Finding and sharing great social media content
The lovely folk at Buffer have been sharing their wisdom this week through a series of free webinars. Subjects have ranged from content curation and analytics to new Instagram features and the Facebook news feed. The rules of social media marketing change so frequently, I like to take advantage of free tutorials like these to ensure I’m on the ball.
As a content creator, I’m always looking to see what works well for other brands, to learn lessons that I can apply to my own business and share with my clients. So you won’t be surprised to hear that the "3 Clever Ways to Discover and Share the Very Best Content on Social” session was top of my agenda. So at 11pm on Monday evening (the Buffer guys are in America) I took my iPad to bed and settled down to learn something new.
The host Kevan took us through a host of different resources he uses to research and curate great content. Many of the sites can be linked directly to a scheduling tool like Buffer. Other tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Spinklr are available!
Spend your time wisely
The best piece of advice I took from the session was around time management. It’s so easy to get carried away on social media. We all do it. You start off intending to just check through your notifications. Half an hour later you’re still scrolling. So searching for sharable content is likely to take up too much of your precious time, right? Well it could if you let it. But if you set some ground rules, you’ll be much more productive.
The advice is to spend 75% of your time discovering content, 20% of your time reading content and about 5% sharing it.
Where can you find great content?
When you receive a newsletter, don’t just dismiss it as spam. If you don’t have time to read it there and then, file it somewhere safe and return to it when you do have time, preferably with a cuppa. Kevin recommended a couple of apps - Pocket and Instapaper - to save your reading list.
If you’re not techie and don’t fancy subscribing to yet another app, how about using a bookmarks folder in your browser. You could even copy and paste links into a shared spreadsheet. This option is great if you’re not the only person in your business who works on social media.
Aside from your personal social media feeds, you’ll find great content in your online communities. Look in the groups that you’re a member of on Facebook or LinkedIn. Check out the articles with the most likes and shares. Ask yourself why they are so popular.
Be careful what you share
You should never share content without reading it first. Even if you know and trust the source, there’s always the possibility of a rogue link or a sentence or image that doesn’t quite fit your brand and values. Your business and your personal reputation are at stake. Skim reading is fine, just make sure you’re happy before you press the button.
Nuzzel up!
The tool I was most intrigued by is Nuzzel. It’s a free tool that searches your own Facebook and twitter feeds to see what your friends are sharing. You get a daily digest email to show you what’s popular amongst your friends. It’s definitely something I’m going to look into myself. Not only does it save you trawling through endless feeds, it satisfies my number one rule of content - Give people more of what they like.
If you’re interested, all the webinars are all free to watch on Buffer’s YouTube channel.