Content Curation World
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Content Curation World
What a Content Curator Needs To Know: How, Tools, Issues and Strategy
Curated by Robin Good
Author: Robin Good   Google+
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Newsletter Curation: Top 6 Tools and Tips To Curate Your Own Weekly Newsletter

Newsletter Curation: Top 6 Tools and Tips To Curate Your Own Weekly Newsletter | Content Curation World | Scoop.it
Robin Good's insight:



Given the amount of news, stories, tools, events and services that are being announced on a daily basis it is very difficult for anyone to resist the time-saving benefits of subscribing to a newsletter that finds and collects the most relevant items in the specific topic area he is interested into.


If you are a subject-matter expert, a coach, trainer or consultant, you need to monitor and track your field of interest anyhow, and if you learn to put aside, organise and properly collect the good gems you find during your scouting time, you can provide a really useful service to your readers and followers.


Furthermore there is no lack of tools web services that can help you carry out this task without needing to learn new or difficult skills.


Here are my personal six tips of advice and my favorite top six tools you need to check out, if you ever decide to start curating your own weekly newsletter:



Tips


a. Limit the number of curated items. Less is more. Three is plenty. Five is a lot. 

b. Provide concise but useful, tangible info.


c. Offer always as much context as possible. Why you are presenting this info. Who can use it, for what purpose. 


d. Find a thread and follow it. Have a strong focus. Don't mix too many different things without a clear focus or direction.  


e. Add your own voice. Make it heard. Comment. Express opinions. Take a stand.


f. Be timely and consistent. Choose a day and time and respect it.




Tools


1. FlashIssue

Perfect Gmail integration. Use existing contacts as mailing lists. Drag 'n drop design editor. Content discovery, and search and instant import. Free trial. Then starts at $10/mo for 500 contacts. 

2. Goodbits

Friendly, elegant and simple to use. Integrates well with other services. Free to start.


3. Handpick

Handpick your favorite resources and share them with specific groups of interested people. Free trial. $2.99/mo


4. Curated

Everything you need to start a curated newsletter. Starts at $25/mo for 500 subs and 6 newsletters


5. Refreshbox 

Allows you to pick up 5 tools or content resources per issue. Free.


6. Curator

Collaborative curation for professional teams of up to 25 people. Starts at $199/mo



For more content curation tools please see: https://contentcuration.zeef.com/robin.good 


Image credit: Flashissue.com



Pali's curator insight, March 10, 2015 8:35 AM

Newsletter marketing is a ploy that is being successfully used by many industry tools and these tools can help you setup your newsletter. 

LibrarianLand's curator insight, March 11, 2015 8:48 AM

Might make a good project for students; create your own newsletter.

Nedko Aldev's curator insight, April 5, 2015 12:21 PM

 

170
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Why I Don't Like Scoopit Links on Twitter

Why I Don't Like Scoopit Links on Twitter | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

I’m seeing more Scoopit links in my Twitter stream and I’m not crazy about it.  Sure it’s quick and easy to share with Scoopit.  But it not quick and easy to consume. For me it's all about the econ...

Marty Note (here is comment I wrote on Dr. V's blog)

Appreciate Bryan’s and Joseph’s comment, but I rarely use Scoop.it as a pass through. More than 90% of the time I’m adding “rich snippets” to content I Scoop.

Rich snippets are “blog” posts that fall between Twitter and the 500 to 1,000 words I would write in Scenttrail Marketing. I often create original content ON Scoop.it because whatever I’m writing falls in the crack between Twitter’s micro blog and what I think of as needing to be on my marketing blog.


I was taught NOT to pass through links on Scoop.it early on by the great curator @Robin Good . Robin has well over 1M views on Scoop.it now and his advice along with the patient advice of other great Scoop.it curators has my profile slouching toward 150,000 views.


