Why Bashing Content Curation Is Not The Answer
Eric Wittlake uses a provocative title to list four reasons why content curation is not a silver bullet in b2b content marketing. While I agree with him there are no silver bullets in marketing, he makes some points which I disagree with.
Read MoreThe Like economy: how social gratitude affects content efforts
Studies have shown that our brain reacts positively to our content being “liked” or shared on social media. Social gratitude, and notoriety among a peer group, are really the only reasons individuals post content to social media. If no one likes your post, it even can bring you down, or make you feel like no one cares. This is especially prevalent among the youth, with 52% of the teenage Facebook users of the iGeneration (born in the 1990s) clicking “like” daily or even several times a day. Generation Y were a close second with 45% daily “like” clicks, followed closely by 32% of Gen Xers and 24% of Baby Boomers.
Read MoreTwo years sharing ideas that matter to 100 million people
As Scoop.it turns two today, we are excited to share a great milestone: we’re only a few weeks away from reaching 100 million cumulated unique visitors on the platform! That’s right: 100 million different people have been to Scoop.it to discover the awesome content of our amazing community of curators. How much content you ask? Well, a few months ago we counted 50 million curated pieces.
When we started working on Scoop.it, the horizon wasn’t that far. Out of a failed project, we needed to be quick to apply the lessons that we had learned.
Read MoreBecoming a Brand Journalist by Finding Stories from Within Your SMB
Let’s start out by addressing the giant elephant in the room. Yes, brand journalism is one of the most recent buzzwords to have taken over the world of Internet and content marketing. A brand journalist has been defined in many ways; from “one who tells journalism-style stories about a company that make the reader want to know more,” to “one who records what happens to a brand in the world and creates communications that, over time, tell the story of the brand.”
Chances are, your startup or SMB is unlikely to find a specialized brand journalist, let alone one you can afford. This leaves most businesses between a rock and a hard place. How will you be able to supplement your traditional content marketing with brand journalism that tells interesting stories and keeps your audience interested?
Read MoreOK, Glass — inspire me: a post about the positive impact tech has on our lives.
I recently got back from some travels, and as I walked around Germany, Italy, and my hometown near Washington, DC., I could not help but think about my relationship with technology and how it has evolved throughout the years. Living in San Francisco and working in Silicon Valley, I often forget that other cities are not as inspired by technology. Not so long ago, I too did not quite comprehend how technology could and would change my life.
Read More6 things you didn’t know you could do with Scoop.it: Part I
The Scoop.it platform has been a perpetual work in progress for the better part of two years. During that period, we’ve had lots of exciting accomplishments and releases, and it’s no secret that some features have remained hidden in the shadows.
As a part of the team working on building Scoop.it as the ultimate knowledge sharing hub, I like to think I know a thing or two about the product – and what fun is knowing things if you don’t get to share them?
Read MoreLearning to learn: fighting cognitive biases
In a world with more information than ever, figuring out how to use the brain to its fullest potential, as well as filling it with as much knowledge as possible, is the main focus of a vast amount of people in this world.
I’ve made it clear on many occasions that I believe in the importance of being a perpetual learner. One of the key activities associated with learning is exploring and understanding the way the human brain functions, and using the results of this to properly hack the critical thinking process. For example, did you know that something called a cognitive bias exists? This term refers to the tendency to think in certain ways.
Read MoreMeasuring your ROI: learning to save money and time
The three little words “return on investment” may be the stuff of every marketers’ dreams or nightmares, depending on how their campaigns and initiatives are performing. Every company has limited resources and in order to justify continued expenses and expenditures, marketers are increasingly pressured to provide a reason, through excellent ROI, to keep or increase their budgets. In fact, nearly two-thirds of CMOs believe that ROI will be the principal measure of performance by 2015.
Read MoreSticking to our values and news for Scoop.it customer and community support
Here at Scoop.it, we have a set of values that we measure all of wins and defeats against. We ask ourselves — “does the spec for this release support our values and mission or are we just trying to be fancy,” or “was this decision made to further what we think is best for the community based on our own DNA?” And sometimes, that means making tough decisions.
Read MoreStarting
Sometimes you just have to get started to get done.
A simple Google search will probably net you millions of self-help articles about productivity. They’ll offer tips and techniques, life hacks, and specialized strategies designed to get you moving in the direction you need to go.
Read MoreWhy we’re more creative when we’re tired, and 9 other surprising things about how brains work
Read MoreYou may be hardwired as an introvert or an extrovert. But don’t worry there are ways to change how our brains work.
Driving revenue with social, content, marketing automation
Slodes of the talk Jason Miller gave at the Scoop.it #leancontent meetup on Sept. 25, 2013.
We recently hosted our event series, #leancontent, with a guest from LinkedIn. His presentation focuses on driving revenue using smart content and optimized distribution steams. Check it out!
See on www.slideshare.net
Read MoreA recap: the Scoop.it community does incredible work with #curatethecurators
Last week, we launched the brand new ranking system based on a system requiring curators to recommend the best topics they knew. The community responded with incredible support and made the launch a smashing success. Thank you to everyone who participated and continues to participate!
Trending: top 6 graphic web design trends
Editor’s Note: At Scoop.it, we believe that the form (the way something is presented) affects the function (the physical use of something) of content engagement online. It is becoming increasingly important to look pretty if you want to drive traffic — the endless streams of pretty pictures on Pinterest is testament to this, and we all know that if a webpage has 6 pt font, we probably won’t read it.
