound marketing does require a lot of work, and you need to have a skill set that is broad enough in order to produce versatile, high-quality content. This is the reason behind our list, which contains 12 simple, yet effective tools you will go crazy over, and which will help you create amazing content.

1) Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator

One of the key aspects of inbound and content marketing is consistency, which means you should make the effort to publish new posts several times a week, which can be challenging, especially if you are doing it alone. Hubstop’s Blog Topic Generator is a helpful tool which allows you to enter up to three keywords, after which it will create topics based around those same keywords.

2) Übersuggest

In order to make your blog or website more visible for search engines, you need to make sure that your content features some carefully selected keywords that are pertinent to your niche.Übersuggest makes this process a lot simpler. All you have to do is submit a term, and it will generate useful keywords for you. Easy as pie.

3) Gravity

Gravity is an immensely powerful personalization engine which enables you to practice targeted advertising and suggest content for each reader based on their personal preferences, location, age, and plenty of other factors. Because it collaborates with 50 of the most powerful companies on the Web, you can rest assured your content will be able to attract the right type of audience.

4) ZenPen

As a content creator, there are at least two strong reasons for you to use ZenPen. First of all, there is its minimalistic interface that helps you battle distractions and really focus on creating crisp written content. Second of all, you can save your work in HTML, as well as plain text, which means it will be ready for implementation on your blog or website with no need for complicated conversions.

5) Ginger

Keep in mind that your websites, blogs, newsletters, and ebooks are the face of your company or business, and as such, they need to be perfect, which means there is no room for poor grammar and spelling. To help you polish your content, as well as improve your grammar skills, check out Ginger, one of the most accurate grammar-checking apps on the market today.

6) EduGeeksClub

If you prefer to have human editors go over your text, get in touch with EduGeeksClub, where you can receive professional feedback from both writers and editors on how you can improve your work. Apart from proofreading, their writers can also help you in creating fresh high-quality content your readers won’t be able to resist and which will keep them hungry for more.

7) PlaceIt

PlaceIt is probably the best app anyone running an online business could ask for. It allows you to create high-quality images featuring your app or product being used in real life. All you have to do is upload a screenshot of your product and let the tool do its magic. It will save you countless hours, because it does this automatically for you, which would otherwise take hours of work in Photoshop.

8) Share as Image

Share as Image enables you to create some potent eye candy for your blog. You can turn any sort of text or image into attractive and shareable content in minutes, thanks to a wide variety of fonts, high-quality photos, and filters offered by the app itself. Nothing like some custom images to help you dazzle your audience.

9) BeFunky

BeFunky is a multi-functional image editor which allows you to produce beautiful visual content, even if image-editing and graphic design aren’t one of your stronger suits. Its functionality is not limited to just creating images, though. You can come up with striking collages and your very own custom graphic designs. Best of all, it is browser-based, so you can access it anywhere, anytime.

10) Easel.ly

Everybody loves infographics, and so do we, but if you have ever tried to set out and create one, you would know how complicated it can be. However, things can be a lot simpler if you decide to check out Easel.ly, an online infographics editor which enables you to create stunning infographics with very little effort, thanks to its large selection of pre-made, customizable templates.

11) Djpod

Podcasts are another powerful, yet somewhat underrated method of inbound marketing that provides potential customers with an incredible amount of useful data. Djpod is a podcasting tool you can use to both create and host your podcasts, and its features allow you to share them throughout social networks or iTunes. You also get unlimited storage and access to detailed statistics.

12) Powtoon

Custom animated videos and presentations are another effective way of making your content more unique, which should help you have the edge over your competitors. We recommend that you use PowToon, which is not only easy to use, but it produces professional results. You will be amazed at what it’s able to create.

Content creation is a demanding industry which requires you to wear many hats. These 12 incredible tools should be your digital Swiss Army knife when it comes to inbound marketing. If you take the time to master each one of them, you will soon realize the benefits.

