The Scoop.it Content Curation Blog

How content curation can help you to engage your audiences

How content curation helps social media publishing


As a social media manager, you’re probably aware of many of the pains that come with staying visible online and managing many social media channels at once. Luckily, there’s an answer to the woes of social media publishing: content curation. Here are 5 problems that social media publishers face and how content curation helps alleviate the pain.

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7 types of online influencers and who to target based on your goals

Ahh, Influencers. A key component to your social media and inbound marketing success. Not only do we need them to propel our marketing efforts to the next level, but they also play a large part of your relationship marketing strategy.  An Influencer campaign should be a part of your social media engagement strategy.

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The Science behind viral stories on the Web

From the New Yorker: “When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford, in the early aughts, he would make a habit of reading page A2 of the Wall Street Journal, which included a list of the five most-read and the five most-shared articles of the day. “I’d go down to the library and surreptitiously cut out that page,” he recalls. “I noticed that what was read and what was shared was often different, and I wondered why that would be.” What was it about a piece of content—an article, a picture, a video—that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable? What pushes someone not only to read a story but to pass it on?”

Guillaume Decugis‘s insight:

This piece that Gregg Morris initially scooped on how some people have been putting a lot of analysis to understand how and why stories go viral: after all – as this great article points out – this was already something Aristotle was intrigued by.

The findings are interesting and I encourage you to read them as it can inform your content strategy. Keep in mind the conclusion however – which I think is great and wise: the more we understand viral content collectively, the less we understand it.

Why?

Because whenever humans are involved, martingales don’t exist for long.

It reminds me of financial markets: whenever stock information is perfectly distributed and statistical models are the same for everybody, no one really has an edge.

For content, the same that applies: when everybody’s trying to do an Upworthy-like headline, they become much less effective than they used to be.

See on www.newyorker.com

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How Google Plus Pages Can Boost Your Business

Just recently, Scoop.it announced that Scoop.it curators will be able to connect their personal profiles for the purpose of Google Authorship, and at the same time, can now connect a Google+ Business Page for sharing curated content. This is really exciting news, as busy business owners and social media managers can now use Scoop.it to curate and share great content to all of their branded social media profiles – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Google+.

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What is Google Authorship? Tips and Resources

Last week, Scoop.it announced its integration with Google+ Pages and Google Authorship. As CEO Guillaume Decugis explained, “we actually believe curation is a form of creation. So just as Google introduced Google Authorship as a way for publishers to be more visible in search results and benefit from a natural SEO method, we felt it was also important to add Google+ to the platform. So from now on, you will be able to link your Google+ profile to Scoop.it and not only be recognized in search results for your curated content but derive higher traffic from Google Search through the improved visibility authored results enjoy.”

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Launching Scoop.it for Google+: authorship and posting to Google+ Company pages

While some debate whether Google+ is a ghost town or not, the search giant’s social network quietly passed the 1 Billion user mark. That’s right: 1 Billion people have a Google+ account which is 2x Twitter’s user base and only 15% less than Facebook’s. Perhaps more importantly, the +1 button is pressed more than 5 million times a day and 340 million of its users are active.

Scoopiteers didn’t need to wait for those metrics to be public to demand that we add Google+ to the Scoop.it’s sharing options: as our platform is a hub to discover, curate and share content to feed your online channels, it’s natural to offer as many distribution options as possible. So today, after integrating  with Facebook profiles and pages, LinkedIn profiles, groups and pages, Twitter and many other social platform such as Wordpress or Tumblr, we’re excited to launch our integration with Google+ with 2 new features:

  • Adding Google+ Company pages as a sharing option to Scoop.it

  • Adding Google+ authorship to your Scoop.it profile

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7 Qualities of Highly Effective Content Curators

Every time I visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, I see something I’ve never seen before. In fact, t’s considered the most influential museum of modern art in the world. With that in mind, meet Klaus Biesenbach. Klaus holds the title “Chief Curator at Large” at MoMA. If you’ve visited the MoMA and walked away impressed (like I have), Klaus has a lot to do with that.

As content curators, we should all aspire to be like Klaus. After all, wouldn’t it be great if our content collections drew as much interest, respect and admiration as the collections at MoMA? In order to achieve this feat, we need to become highly effective content curators. In other words, we need to curate Internet content as we would fine art.

Let’s consider seven habits of content creation that would make Klaus Biesenbach proud.