Read MoreThe Newest Version of Scoop.it: Welcome to the Meritoc[u]racy
1. Why sharing ideas that matter, matters
We built Scoop.it to make it easy and rewarding to share ideas that matter.
Ideas matter: they make all of us, individuals, businesses and societies, progress. Sharing ideas is equally important as creating them: it honors the creators; it enriches the recipients; and it also benefits the “passers”, who enhance their reputation through propagation of wisdom.
Read More8 common mistakes in how our brains think and how to prevent them – – The Buffer Blog
What are the biggest thinking mistakes all of us do nearly every day? We’ve collected the 8 biggest thinking mistakes here today for you:
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5 free tools to organize your thoughts | PCWorld
Web-based text outliners range from Notepad-like simplicity to sophisticated, searchable, collapsible idea wranglers.
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10 educational and enlightening Twitter accounts you should follow
Twitter may share some things with Facebook, but it’s ultimately a different beast altogether.
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9 amazing ways to learn online
There is no need to buy a massive set of encyclopedias anymore, as you can learn most things online these days. The trouble is that the internet is filled with terrible amounts of misinformation. So, if you are learning online, you are going to have to find a way of avoiding the 99% of lies and find the 1% of truth.
Read MoreOptimizing your workplace for learning and productivity
The best businesses are constantly learning, collaborating and changing. A dynamic business – one that is active, aware and willing to experiment – is a successful one.
Read MoreContent curation for SEO — from professional purposes to personal passions
Editor’s Note: We’ve always held that content curation (with added insight and value) is great for SEO. The below infographic (courtesy of TechMagnate and Beth Kanter) lays out some of the benefits of content curation.
What exactly is content curation? To Scoop.it, its the “meaningful selection and sharing of online content for professional purposes or personal passions.” Professional purposes run the gamut from thought leadership to product marketing, and personal passions can be gathering and sharing knowledge about anything that gets your engine going. Many people curate every day without knowing it — whether it is sharing an insightful article they discovered on their favorite blog or retweeting a thought leader of their choosing. Curation is everywhere!
Read MoreThe evolution of the GIF
Editor’s Note: While not directly correlated to knowledge sharing, GIFs do contribute to the “smart web” by creating a new way to communicate ideas, add dimensions to conversation, and provide irony and other editorial flavor. They say “a picture is worth a thousand words,” so how many words is a moving picture worth? List your favorite GIF in the comments!
Read MoreAccelerate your knowledge gathering: 3 steps to an optimized suggestion engine
Are you a collector and curator of content—timeless resources, daily news, top tips? If you’re reading the Scoop.it blog, I’d have to assume that your answer is “yes”—and that you’re using Scoop.it to discover, display, and distribute the best of the best.
Read MoreBecoming a world champion blogger by leveraging your existing characteristics and resources
Editor’s Note: At Scoop.it, we believe content curation is just as powerful as original content generation. But, what many people miss is that when they curate, often they are creating original content on top of the existing article or other media through the addition of context, opinion, or curator’s insight. So, with that in mind, check out the following Guest Article from an expert blogger on creating strong blog content!
Read MoreInspiration wants to be free — news for iPad users
Back in 2011, just a few months after the iPad launched, I was asked to moderate a panel on the future impact of the iPad. What new behaviors will it generate? What impact will it have on existing industries? As a way to do some research, I created a Scoop.it page (that I kept updating since then) and started to dig deeper on studies that had been published, experiments that had been made, etc… What struck me from this – and the panel discussion thereafter – was how much everyone discounted the creation capabilities of the iPad. At the January 2010 keynote, Steve Jobs himself defined the iPad as a device that would be better than a smartphone or a computer for browsing the web, doing email, watching photos or videos, listening to music, playing games and reading eBooks. In short, a device specialized in consuming content. Not creating any.
Read MoreTwo models of success for European startups | Tech Cocktail
29 ways to stay creative [infographic] via dailyinfographic.com
Editor’s Note: As content curators, we sometimes think we might not have anything super interesting to say or struggle to add value on top of the message within the content we’re curating. Here are a few ways to re-spark your creativity while curating! Enjoy!
Learning to learn: losing yourself in passion
Have you ever noticed that, when we’re younger, school and learning seem like a chore, and yet when we’re older, we wish we could just spend all of our time consuming information and advancing our knowledge?
Perhaps this is because our minds have matured with age, or simply because we always want to do things once we don’t have to. Or, maybe it’s because once we’ve been through certain experiences, we’re more capable of identifying our true passions.
Read MoreStealing images from the web vs using images ethically [infographic] | visua.ly
Editor’s Note: Copyright and fair use of images is oftentimes a difficult set of rules to follow. It’s very easy with the tools available (namely Google Image search) to grab pictures and use them without thinking whether you are using that image fairly or not. While this infographic is a bit self-promotional on behalf of imgembed.com, they are a useful platform for making the web a better, more fair place. Take a look!
Read MoreLearning how to write effective sentences for the web
Communication between people is 55% body language, 38% tone of voice, and only 7% the words you actually say. Quickly consider the impact of stripping away 93% of the meaning someone understands from an idea you are trying to communicate — something we do every single day when we create or interact online. The efficacy of that remaining 7% becomes incredibly important, especially if you have business or personal brand investments on the line.
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