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A Digital Marketer’s Christmas Wish List

Ah, it’s that time of year again, Christmas—a time when children of all ages and dispositions take a moment to count their blessings and pencil out all the things they want from dear old Santa Claus. Among the ranks of this year’s holiday season hopefuls is the beleaguered digital marketer, whose job description includes the unenviable task of harnessing the wild, unceasing tumult of a seemingly never-ending and ever-growing Digital Tsunami to enhance the customer experience and generate positive ROI. Faced with such a herculean mandate, we digital marketers need some loving from St. Nick now more than ever.

Partly as an exercise in personal catharsis, and partly in the hope that Santa and his elves are actually listening, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling a generalized Christmas wish list for the beleaguered digital marketer in all of us. Here goes.

Wish #1: Abidingly Authoritative Algorithms

Come on, Google, we get that you’re all about continuous improvement, but how about finally delivering a one-and-done search algorithm that allows the beleaguered digital marketer to set a consistent SEO strategy—you know, something that can be periodically washed, rinsed, and repeated with minimal effort? Enough with the cutsy animal references, you need a name for this new algo update with sufficient gravitas to embody its perpetual nature, something like ALLSEARCH, or better yet, OMNIRITHM. Just spitballing here…

Wish #2: Continuously Copywriting Elves

Santa, let me give you some insight into the dark side of the digital marketing, which is embodied in a maxim that amounts to an unending devil’s bargain for the beleaguered digital marketer: the proliferation of digital media implies, and often necessitates, a corresponding proliferation of digital marketing content.

Bummer, dude.

This is largely because, as I’ve written before, in the mean streets of the online ecosystem—where web-based content reigns supreme—content is the alpha and omega:

In web design parlance, content refers to everything on a website: the words, images, and videos, etc. Just like you need matter to fill the universe and a body to fill a suit, you need content to fill a website page. Setting aside, for now, any debate over the merits of content marketing, in the context of web design content is a thing, not a strategy, tactic, or tool. Moreover, it’s an “are,” not an “is” – think plural rather than singular. When we refer to web-based content, then, we are referring to all the things that occupy or populate a web page, in aggregate.

In other words, the world is fast going digital, and in a digital world, it’s all about the content.

Help.

OK, Santa, you’re a magical dude, you must have an ad hoc solution for this content conundrum: a brood of continuously copywriting elves, perhaps? Nothing to flashy, maybe an underperforming elf on the shelf who would rather be penning poems than pounding together playsets.

Give it some thought.

Wish #3: Socially Savvy CEOs

Here’s a tale of two stats if ever there was one:

• According to the 2014 Global Social CEO Survey by social media consulting firm Brandfog, 83% of senior executives in the U.S. think CEOs who actively participate in social media can build better connections with their customers, employees, and investors. Moreover, nearly three-fourths of these same execs believe that C-Suite leaders who use social media to communicate their core mission and brand values are more trustworthy than those who don’t adopt social media.
• In early 2015, Weber Shandwick released Socializing Your CEO: From Marginal to Mainstream, an audit of the online presence of CEOs from the world’s 50 largest companies. Overall, the study found that social media usage by CEOs is still relatively low, at just 28%. Not surprisingly, the most popular social network was LinkedIn, used by 22% of CEOs, followed by Twitter, used by 10% of CEOs. None of the CEOs audited said they used Facebook or Google Plus.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Ok, I understand the potential liability issues with CEOs directly interacting on social media, especially CEOs of large multinationals. My neighbor is a general counsel for a biggish global travel agency, and he blanched at the very thought of his CEO freely Tweeting or Facebooking.

But come on, surely there is a sensible work-around here. After all, direct social engagement is working fine for Richard Branson, who largely composes his own Tweets to an audience of over 3.5 million Twitter followers. In fact, Branson recently earned the top spot in an analysis of the most social CEOs among Fortune 500 companies. A larger than life persona largely shaped by his relentless commitment to personally engage on social media, Branson is arguably the most popular entrepreneur in the world, well regarded by employees, peers, and the general public alike—sort of a businessperson’s Santa Claus, if you will.

