My favorite tool for finding content to share on Social Media
In the previous 3 posts I talked about using LinkedIn to jumpstart your Social Media Marketing and in the process broaden your network to reach potential donors, volunteers and staff. I also talked about how you should maintain your LinkedIn profile, be active and engage with your network.
Well, since my last post I spoke at a Greater Tamarac Chamber of Commerce Lunch and Learn, sharing a few tips on LinkedIn. In the Q&A session I learned that many in the audience struggle with finding appropriate content to share and the time to manage their profiles. This post is dedicated to those who are having a hard time keeping up with maintaining their profile.
Social Media at its core is about being social… duh! :) But, with LinkedIn having over 400 Million users and Facebook topping 1 Billion, information seems to be shared at the speed of light and it can be overwhelming for the novice user. Further… how can your posts get the attention of your network and key industry leaders in the midst of all those users? Plus, you don’t have the time or money to devote to this! I have two FREE tools in my toolbox that I know will assist you with this. There are many other tools out there but, these are two of my favorites. I will discuss each based on their functions in a 2-part series with step-by-step instructions on how to use them.
Finding content to share
Often you will hear the “experts” saying things like: “content is king!” and “You should be posting content every day!” I know you would love to. I would love to! But… for one, you and I don’t always have the time or the ability to write everyday. It’s just not possible right? Wrong… There are some who write daily and do a great job of it. That doesn’t mean that you need to. In fact, you can share articles you come across that may be just as valuable to your audience. The key is to post as often as possible and with consistency.
So, where do you find the content? By scouring Google? Nope!.. Use a tool called Feedly. Without boring you to death with the tech details… Feedly allows you to search, curate and share content from around the web with ease. With Feedly you are able to find content relating to just about every category and industry you could think of without a whole lot of work. Feedly actually goes out and gets the content for you, you just have to share it!
Follow along to learn how to create and setup your Feedly account.
1) Create an account with Feedly
Go to feedly.com
Click the green “GET STARTED FOR FREE” button. You will be asked to create an account, you can do so with either your own new Feedly username and password or with your existing Gmail, or Facebook, Twitter, Outlook or Evernote account. Choose the one you are most comfortable with.
2. Find content to begin curating and sharing!
Once logged in for the first time, Feedly will present you with a few “collections” (categories) to get your started… You may see categories such as: News, Business, Tech, Food or even Baking!
Begin by selecting one of these suggested categories or do your own search for content specific to you and your industry.
Let’s see what happens when you select a suggested category.
Clicking on one of the suggested categories will take you to a page that looks like this:
What you’re looking at are “feeds” from a variety of sources within the Tech category that you may want to add to your Feedly. Notice there are feeds from The Verge, Engadget and ReadWrite…
This is where the magic happens! Clicking on the green plus “+” sign will allow you to add that site to your Feedly.
You will be presented with a sidebar where you can either “Select or create a new collection to add this site to your feedly newsfeed.” In this example, the default category option is “Must Read” but, you may want to name your collection. For this example, I will name the category “Tech”.
Creating a new collection results in this...
After closing the panel, you will see that we now have a new collection called “Tech” with “The Verge” listed as a source.
Here's how finding content to share using Feedly by creating new collections is as easy as doing a search...
Add the selected source by clicking the green “+feedly” button at the top of the page.
Create your new collection as described above and voila! Your new source is added!
3. Share something!
Now that you have created your collections and added sources it’s time to read, learn and share!
Clicking on a story in your feed will open the story for you to read within Feedly. Social share icons at the top each article, making it easy for you to share on your favorite networks, email or save to Evernote or Microsoft OneNote.
In part 2, I will introduce you to another tool, which when linked to Feedly will make finding content to share and send a breeze. In the meantime create your Feedly account and get familiar with all its features. Feedly also has an app for your mobile devices that makes sharing easy when on the go.
Till next time!
Karen
