03 Nov My unscientific methods for curating content
Posted at 13:57h
in Social Media
I think most people that know me will tell you that my brain might not work the same way as yours. (Four concussions, anyone?) But I am really good at find content for client social media accounts in very little time. So I thought I would share my non-scientific process for finding and selecting articles, blogs and other little bits for Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, among others.
Keep in mind a lot of what I do is B2B so it’s sometimes not that easy to find good, current content. Here are a few ways to make the process faster and much less painful.
- Get VERY specific with keyword searches. Most people just search for the main terms. I get specific and try to stay in the same theme for days. For example, one search “cloud computing health IT problems October 2011” yielded a huge number of items for my healthcare IT client. I often add the month and year so that I find newer items as well.
- Use bookmarks extensively. I used to keep a lot on my Google reader and homepage, but I’ve found bookmarking sites works just as well and you’re not staring at a bunch of stuff on your homepage all the time. I do add the most important RSS feeds to my homepage, but not nearly as many as I used to. Also, a good search tends to turn up several items. I bookmark them all in folders, so I can just search and post.
- Don’t search and post if you can avoid it. This tends to result in typos like the one I did today. Instead, schedule an hour a week to search for items and bookmark them. Then only post brand new items if it’s time sensitive, like announcements and such.
- Change up your search terms on a frequent basis and pay attention in meetings with your client. One of my business clients mentioned he had started ballroom dancing. So I searched for “ballroom dancing and leadership” and found a few fun articles to pop in every once in a while.
- Use quotes if you’re stuck. Quotes are ALWAYS good for posting and an easy hit. I use BrainyQuote.com all the time when I’m in a jam.
The main thing is not to get too bent out of shape finding the PERFECT item. It’s better to be consistent with your frequency and post marginal things once in a while, than to get burned out from too much searching. I’d love to hear YOUR tips for finding cool content?