Today, with the exponential growth of social networks and blogs, it can be overwhelming searching for information on the internet. As a result, the act of filtering, selecting, reviewing and providing commentary with a perspective on an article, or collection of articles, have become increasingly important. This is known as social media curation
Be sure to also see Robin Good's valuable feedback providing additional clarification regarding the list. 
The term curation seems to be taking on all forms of gathing and publishing information. In this artical, it highlights an employee base to "curating" and publishing information at IBM. It is good to see large organizations like IBM embracing employee involvement in social media at the workplace. I would challenge the act being curation but what is more important (rather than my nitpicking) is the progress that is being made in a culture that is adopting of social media.
Read on... let me know what you think. ![What You Need to Know About Content Marketing in 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC] | All Things Curation | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/8sVKIlryS0_xuvtf3rAXZTl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
What you need to know about content marketing this 2012
I like this infographic because content marketing is all about sharing your stories. This piece shares with us statistics that will help guide us in using content marketing/storytelling to grow our businesses in 2012. I love what the data shows.
And thank you fellow curator Jonha Revesencio for originally finding this article! Via Jonha Revesencio, Karen Dietz Robin Good: A great video animation introducing some of the key ideas, dreams and concepts behind content curation.
From the video: "One of the most beautiful things about the Internet is this sort of radical discovery, where you start in a place that you are familiar with, that you trust, and then you drill down and down and chase the white rabbit and then you end up in some wonderland you didn't know existed."
The clip includes thoughts from some unique curators, picked and selected by Percolate, the company sponsoring this video.
Inspiring. Insightful. 8/10
Via Robin Good, janlgordon 
"The State of Curation" session at Social Media Week NY was one of the best sessions I attended. The speakers examined the human element of curating versus the promise (and drawbacks) of algori... Via Gerrit Visser 
15 Social Media Performance Influence Measurement Tools 01 Empire Avenue: A game platform where you earn virtual currency for being social Empire Avenue is a stock market simulation social network...
More sources for your consideration Via WordPress SEO & Social Media 
I selected this piece today because it is timely and relevant, social media is part of the equation but the focus should be on social business, which is the bigger picture. It's important to package your content and repurpose it to fit the social network(s) where your audience resides. This interview talks about
In this interview with McKinsey and Compay, John Battelle, founder & chairman of Federated Media Publishing says.....
**Marketers need to shift their mindset from being a publisher to engaging an audience.
To paraphrase:
Marketers are starting to see an ecosystem of paid, owned and earned media that they're very interested in feeding through social interactions and content marketing.
Here's what caught my attention:
Marketers have always created content, print and radio ads, 30-second spots, display banners
****But they never have really seen these elements as an integrated corpus of content living in a digitally driven ecosystem
**Marketers need to become engagement publishers
**"Increasingly, [marketers] are realizing that this social media space involves an ongoing conversation. Assets never really go away."
**Building conversation “inventory” at scale
I agree that all brands probably should be on Facebook, but what you really need is an integrated strategy that has – at its root – the brand's own domain, independent from any platform other than the Internet itself.
Measuring the success of conversational engagement
These things are very hard to directly measure from a simple click. And often, as we know, the people who click are not the people you want as customers anyway.
**So you need a bridge to that kind of insight that gives a media buyer the justification to say that this new technology is worth the investment.
**Marketers have been very interested in understanding how their content is amplified in the past few years
**Now there is technology that allows us to automatically collect and present this data (More in detail in interview)
**The best companies create communities of interest that are independent:
**they are rooted in the independent Web, with expressions on Facebook, or as an iPhone or Android app – those all become instances of their brand.
** Companies should create a circulatory system through which they can promote different aspects of their messaging and interactions with their community.
**If you're going to be a brand with a publishing approach to marketing, you must have an independent taproot that isn’t controlled by anyone but you.
Put out your branches and feelers everywhere. Integrate that experience and let your content and messaging flow through it.
Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"
Read full interview here: [http://bit.ly/x7mHwm] Via janlgordon, Robin Good 
Trap.it is a great new service which allows content curators as well as bloggers and web publishers of all kinds to find good quality content on the topics that are of greatest interest to them.
How it works:
a) First you provide a "search" query and Trap.it pulls together for you a dynamic page filled with content on topic.
b) You check the page and if you feel that it provides you with good content you can Trap.it and keep it available in your Trap.it account. That page will update itelf continuously.
c) Then you start voting on which type of stories and resources you find most relevant for your needs and Trap.it starts to improve its suggestions.