Say, there’s an idea. Santa, maybe you could team up with Branson to host a webinar series on social engagement for CEOs. Two jolly old souls, both consummate marketers, imparting pearls of wisdom to the leaders of today, etc. Santa, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), I’d be happy to work with you and Sir Richard to concept it out. After all, according to Wikipedia, Branson’s nickname is “Old Beardie”—talk about a layup!

Wish #4: Digitally Dedicated Clients

Which brings us to the last item on our list—one that is personally nearest and dearest to my heart. Santa, could you work your elven magic and send us beleaguered digital marketers a brace of digitally dedicated clients? You know, the kind who see social engagement, content creation, and inbound marketing as paradigm-shifting marketing functions rather than one-off campaign initiatives; who regard digital transformation as a fundamental realignment of business culture, mindset, and process rather than a short-term band-aid.

Earlier this year, I recall having a conversation with the CEO of a mid-level healthcare company about putting together an integrated digital marketing strategy for his firm. After politely listening to my recommendations, he circled back to what he felt his company needed: a “really sexy” social campaign, something that would “go viral” on social media. He honestly believed such a campaign would transform his company from the digital laggard that it was to a digital leader overnight, sparing him the need to oversee a fundamental restructuring of the marketing function, and indeed the entire company; to manage the overhaul a business that was originally designed to operate in a pre-digital environment but now had to compete in the digital age.

The budget he had proposed was less than one tenth of what would be needed to accomplish his myopic social media goals, to say nothing of my comprehensive recommendations. Sensing we were at an unbreachable impasse, he politely ushered me to the door and was never heard from again.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, he is no longer with the company.

Santa, here is my final wish: help me and my beleaguered digital marketing cohorts convince top executives and business owners—especially small business owners—of the wisdom of employing proven digital marketing strategies. Help them understand that digital marketing and digital transformation are not one-off campaign strategies or short-term business initiatives, but instead are long-term strategic imperatives for most, if not all, brands great and small.

Yes, all these things, and a Doctor Who lunchbox, thanks very much…

Happy Holidays to all!

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15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now

Writing is your drawcard.

It’s the number one tool you have at your fingertips for marketing an online business.

So it needs to be good.

You need to write compelling copy that engages readers, gets them to listen up and encourages them to buy.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could create content faster without giving up on quality?

Today I’m going to introduce you to 15 content creation apps that will make your job (and life) easier. 

From coming up with new content ideas, to writing content and eventually promoting it.

Let’s get straight into it.

Coming up with content ideas

This is often the most difficult step for a content creator.

What should I write about?

And frankly, a blank page is not helping at all.

Readers are tired of the same old topics and tips. They are always expecting something out of the ordinary, life changing and breath taking. Without these catchy topics, people won’t come back for more.

So here are some sources of inspiration.

1. Feedly

Feedly offers a daily inspiration of great content ideas.

Things happen all the time, in absolutely every field. But as a writer, you can’t afford to browse tons of websites to look for interesting news. This takes too much time.

This is why Feedly exists! This web app gathers news from different websites all in one place.

Users can select the sources and sort the news by topics. After this, you only have to log in and bam – News comes to you!

Now pick up the catchiest topic one and start writing.

2. Mindnote

Sometimes, people expect to find material solutions to the problems they read about. So a good idea for coming up with an appealing topic is to first find a new and innovative product.

Then, the rest is simple as pie – start the article with the issue, suggest the solution and introduce the product that can actually sort things out. MindNote is the best place to apply this method.

3. ContentGems

ContentGems puts together particular kinds of news in one daily e-mail. You can choose the topics of interest and a list of articles comes straight to your inbox.

This is a great method for coming up with a writing topics every day.

4. FAQ Fox

This is a great place for finding out what topics people are looking for online.

FAQ Fox gathers information from a large variety of websites.

Here is how it works – users type in a term, hit search and select the websites they want to track down. Next, the platform displays questions and answers related to that particular term.

Writers can spot the unsatisfactory answers and create a qualitative article on that topic.

This method guarantees readership!

5. Creativity Portal

Creativity Portal is famous for helping writers and other artists guide their creativity. It provides inspirational materials – e-journals, articles, posts, and so on.

How can you take advantage of this platform?