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6 Nerdy Valentines for your Beloved Scoopiteer

We couldn’t miss out on the day of love! You know that we’re usually all about business, but we also have infinite amounts of love for each and every Scoopiteer. With that in mind, here are the only — Valentines you’ll need. Download ’em, screenshot ’em, tweet ’em, share ’em, mail ’em if you want (do people still do that?)!

Most importantly, though, remember that we love you and are always here for you. Scoop on!

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6 Ways to Educate Yourself and Become Enlightened


While Webster’s might define a nerd as someone who is unstylish, unattractive or  “hopelessly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits” — nerds and geeks have increasingly become accepted among the mainstream. And lately, they’ve become more well-known for their enthusiasm for things they love. If you love to write or read, you might be a word nerd. If you have an unhealthy obsession for fashion, you could be geek chic.

No matter your interests, being well-educated is a great way to becoming a more well-rounded person. It also has a habit of making a person more enlightened, i.e. less judgmental and more congenial with others of different backgrounds. Here are some things you can do to keep your mind young and to expand your horizons.

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Content Strategy of disruptors: how Open Garden builds an engaged community around mesh networking

Changing the world not only takes a great idea but also takes building momentum around it. The team at Open Garden, a San Francisco based startup, who could be to mobile data what Skype was to telephone calls, understood from the beginning how important it was to build a community around its disruptive idea.

But how can you do this when you’re also running a startup, coding a product and making deals with your first strategic partners?

Open Garden Co-founder & CEO Micha Benoliel explains in this video how using Scoop.it allows him and his team to build this kind of momentum through publishing by curation and thereby engaging their community around a key tenet of its mission mesh networking – the awesome concept that we can all share wireless bandwidth (and that Open Garden makes a reality through its Apps and technology).

Just like any startup, Micha and his team – former Skype employees – are experts on their market. So when they

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Welcoming New Rewards Members

Last week, the Scoop.it team and I were extremely excited to announce the launch of our brand new Rewards Program. Now that all of the new rewards members have been notified, I’d like to shine the Scoop.it spotlight on a few of the top curators from the past six months.

These curators have set an extraordinary example for the rest of the Scoop.it community as well as the greater online community of curators. They’ve helped us through every step of our journey to making the web a smarter place, and we’re proud to have them on our team. Check out their profile and topic pages, and think about even sending them a tweet to say hi!

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Content Super Bowl I: Creation takes on Curation

Creating vs. curating. If you work in marketing, or maybe even if you don’t, I’m sure you’ve been a witness to this content debate at one point or another. There are numerous arguments for each side, and ultimately, both are included in any successful content strategy.

The ideal mix between content curation and original content creation is a debate that I often find myself having with my colleagues and industry peers. So, in the spirit of Super Bowl XLVIII this weekend, I decided to ask the experts what they thought in a matchup that I’ve officially dubbed Content Super Bowl I.

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Product Update: Rewards Program, Test Results, and Mobile Curation for All

It’s pretty safe to say that it’s been a strong beginning to 2014 here at Scoop.it. We’ve been working, hypothesizing, testing, listening, and implementing pretty much since the clock struck midnight on January 1st. That said, I wanted to check in with you today to give you some insight into what’s going on over here – including some pretty big and exciting new announcements!

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Community Management Thoughts and Challenges for 2014

In 2013, the field of community management expanded more than ever. According to The Community Roundtablethe average community manager has 3.7 years of experience. Just imagine how many more companies are employing community managers now than in 2010!

Today, January 27th, is the 5th annual Community Manager Appreciation Day. In honor of this event, I’ve compiled a few interesting stats on the world of community management from 2013, and added in a few tips from my two years of experience in the field. Feel free to pass them along!

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5 ways curators can improve user experience

Most people curate for the benefit of themselves or their organisations. What if we considered content curation from a user centered design perspective? What would audience centered curation look like?

Ally Greer‘s and Guillaume Decugis’ insight:

An interesting look at curation from the user experience side.

For Content Curation to generate goodwill – in whichever form you can see it: thought leadership, brand awareness, lead generation, etc… – it needs to be first and foremost valuable to your reader.

How can you make curated content not only more useful and interesting to your audience, but ensure that they are having an enjoyable and successful experience consuming this content?

Great tips from Sam Burrough.

