My Top 3 tools for Content Curation

We all know that all of a sudden, "Content marketing" is the new black.  Marketers are - or certainly should be - busy crafting new skills, systems, processes and methodologies to re-craft what they do on the web from "here's why we are so awesome" to "here's some useful content to help you become more awesome".  The business of radically overhauling what marketers do - of revisiting marketing's very raison d'etre - is a daunting professional challenge, but an exciting one too. The reasons for this, for want of a better word, revolution are complex and beyond the scope of a short blog post like this.  (I've written about one of the reasons for such a change here, but there are other dynamics at play which I will save for another  post.)

But the effort of producing compelling and rich content on a daily basis is simply beyond the resources of most business - not only physically, but creatively.  (For those looking for great content ideas, there are 95 here at The Content Authority Blog to get you started.)

So a common technique is the curation or collection of third party - or what I call "affinity content".  But how do you do this efficiently and systematically without soaking up lots of time, bandwidth or staff you don't have?

Here are three spectacularly useful Content curation sites I use that offer a great suite of tools for doing this well:

• TrapIt - this is a little-known tool for quickly searching for fresh content on a range of different keywords you have identified in your Social Content strategy.  One of the aspects I did find annoying about it though is that it frames the content in its own browser meaning to share it you would need to go off and search for the content at its source.  However, I have recently discovered if you click on the title of the article on the top left of the frame, it takes you directly to that source page.
• ScoopIt - a rapidly evolving site, ScoopIt is becoming the "mother of all content curation tools" IMHO.  As well as searches on keywords, this site allows you to also curate other "Scoopers" as well as "Scoop" content onto your own profile to become a "Scooper" yourself.  But at its most basic it is a great search tool.
• Meddle - is  new tool which has been in a fairly scruffy Beta for most of this year but has suddenly come into its own and working in conjunction with the other two I find it a great source for good content

These three sites are for the sophisticated content marketer and while useful for just popping in and searching, you get far more value by opening an account, tagging content and saving search terms so it can learn more about your habits and preferences.  They are also great sites for networking with your subject peers.  So whether for your personal or corporate brand, it is well worth bookmarking them for future reference, you'll be surprised how often you find yourself visiting!

Finally, this is a useful infographic from the people at Digital C4 to show you to how to craft your content curation methodology:

First Picture Credit: SocialBites