Read about the topics you are interested in and use them for inspiration, information, writing style, etc.

Just remember not to plagiarize!

Creating better content

Sure, marketing is kind of on auto pilot these days. But writing still requires a human mind. And yes, I know how exhausting this can be!

Fortunately, smart IT guys have invented several content creation apps to help us research, write, edit, and design content.

Below, I have chosen some of the top picks.

6. Papersgear

Proofreading takes some time and energy. Wouldn’t it be better to start writing the next article rather than edit the already completed one?

In this case, you just need some professional editors willing to verify and improve the content. Papersgear has a great team with experienced employers who can help you publish nothing less than perfect articles.

Also, if you need help with writing something, count on this website. Writers cover all niches and deliver pretty impressive work.

7. Hemingway App

The famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, was well known for his style – simple, short sentences. As a consequence, this is exactly the purpose of this platform – to guide writers to create easy to understand phrases and texts. After all, this is the main requirement for online content.

The app is really easy to use – you just copy and paste text and see the evaluation.

At first, I was happy to learn that our articles were at college level or higher. But guess what? This is the opposite of what you should aim for!

Online readers need to grasp the meaning of an article as fast as possible. The tool also spots passive voice. This is something to be avoided, because it makes sentences long and harder to understand.

8. InboundWriter

Ok, you already have the topic of your next article. But now, it is vital to know how to write it and what to include in it.

The solution is to use InboundWriter. This tool allows you to monitor certain topics and spot the improvements you will need to make to resonate with your readers.

9. Creately

This tool is amazing when it comes to organizing and structuring a future article.

Your life becomes easier when things are clearly sitting in front of you. So use this platform to create diagrams, charts, infographics, and so on.

It works on the basic principle of drag and drop, and it even accepts photos. However, it has a major downside – every project is public, unless users pay for it.

10. Glipho

Glipho allows writers to publish their content and users from all around the world can come up with ideas for the sequel. What better method to find out what people want to read about?

Submit a part of an article, and wait for reactions. Then choose the best idea and finish the text.

Content targeting and optimization

After the content is done, it is time to check its effectiveness. Marketers bet on emotional keywords and SEO. These methods are great to ensure readership.

There are online tools that can evaluate content from this point of view. They will tell you if a title is too long, or not strong enough; if the content is redundant or it has way too many SEO terms.

In this way, you will know what exactly to do in order to improve the content and make it more “commercial”.

11. Headline Analyzer

Did you know that only 62% of readers go beyond the headline of an article?

As a direct consequence, this one is vital for attracting and keeping readership interested. Learn how to boost your headlines by using this online tool.

The Headline Analyzer, created by CoSchedule, is more than useful. It says what kind of words the title contains (common, uncommon, emotional, powerful); the headline type (if you got “generic”, keep trying); it analyzes the length; it even offers a Google search preview and an e-mail subject line preview; it shows you the keywords and the sentiment caused by the titled (you need positive emotions).

12. Zmags

The team at Zmags can create digital materials meant to capture your audiences attention and bring in more and more views. The website owns several products that help writers create and publish content.

13. PRWeb

Attract readers by letting them know you exist.

Use PRWeb to send search-engine-optimized press releases. These ones will promote the articles to everybody interested on that particular topic – subscribers, visitors of the website, and even journalists.

14. Scribe content

This is a valuable tool for every writer and marketer. Scribe analyzes the readers’ preferences and tells you if the content is optimized for sharing.

How does it do that?

Well, it collects conversations from Twitter and Google+, regarding the term introduced by the user.

Then, it also guides users towards creating content that will be better ranked by search engines. In the end, the result will be an easier and more effective marketing campaign.

15. Test My Marketing (TMM)

TMM offers a professional opinion regarding any kind of marketing and advertising materials. The team is made up of professionals in the field who can tell you from one look if the campaign is going to be successful or not.

Or course, after all this criticizing, the marketers will also offer you some guidelines for improving the content. Take advantage of these precious indications and use them for future campaigns.

What do you think…

Which one is your favorite?

What content creation apps would you add to this list?

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