Bryan is correct that some curators new to Scoop.it haven’t learned the Robin Good lesson yet. I agree it is frustrating to go to a link and not receive anything of value back, to simply need to click on another link. Curators who pass through links won’t scale, so the Darwinian impact will be they will learn to add value or die out.


For my part I always identify my Scoop.it links, probably about half the content I Tweet and about a quarter of my G+ shares. I also routinely share my favorite “Scoopiteers”, great content curators who taught me valuable lessons such as don’t simply pass through links but add “micro blogging” value via rich snippets.


When you follow or consistently share content from a great curator on Scooop.it you begin to understand HOW they shape the subjects they curate. I know, for example, Robin Good is amazing on new tools. Scoop.it anticipated this learning and built in a feature where I can suggest something to Robin.


This is when Scoop.it is at its most crowdsourcing best because I now have an army of curators who know I like to comment on and share content about design or BI or startups and they (other Scoopiteers) keep an eye out for me. There are several reasons Scoop.it is a “get more with less effort” tool and this crowdsourcing my curation is high on the list.


So, sorry you are sad to see Scoop.it links and understand your frustration. You’ve correctly identified the problem too – some curators don’t know how to use the tool yet. I know it is a lot to ask to wait for the Darwinian learning that will take place over generations, but Scoop.it and the web have “generations” that have the half life of a gnat so trust that the richness of the Scoop.it community will win in the end and “the end” won’t take long.


To my fellow Scoop.it curators we owe Bryan and Joseph thanks for reminding us of what Robin Good taught me – add value or your Scoop.it won’t scale. That lessons is applicable to much more than how we use Scoop.it.


Marty

Added to G+ too
https://plus.google.com/102639884404823294558/posts/TUsNtsAsjWp

 


Via Martin (Marty) Smith
Robin Good's insight:

Well, I can't really agree more with Marty's point.

On the other hand Scoop.it, and a number of similar platforms,  are heavily promoted as a content marketing platforms that promise to a) save you time and b) allow you to post more content.

And then, unless you heavily moderate and surface editorial models that can guide other users, you tend to level down to the lowest common denominator. 

This is what I see happening and I regret it as well.

Thanks Marty for highlighting it. 

Martin (Marty) Smith's curator insight, August 21, 2014 1:11 PM

add your insight...


Dr. Karen Dietz's comment August 22, 2014 2:07 PM
Right on Marty! I'm re-scooping this as a way to help that learning along about how to really use Scoop.it well and leverage it.
Bob Connelly's comment, November 23, 2014 7:11 PM
Being new to Scoop.it, I was glad to read this. I wouldn't have thought about this...
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Attribution, Linking and Plagiarism Prevention Tips for Online Journalists

Robin Good's insight:


"Plagiarism is a firing offense. Don't: a) lift passages from other sources without attribution and link..." This is what read the first slide of a presentation deck published a few days back by Steve Buttry which goes on to list all of the situations where it's possible to run the risk of being accused of plagiarism,.


The presentation is an outline of tips for online journalists who have to deal daily with adding link references, providing credit and attribution and avoiding being accused of plagiarism.


Good advice not to be taken lightly.


Useful. 8/10


Original slide deck: http://www.slideshare.net/stevebuttry/attribution-workshop









Rob Schneider's curator insight, October 8, 2013 4:34 AM

Sharing because it's so important. I realized how important it was after forgetting to attribute a source to a photo. Plagiarism just plain sucks on all levels, but overlooking source attribution is bad manners at best.

FrancoisMagnan's curator insight, October 8, 2013 5:32 AM

Des conseils pour éviter le plagiat destinés aus journalistes comme à tous ceux qui écrivent régulièrement en ligne. Un rappel de bonnes pratiques.

Carlos Bisbal's curator insight, October 8, 2013 9:08 AM

Presentación en Slide publicada hace unos días por Steve Buttry que enumera todas las situaciones en las que es posible correr el riesgo de ser acusado de plagio.

