SteveB's Social Learning Scoop

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn can be found in the majority of social media management apps. It is with Google+ that things get a little bit more complicated: very few social media tools support it due to some technical challenges.

 

However, most social media managers would prefer a solution that would allow them posting to all social networks in one place, Google+ including.

 

In this post, you’ll find reference to all tools that are to date integrated with Google+. We’ll bring small business editions to a special focus and review social tools that (1) support Google+ and (2) the ones you can use for free or under $10 a month.

Via Martin Gysler

Visual Social Media Marketing: learn how to share more visual content and create a visual conversation with your audience.

 

Have you noticed more photos on social networks?

Do you have a visual component as part of your social media marketing strategy?

 

Do you need some help in getting started or maintaining momentum in sharing more visual content and in creating a visual conversation with your audience?

Via Martin Gysler

Social Media doesn't work for the vast majority of small businesses.

That was the main message in the USA Today article titled, Study: Social media a bust for small businesses, published on April 17th, 2013. From the news item:"About 61% of small businesses don't see any return on investment on their social-media activities, according to a survey released Tuesday from Manta, a social network for small businesses. Yet, almost 50% say they've increased their time spent on social media, and only 7% have decreased their time. What businesses are trying to get out of social media: 36% said their goal was to acquire and engage new customers, 19% said to gain leads and referrals, and 17% said to boost awareness. Facebook was most cited as the hardest to maintain social-media platform, according to the survey." There is a big lesson in this data...

 

What you want from social media may be very different from what it is.

Via Martin Gysler

This very timely article was written by Andrew Hunt, founder of Inbound Sales Network, for Business2Community.

 

It raises an issue between original Content Creators, Content Curators and people who repost these articles.

 

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

 

The reason I was moved to do this commentary is because I see a wonderful opportunity to come together as a community and help shape the future of curation. Content Curation is in its infancy and there’s a lot of misunderstanding about its potential. As I see it, it’s a brilliant B2B marketing strategy for anyone who is selling a product or service if done responsibly.

 

Content Curators are providing a very valuable service for the original author and their own audiences.

 

 

Here is what ethical, responsible curators are providing for content creators:

 

1. Syndicating content and introducing it to new audiences, which is excellent PR if it is being curated by a “trusted source”

 

2. A good headline grabs the attention of a reader and gets them into the piece quickly. A curator who can tailor the headline to grab their audience will inevitably send more traffic to the original article

 

3. A curator who is skilled at adding commentary and context to the original piece also broadens the audience of the original work

 

4. Curation is one of the building blocks of collective intelligence

 

5. If a curator fully accredits both author and article, authors might have a whole new area of exposure/distribution channel that they wouldn’t have had before

 

6. People get paid to market and open up new business for brands. Curators do this free of charge while building their own audience. Each party gains. It is a new and exciting form of symbiosis in business

 

 

I know that there are people out there who are just taking people’s work. I have spent time adding commentary only to find it has been published on Facebook and other sites without giving credit to me or the original author. They use it for their own gain but I think and hope this will become more the exception as Curation matures.

 

I like many of my colleagues are building our brands and want to be known for selecting only the best content that informs and educates our audience. We want authors to want us to curate for them and feel that we’re working in concert not on opposing teams. We want them to be happy that we're taking the time to find the essence in what they’re saying and take it to a whole new audience. It is a part of our job to bring authors to the attention of people who would not otherwise know of them.

 

 

This was a Q & A at the end of the original article in Business2Community:

 

(q) How is content curation different from stealing?

 

(a) Great question! Part of the genesis of Aggregage was my experience with “curators” who would take my content, put it on a page with no link or a link that had an anchor tag that said “link” or something similar. They would change the title and URL for my post on their site. The goal of that person was to get SEO value from my content.

They also allowed commenting on their sites. The reason I would write the post is for people to find me and my content and to engage with me in conversation.

These types of curators were definitely taking away from that. Aggregage takes a very different approach. Our goal is to be THE launching point out to all the great content getting created on particular topics. We specifically do not have pages that compete with the original source. We only show snippets.

We provide full links with the original title. We don’t have commenting on our site. Basically, we are doing everything we can to get readers to go to the original source and engage with the content. Many of the participating bloggers find that we become the second biggest referral source behind Google search.

 

 

My take is that we're still in the early stages of curation and while I understand resentment to curators who do not fully attribute their work. However, it is incorrect to assume that changing headlines and URLs automatically means that people are stealing your work strictly for their own gain. That's not how this works with people who are serious about curation.

 

The end goal  and my vision is for us to build community and broaden the audience of the content producers who we promote while building a niche audience of our own who trust that we are cutting through the noise to bring them the few articles they will hopefully find relevant. My community is the authors whose work I curate, the audience I bring their work to and other curators. I appreciate and nurture each relationship equally.

 

There are so many of you who could add brilliant insights, would love to hear your thoughts.

 

Read the original article: [http://bit.ly/u89c95]

 

Via janlgordon