You can create as many Trap.it pages as you want, and you can directly share any item you like on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ or send it to anyone via email.
I find that tools like Trap.it interesting and badly needed, as now that it is so easy to publish, if you don't want to spend your whole day searching and vetting thin content of all kinds, you do need some more sophisticated news aggregation and filtering tools like this one.
N.B.: The traps you create are not shareable via their own URL. (For now at least) only individual stories can be shared.
The service is free.
Try it out here: http://trap.it/ (reviewed by Robin Good) Via Robin Good 
Dr. Rachna Jain has a short, valuable article on content curation and its benefits up on his blog.
Key highlights from the article:
>> "...you can gain some measure of influence and leadership over a community, simply by being a very strong filter of information specific to that community."
>> "While curation seems to have initially begun as a way of rapidly creating new content, it also represents another way to build influence."
>> "By curating content, you are subtly allying yourself with the original content producer.
By reintroducing content in a new form or as part of a new conversation, you are directing where attention and focus goes.
And, when you can direct attention and focus, you clearly have influence...."
>> "your goal is to create content that begs to be shared.
[How?]
a) Make it interesting [editorially].
b) Have an opinion.
c) Use graphs, images, infographics to make your point.
d) Make your content captivating to your target market.
e) Highlight what they absolutely must know and
f) Give them guidance on what is not that important."
Read the full article: http://profitablepopularity.com/blog/content-curation-for-influence Via Robin Good, Georgina Lester 
"Collecting content without qualitative human judgement is aggregation, not curation. The best automation tools alone will never replace the ability of a human being to provide meaningful context. And the best curation, the curation I subscribe to via email, take context to the next level. It tells a story."
I was actually at this Twitter chat. It was quite fascinating and a great sharing of information. This field is rapidly evolving and it is clear we have a chance to shape it. Very exciting. 
As I was researching the term "riffing" in social media, I happened upon Blog Riffers!
A week doesn't pass that I dont learn new ideas, communities and tools. As I read it, this is a community that curates their community content then prepares content building on the ideas of the community. Very intriguing.
So now I am wondering how many of my connections belong to a Riff? Do share. 
Quora launched a new feature on Monday that has nothing to do with Q's or A's. "Boards" function like Pinterest's "pinboards," allowing users to collect and organize web content under topics they create. 
Applications and Games to be given ratings: |
10 Steps To Curate Your Social Media Content With Scoop.it for Increased Value | Social Media Pearls
Are you asking the following questions: “What is social media curation?” and “How does it add value?” Are you like many business owners trying to get your head around curation and the associated benefits? Well I have come to realize, you are not alone! In an earlier post I defined curation. In this post I would like us to revisit that definition and share how value can be gained by demonstrating how to use Scoop.it. 
A good succint and comprehensive list to keep in your library of curation tools and sites. 
By becoming a buzzword of 2011, curation has generated the creation of numerous tools to help users curate their ... ...
Blogging: 3 Secrets To An A-List Blog
Every blogger wants their blog to break through the ever-growing number of blogs to be top in their category. It’s the pot of gold at the end of our blogging rainbow that continues to elude almost everyone of us. This is in spite of how hard we work and out best intentions.
The reality is many of us know the necessary components for breaking through, but we don’t know how to put them all together in the most effective way.
To take your blog to the next level, here are the three secrets to creating an A-List blog: [Hint:Connections, Content and Conversions!]
Here are details explaining the Infographic.
Connections. The phrase “It’s not what you know but who you know” holds true for blogging. Since most bloggers don’t start with rock stars following them on social media, you have to create your own opportunities to engage with your category’s A-Listers. Here are five suggestions to build your connections. Via maxOz, janlgordon ![Intranet Content Strategy at IBM: Collaboration, Curation and Empowered Communication [Video] | All Things Curation | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/QPiyZ8q1FKfL8wsTuMggyDl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
Robin Good: For intranet managers and content strategists.
Mark Ragan interviews Ben Edwards, Vice-President for Digital Strategy and Development at IBM on the changing landscape for corporate intranets in this insightful nine minute video.
What caught my attention:
- Effective internal collaboration within the company can bring to the development of new commercial products and services.