La presentación es un resumen de consejos para periodistas online que tienen que lidiar a diario con la adición de enlaces de referencia, la concesión de créditos y la atribución de autoría y evitar ser acusados de plagio.

Un buen consejo que no debe tomarse a la ligera

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Five Good Guidelines for Content Curators from Joshua Merritt

Five Good Guidelines for Content Curators from Joshua Merritt | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

Robin Good: If you are looking for ways to improve your content curation efforts, Joshua Merritt has published five useful guidelines to follow.


These include abandoning high frequency / high-volume practices, integrating your opinion whenever possible, researching deeper, citing sources and treating curation like original content production.


Joshua writes: "If two different people curate and distribute the same content (which happens every day times thousands), what makes the experience of your followers more valuable?


The answer doesn’t have to lie in a single piece of content, but it must lie in the story arch of the greater body of work, and the more you treat each item you curate as a diamond in the rough that needs some extra cutting and polishing to be ready for your audience, the better your content will perform and the more loyalty you will drive in your followers."



Rightful. 7/10


Full article: http://www.joshuamerritt.com/2012/09/20/if-curating-content-is-easy-youre-doing-it-wrong-5-tips-for-effective-content-curation/



Ken Morrison's comment, October 1, 2012 11:23 PM
Hello Avivajazz thank you for the rescoop. Best of luck to you.
Ken Morrison's comment, October 1, 2012 11:23 PM
Hello Avivajazz thank you for the rescoop. Best of luck to you.Ken
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How Large Organizations Can Leverage Curation: Shel Holtz

How Large Organizations Can Leverage Curation: Shel Holtz | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

From the original feature article by Liz Wilson on Paper.li:

 

"We asked Shel about how mid- to large-sized organisations can focus their curation efforts, and he outlines four ways organisations large and small can benefit now:

 

1. Curating news around events as an alternative to pitching for traditional media coverage: Take a product launch — they could curate who’s saying what from among their customers, partners and consumers. It’s an opportunity to create a resource and put it up on their media page.

 

2. Curating trusted, publicly accessible resources to increase reputation:

A high quality curation of content can reflect well on the organisation, increasing its reputation. It could be done by a team or a single employee, selecting what is relevant, pulling it into one place, commenting on why it’s important, and then making it accessible.

 

3. Giving employees access to social media, so they can share internally curated news outside the organisation...

 

4. Curating information to help employees work smarter: An example is external news on the intranet. Lots of intranets offer it, but often it comes from an external provider and is like a firehose — some of it not so relevant, and you can have multiple versions of the same story from different media outlets...."

 

More helpful info, tools and tips that can help large organizations leverage curation in the rest of the article here: http://j.mp/x06pAL


Via Giuseppe Mauriello
No comment yet.
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Social Media Curation Is Not Just Sharing Bookmarks: An Introductory Guide [Video]

Video from Curation Module of Social Media for Active Learning Course. http://meme.coe.fsu.edu/smooc #SMOOC2014
Robin Good's insight:



If you are new to content curation and interested in understanding better how social media, bookmarking and sharing fit into the curation conundrum, then this is a useful video to watch. 


Vanessa Dennen, Associate Professor of Instructional Systems at Florida State University, presents in a clear and very understandable 6 minute clip, what social media curation is, how it differs from simple bookmarking and which are some of the tools to get started doing it.


She also offers an excellent definition for "social media curation": Organized and purposeful collecting and sharing of annotated, online content, as well as a six-step process (called FACETS) to effectively curate content online.



Instructional. Informative. Useful for beginners. 7/10


Original video: http://youtu.be/twvNJ5NCLEU 


Duration: 6':10"



via Eric A. Tremblay blog

Pankaj Jindal's curator insight, May 12, 2014 8:44 AM

Test 6

Mariana Ka's curator insight, May 18, 2015 5:14 AM

The video explains en efficient way of usage the online bookmarks platforms such as Scoop.it and Pinterest

Alice Goddard Library's curator insight, June 7, 2015 2:16 AM

So useful!

