Content Curation, Creation and Sharing Across Networks
This week’s topic of discussion is the Hootsuite Podium - Chapter 5: Content Marketing Fundamentals. I spent some time watching the training videos and taking the online quizzes this week and wanted to talk about some of the main take-aways I had regarding how to curate, create and share content across various networks.
Developing Effective Content
When developing shared content, it is important to keep in mind that there are two main categories: curated and created. Curated is content gathered from trusted sources relevant to your organization and created is content produced directly within your organization. Hootsuite recommends that companies try to use a 40% created, 60% curated, ratio as a rule of thumb when developing shared content.
Content curation is broken down in to an additional two categories: internal and external. External is finding trusted sources and content that resonates with your audience and then re-sharing it on your own networks. Companies also have to gather, evaluate and share content from within their organization. This is known as internal content curation. It is important to take created content from within your organization and repurpose it across various platforms.
Sharing Effectively Across Networks
When it comes to sharing internal or external content, there are a few “best practices” I learned from the Hootsuite Podium that I think are very helpful. First, grabbing a reader’s attention amongst all of the content being produced is crucial. One way to grab attention is to develop a strong headline or caption with every piece of content produced. A strong headline is generally very clear to understand and should be emotionally provocative in some way.
Another piece of advise I learned was to include some form of video, audio, or image in every piece of content that you create. It may be okay to occasionally produce content with text only, but if you choose to do that it is especially important to track the data to see how visuals are impacting engagement.
Along with using video, audio and images when producing content, it is also very important that you vary your content regularly. Posting the same type of content about similar topics can become repetitive and boring. Instead, using a mixture of questions, polls and calls for user generated content are all great ways to facilitate a conversation. The more conversation and engagement that happens the more your organization will become a “social organization.”
Becoming a Social Organization
The ability to effectively curate, create and share content across the major social media platforms is the key to becoming a social organization. Many businesses are not built to be social. They try to become social organizations the more they realize how effective social media can be for their business. By following the recommendations in Hootsuite and what I have shared above, your company can start becoming more of a social organization.
There is one company that I thought was a great example of a company that was basically built to be a social organization. That company is Dude Perfect. Dude Perfect started as a youtube channel that involved a group of college guys who filmed themselves performing trick shots with various athletic balls, discs, pucks, you name it. They have now grown their business substantially solely through social content. They produce content across various networks such as Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram.
If you want to check out the Dude Perfect Youtube page or watch the Hootsuite Podium tutorials that I did this week, click the links below:
Dude Perfect: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRijo3ddMTht_IHyNSNXpNQ
Hootsuite Podium Chapter 5: https://education.hootsuite.com/courses/take/social-marketing-education/lessons/2540601-1-1-the-value-of-content-and-the-importance-of-a-social-media-content-strategy