See on weelearning.co.uk

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4 ways to leverage the Interest Graph through impacting Content Curation

As the volume of content published on the Internet continues to grow, consumers can help shield themselves from the noise that doesn’t matter to them by curating only the content that matters on interest graph platforms

Guillaume Decugis‘s insight:

 

Content curation and the Interest Graph are two different things but are deeply connected. While some content curators like Maria Popova are great at being eclectic, a lot of value to readers come from being able to discover and read from publishers who address the specific niches they’re interested in.

Chad Politt from Digital Relevance clearly establishes that connexion in this contribution to the Huff Post and I would draw the following conclusions for content strategists and content curators:

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Interest-based Content Curation Publishing: the cure for Content Shock?

In a recent post, top content marketer and blogger Mark Schaefer scored a hit and started a big controversy by predicting the end of content marketing as we know it because of a forecasted Content Shock. With Content Marketing having been all the rage these past few years, his post made some noise generating responses and debate from many. And while a lot of people have given numerous arguments as to why he’s right or wrong – including Shel Holtz who argues that as content consumers we become better and better at filtering content through various curation tools – nobody yet has looked at the role publishing-by-curation and the interest graph played in that picture.

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5 Lessons From 2 Years of Using Email Newsletters in our Content Strategy

As a platform that helps people, businesses or organizations with their content strategy, it’s always been natural for us to use content ourselves in our communication. For a lot of companies – including Scoop.it – communicating through content means having several distribution channels – including email – and today we’d like to share a few things we’ve learned using email newsletters as a content marketing distribution mechanism.

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The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO

Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.

Guillaume Decugis‘s insight:

The head of the Google Webspam team has spoken: guest blogging is now on the hook and won’t be an SEO strategy you can rely on in 2014.

Following the demise of massive link building (which now can have adverse effects), this is another strategy once recommended by traditionnal SEO consultants that disappears as part of Google’s strategy to fight spam, cheap SEO tricks and promote great quality content in search results. The more Google Search evolves, the more it relies on new criteria such as social signals to promote quality content.

What this means is there’s no way around this simple truth now: to come up in search results, you need to publish good quality content and add value – either through great original content or carefully curated quality pieces. And in the race to publish great content frequently, it’s likely you will find the latter very useful.

See on www.mattcutts.com

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Maximize Your Potential by Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone

You will often hear that those with some of the most publicized successes arrived at those accomplishments by simply out-working those around them. Jerry Rice, the all-time greatest wide receiver in NFL history, famously chased horses and caught bricks as a child to develop speed and coordination, while developing a 365-day training schedule throughout his pro career. Notable successful executives such as Tim Cook are known for their routinely early starts to their work days, while others like Marc Cuban are known for forfeiting vacation days for the first seven years of his career.

Health and work-life balance risks aside, I would never contradict that a strong work ethic, focus, commitment, and having an intense voraciousness for success will lead you down a path in the right direction. Luckily, achieving success and reaching your maximum output starts with a much simpler step, and that is in finding what I like to call The Stretch Zone.

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Social Network Connections Glitch: Explained

We’ve received some messages from users facing a bad experience with social network connections on Scoop.it; a fairly colorful collection a messages in fact, ranging from rather engaging [“Dear Scoop.it, can you please explain“], typical of Scoop.it community’s style, to less constructive but quite clear nevertheless [“Go f****“].  It’s become clear that something went wrong here. Something that deserves to be investigated, explained and remedied.
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Why You Need to be on Social Media

If you are a private citizen with no business concern at all, then there is no great need for you to be on social media. The main reason that many private citizens are on it is because it is fun. You get to communicate with your friends and complete strangers. It is also loaded with brand new content every day, including content that your friends and family have posted. It allows people to see family photographs that were uploaded by distant relatives. It also allows you to share things between friends that will make them laugh. If however you are running a website, blog, business, or all three, then it is vitally important that you are on social media.

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Freelance Writing Tips and How to Promote Your Work


Freelance writing is an incredibly rich and fulfilling career, especially if you’re passionate about writing on a particular subject or niche. It’s entirely possible to make money if you decide to become a freelance writer; in fact, it can easily become a full-time job. The only trick is that you have to treat it like one: honing your skills, dedicating set times to do your job, and promoting it.

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2014: Actions over Results

On the first work day of 2014, there is certainly no shortage of resolution lists floating around the Internet. If you’re anything like me, you probably spent some time on Tuesday night thinking about what you wanted to accomplish this year, or what you were going to change. Personally, I decided to be more assertive in all aspects of my life. Maybe you decided to be a better communicator with friends and family, or to multiply this year’s revenue by 3.

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