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User-Centered Content Curation: Five Good Tips from Sam Burroughs

User-Centered Content Curation: Five Good Tips from Sam Burroughs | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

"Most people curate for the benefit of themselves or their organisations. What if we..."

Robin Good's insight:



Sam Burroughs says it right: "What if we considered content curation from a user centered design perspective? What would audience centered curation look like?"


His suggestions are right on the mark:


  • Stop thinking you need to post always something. If you haven't got something good, don't.


  • Focus on a very specific interest and audience. 
     
  • Evaluate and share your opinion.
     
  • Let readers know how much time it takes to read the source you are suggesting to check.  
     
  • Explain, always clearly why something you are curating is relevant. Contextualize. 


More signal, less noise.


A good review of five things you need to pay attention to, for your content curation to generate some results.


Right on the mark. Practical advice. 8/10 


Full article (4 mins read): http://weelearning.co.uk/2014/01/five-ways-curators-can-improve-user-experience/ 



Image credit: (Teamwork concept by Shutterstock)





Deanna Dahlsad's curator insight, January 18, 2014 3:17 PM

What if we considered content curation as a value, not just a means to market products & services?

Gina Paschalidou's curator insight, January 20, 2014 12:06 PM

Tips to improve curation and benefit both you and other users

'Timothy Leyfer's curator insight, January 24, 2014 1:20 PM

"Explain, always clearly why something you are curating/communicating is relevant. Contextualize."

This is just one of the five great points from Sam Burroughs that we should consider when communicating relevant information to people on our list.

There are four other great tips equally as important, that we should use when communicating information to others.

In today's fast-paced world the information that we are trying to communicate to others should be user centered.

You might want to check this one out. I know that I am
Tim
TimothyLeyfer.com

Another Good-One From Mr Robin Good

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WordPress Curation Workflow, Resources and Tips from Nathan Weller

WordPress Curation Workflow, Resources and Tips from Nathan Weller | Content Curation World | Scoop.it
Robin Good's insight:



If you are interested in what could be a good workflow and set of tools to use to curate content on your own WordPress blog, Nathan Weller has a must-read article for you.


In it, he dissects and explains the tools he uses to curate content on WordPress, from how he aggregates and browses RSS feeds, to how he filters, edits and actually curates the content of each post.


Interestingly his focus is on quality, not on having his site populated by lots of "somewhat relevant" content pulled in automatically by one of the many "content marketing"-oriented curation tools available today.


I think you will find several interesting ideas that you may have not considered on how to approach your curation workflow, let alone checking the several insightful comments at the end.



Lost of valuable information, resources, examples and advice. 8/10


Full article: https://managewp.com/wordpress-content-curation




Gaurav Pandey's curator insight, May 6, 2013 10:01 PM

Robin Good's insight:

 

 

If you are interested in what could be a good workflow and set of tools to use to curate content on your own WordPress blog, Nathan Weller has a must-read article for you.

 

In it, he dissects and explains the tools he uses to curate content on WordPress, from how he aggregates and browses RSS feeds, to how he filters, edits and actually curates the content of each post.

 

Interestingly his focus is on quality, not on having his site populated by lots of "somewhat relevant" content pulled in automatically by one of the many "content marketing"-oriented curation tools available today.

 

I think you will find several interesting ideas that you may have not considered on how to approach your curation workflow, let alone checking the several insightful comments at the end.

 

 

Lost of valuable information, resources, examples and advice. 8/10

 

Full article: https://managewp.com/wordpress-content-curation

Robin Martin's comment, May 15, 2013 10:30 AM
Thank you so much Robin! This is good stuff!
Regina Torres's curator insight, January 24, 2014 10:39 AM

Nathan Weller alude al uso de dos bookmarklets para curar contenidos. Se trata de Feedly y Tabcloud, herramientas interesantes que sirven para curar contenidos. Y es que no necesitamos un pluggin increíble para curar contenidos en nuestro Wordpress, sino que estos bookmarklets pueden hacer la misma función incluso de una manera más eficaz.

