Those of us with websites are always thinking of ways to drive traffic there. We want to share information. We put a lot of effort into keeping our sites current, so that we can share it with others.
Curation is the online process of scrubbing a specific type of information from various online sources and placing that information into a page or series of pages on your site. For example, when you see information that is useful for your site, use your social media accounts to sign up. The tool then creates a website or online newspaper from all the accounts you follow. Some allow you to add additional services such as RSS feeds to your favorite online websites.
Over the past year, several social network curation services have become very popular with driving traffic to site owners. The services are mostly free, but some offer PRO plans that provide even more advanced services. Below are a few of the most popular curation services:
- Paper.li – Publish Your Own Paper – https://paper.li/ – Paper.li is a content curation service. It enables people to publish newspapers based on topics they like and treat their readers daily to fresh news. Create an account with Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+. Web content pulled from your accounts is created into an online newspaper. Set your newspaper to publish twice a day or daily. Paper.li monitors your content sources to update your paper automatically.
- Scoop.it – http://www.scoop.it/ – Scoop.it lets you share ideas that matter and shine on the Web through beautiful topic pages. Collect relevant content and add your insight to attract an avid audience. Whether you’re a professional or educator representing a business or nonprofit, Scoop.it helps you efficiently and effectively build your online presence.Scoop.it is a one-stop-shop for social media and content curation publishing. When you post on your topic page, you can easily share to your social networks including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Advanced analytics are available on Scoop.it Pro and customizable pages, post scheduling and WordPress integration are available on Scoop.it Business.
- Storify – http://storify.com – helps make sense of what people post on social media. The users curate the most important voices and turn them into stories. Storify users tell stories by collecting updates from social networks, amplifying the voices that matter to create a new story format that is interactive, dynamic and social. Discover meaningful social media from the best storytellers online, including journalists, bloggers, editors and people like you, too.
Use your social media accounts to their fullest potential – find a content curation tool that best fits your business model and just go for it. You’ll be surprised at the results.
For more information about content curation – there was an excellent article on Fast Company back in April 2012 – http://www.fastcompany.com/1834177/content-curators-are-new-superheros-web.