- Institutional and internally-produced professional content is declining and it is giving way to lots of new employee-generated content.
- The company must be outward looking and play a role in suggesting what employee must be attention to.
- Curation is an effective approach to manage and extract greater value from such growing amount of content.
- Curation is about being a subject matter expert on a specific "vertical" area of interest - and this is something a company may want to look into both for "external" and "internal" communications
- Companies like IBM are now enabling the "experts" within the company to communicate more and better.
- The trend is toward cultivating more internal collaboration, and to enable our people to be great communicators who can create extra value out there
Insightful. 8/10
See the 9 min video interview here: http://www.hrcommunication.com/Main/Articles/7388.aspx Via Robin Good Learn what the habits of highly effective content creators are, and if you already are one, how you can improve your skills.
Good tips and habits to develop as a content marketer and/or creator, namely: 1.Sets & Adheres to Deadlines 2.Goal-Oriented 3.Relies on Multiple Resources 4.Pays Attention to Details 5.Never Runs Out of Content Ideas 6.Thinks Like an Educator 7. Balances Quality and Quantity 8.Keeps Customer Personas in Mind 9.Thinks Like a Publisher 10.Uses Data to Measure & Improve Content
Can you add any more habits?
Are Curators Social?
I am loving Scoop.it! The act of curating forces me to read a lot (I don’t really need to be forced but now I have an excuse ;)) while scanning for those articles that may be a gem among the vast about of literature out there. It is like having a metal detector on the beach.
In this community, if I see an article I like I will quickly add it to my collection. We all do that, right? We rescoop. As I reflect on that, I am wondering how social is that? I have seen a few articles sent to our community for responses- It is great to see the collective mind at work. With all the reading we do, the knowledge base here is enormous. What an asset! However at the end of the day, do we need to be social , here is this community or else where?
I thought I would throw this out there and see what comes back? So I wait for the boomerang hoping it doesn’t hit me at the back of my head!
What say you?
May I aslo take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holiday Season and All the best for 2012. 
This is an interesting article by Byron White, Founder of ideaLaunch. I excerpted from it:
We’ve all heard the expression Content is King. After all, content is the fuel behind the social media revolution currently sweeping the Web. Close examination of the art world, however, offers a solid case that curation, not content, may in fact be the ruler online.
When it comes to content marketing, developing a content strategy for your company starts by curating your existing content assets, along with researching the assets of the competition.
Through the content curation process, you learn how much content you need, how frequently you need to publish it and which channels of distribution (social especially) are required to capture organic market share. The skill and savvy of a Content Strategist is equally as important as your Director of Marketing these days. Getting the right content to the right prospects at the right time is the key to content marketing success.
Who will win the content curation war of the web? The race to transform to high-quality publishing is officially on. It’s time to gather ideas, develop stories and publish quality content that keeps readers (and customers) coming back for more.
But in the end, it’s not content that’s king. Instead, it’s the impact that the content has on us long after we pass it by. Great content is hard to create, curate, optimize and distribute. But when it all comes to together, it is THE catalyst that makes your business better. And better than that.
Curated by Giuseppe Mauriello [read full article http://j.mp/sPZqzu] Via Giuseppe Mauriello 
Visualized content is popping up all over the web lately, and it's no surprise.Visual content is pleasing to the eye, stimulating, entertaining, and much more interesting than plain old text.
There are many ways you can make your content more visually appealing and effective. Some are simple, and some are more complex. Either way, visualized content is hot.
Here are some awesome examples of content visualization to motivate you to start thinking more with your eyes.
With the unprecedented levels of published information, it is very difficult for Internet users to stay up to date on what matters to them. This situation is especially dramatic for information professionals that must remain aware of new happenings in order to stay ahead of the curve. Content curation is the process of picking the most relevant and valuable content for a specific audience.. |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |  |
6 |
|
Next |
Thanks Everyone for this feedback. Just wonderful.
Robin- absolutely appreciated the feedback. I did visit all the sites to ensure that they were still in operation however missed some very important details. So thank you so much for providing the clarification needed. :))
Hi Shirley, thank you for sharing this valuable list of tools. It is much appreciated and can be indeed used by many people.
I have taken permission to add my little contribution to it as it is becoming not easy for most people to identify the type of tools they may be needing.
http://socialmediapearls.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/40-social-media-curation-sites-and-tools/#comment-583
Thanks again Shirley for your good work!