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Critical Aspects of Content Curation In The Newsroom: Link and Attribution Are Essential - Steve Buttry

Critical Aspects of Content Curation In The Newsroom: Link and Attribution Are Essential - Steve Buttry | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

Robin Good: Steve Buttry, who has already written several articles on content curation (see the end of his original article), just published this in-depth essay celebrating the launch of a new curation team at Digital First Media and pointing to many of the critical factors neeeded for a content / news curator to be effective.


He covers a lot ground while giving a particular emphasis to the importance of linking and attribution. He writes: "Where you can’t learn much about the source of content you’re curating, consider crowdsourcing the question: Note the name and organization, tell readers what you’ve found and that you’re continuing research and ask them what they know about the source.


Where the source of online content is unclear, you should be clear about what you know and where you found the material."


and...


"Sometimes the name of a person or organization is not sufficient attribution.


If the person or organization is not well-known, do a little research (Google will provide quick answers in many cases; sometimes an “about us” page will help).


Especially in political content, you want to note whether you are linking to partisan sources. A liberal or conservative think tank or political action committee is an entirely different kind of source from a professional media outlet or an independent fact-checking site."


Steve Buttry also includes some valuable key guidelines on "how to add value" when curating content and suggests several types of curation approaches that can be used in the newsroom.


Good advice on curation and practical tips. 8/10


Full article: http://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/curation-techniques-types-and-tips/


(Image credit: Shutterstock http://tinyurl.com/crw65b4)


Giuseppe Mauriello's comment, July 20, 2012 2:43 PM
Hi Robin,
in this period I am busy, and I have no time to discover news and curate my topic.
Thank you so much for your great curation!
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The Demise of Quality Content on the Web - The Rise of Great Content Curators

The Demise of Quality Content on the Web - The Rise of Great Content Curators | Content Curation World | Scoop.it

This a great blog post from Rian van der Merwe , describing the noise you can find on the web now, and especially content just created for SEO purposes or advertisers. As many, Rian is tired of it.

 

Rian speaks for many of us who are overwhelmed, overloaded with content that gives us no value at all. This is the problem

 

"I used to believe that if you write with passion and clarity about a topic you know well (or want to know more about), you will find and build an audience. I believed that maybe, if you’re smart about it, you could find a way for some part of that audience to pay you money to sustain whatever obsession drove you to self-publishing"'

 

Here's what caught my attention:

 

****The wells of attention are being drilled to depletion by linkbait headlines, ad-infested pages, “jumps” and random pagination, and content that is engineered to be “consumed” in 1 minute or less of quick scanning – just enough time to capture those almighty eyeballs[2]. And the reality is that “Alternative Attention sources” simply don’t exist.

 

The Scoopit team agrees!

 

My input:

 

****The Opportunity: This is the time for all good curators to come forward - 2012 will be the year of the content curator -

 

**Know your audience

**Know their pain points

**Find and select the best content, add your own opinions, information or anything that will provide more value for your audience

**Select only the best content, don't just aggregate links that add to the noise

**Become a trusted resource - many opportunities will come to you, it's your time to shine

 

Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Media and Beyond"

 

Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/tF0opI]

 


Via axelletess, janlgordon
Dr. Karen Dietz's comment December 4, 2011 12:23 PM
Great post and comments Jan! Looking forward to 2012.
janlgordon's comment, December 4, 2011 2:59 PM
@Karen Dietz

Thanks Karen! 2012 is going to be an amazing year for all of us!!
Gust MEES's curator insight, February 14, 2013 7:39 AM

Quality Matters!

A MUST read!!!

Check also:

http://www.scoop.it/webwizard

http://www.scoop.it/t/the-scoop-it-spotlight

http://blog.scoop.it/en/2011/11/30/lord-of-curation-series-gust-mees/