ARE YOU USING FACEBOOK AS A SOURCE FOR CONTENT CURATION?
If your answer to this question is ‘No, I have not seriously used Facebook for content curation’, you have to read on because Facebook is a great place to find, and then share curated content.
Here is another novel idea.
Content you find on Facebook does not need to stay on Facebook.
Yes, really!
You can share content you find on Facebook to other social media platforms.
Think Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+, just to get you started.
Of course there’s a right way and a wrong way to share this content you find on Facebook.
Are you ready to learn more?
Please read on to find out
- What curated content is
- Why you need curated content for your social media strategy
- How to ‘vet’ content before sharing it with your audience
- How to search on Facebook and use certain Facebook features to find very specific content for curation purposes
- How to properly share curated content
WHAT IS CURATED CONTENT?
Curated content is
the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme, interest or industry. Curation involves sifting, sorting, arranging, compiling and publishing information to a specific social media platform.
WHY DO YOU NEED CURATED CONTENT?
Unless you are the social media director of Coca-Cola or Oreo, you will most likely need curated content to fill your social media channels with interesting, fun, inspiring, motivational and informative information your audience will love, like, comment on and share.
There is an ongoing debate within our industry of how much content should be curated and how much should be created.
The ‘industry standard’ – and bare in mind we don’t know who set this standard – is 80%/20% curated vs created = other people’s content vs your own content.
HOW DO YOU KNOW CONTENT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE CURATED?
Curated content needs to be vetted!
This goes for articles, but also for images, videos and infographics!
I will share content from these influencers freely because I know they are great at what they do, I trust their writing and I rely on their industry knowledge and proven track-record of producing great content.
When I find an article from a website I am not familiar with, or by an author I’ve not heard of, I go and investigate.
✓ First, I click on the article I find (whether that’s on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or anywhere else) and I follow if back to the source. I want to find the original source of the content, so I can share it from there.
✓ Next, I will read the article. (I read it, or if I am short on time, I scan it – this is where your H2 headers come in bloggers! Use the H2 headers to tell your story to those who scan your content. Don’t forget bullet points for even easier scanning!)
✓ Lastly, I check for comments, social shares of this article, I read the author’s bio and I do a quick check up on the website.
Once I have done all of this, I still need to evaluate if the content is a good fit for my audience.
Only then will I decide to whether to share it, or not!
HOW TO FIND A WEALTH OF CONTENT ON FACEBOOK TO CURATE.
This is not the first time I’ve written about curating content from Facebook. This is an important enough topic to do so a second time.
These ways include
- Trending Topics
- News Ticker
- Interest Lists
- Facebook Groups
- Hashtag Search
- Graph Search
Today I have four additional ways to curate content from Facebook. They include
- Page Newsfeed
- Blog Click Through
- Industry Leaders
- Saved Content
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
1) Page Newsfeed(s) – I am sure you are familiar with your newsfeed. It’s what you are on when you read about your friends and family and what they are doing on Facebook. You might also see some ads in your newsfeed, as well as posts by pages you’ve previously liked. Did you know you have a second newsfeed? Your page has a newsfeed as well, but
As a page, More In Media has ‘liked’ many local and industry related pages. Therefore, I get access to all their most recent and top posts.
Why is this so powerful? It’s easy to share a post from one page to another. There’s a share button under each post and this makes it one of the quickest ways to curate content from Facebook to Facebook. But don’t stop there! I often find great content in this newsfeed that fits with my LinkedIn strategic goals, and sometimes I find content that I think my Google+ and Pinterest audiences will like. Whichever platform I share it on, my Facebook Page newsfeed is a great source for content.
2) Blog Click Through – When I find an interesting article on Facebook I want to share with my audience on one of my social media networks, I don’t stop there. I click through not just to the article to read and ‘vet’ the content of that one article, but I click through to the rest of the blog to find more content like it to share!
NOTE to Bloggers: This is where your
Facebook Authorship comes in!
Why is this so powerful? Once you’ve decided that the content you have found is of good quality and will suit your audience, you have found a potential source of a lot of content. Exciting, right? I look at frequency of publishing, number of blog comments and topics. If it’s a good fit, I will add this new blogger to my
Interest List or the feed of the blog to my
Feedly account. In essence, I have found a new
Facebook influencer.
3) Industry Leaders – When in search of great content, go to the industry leaders within your industry on Facebook. Check both on their personal profile – you can follow their public posts, even if you don’t want to friend them – and their Facebook Page. These leaders are industry leaders for a reason; they have become influencers by being
- trustworthy
- consistent
- timely
- informative
- strategic
with their Facebook posts!
Why is this so powerful? By sharing their content, you accomplish two things. First, you are now ‘linked’ to this person of influence. Believe me when I say that they notice who shares their content. Second, your audience now knows you are up on trends and industry news because you shared from these leaders. People will look to you for more content like it because it’s good.
4) Saved Content – Whenever I see content in my newsfeed that entices me, but I do not have time to read (or watch), vet and share it, I save it! Did you know you can save
- links
- videos
- products
- photos
- places
- music
- books
- movies
- TV shows
- events
and that Facebook will save it for you until you watch, read, share or archive it?
Why is this so powerful? I save all sorts of content. However, most of the content I save are links to articles and videos (at times I do not have time to read or watch videos) and ads. Yes, I save ads and sponsored content, too! It’s powerful because once it’s bookmarked as ‘saved’ in Facebook, I can easily access it when its needed and share on any page I admin, or to any platform I wish to share it to. I love, love, love this feature yet I think it’s under-used by marketers.
HOW SHOULD YOU PROPERLY SHARE CURATED CONTENT?
This is important!
Please share from the original source and credit the person who shared the content to Facebook.
On social media this might look like this.
This is a a share from my Facebook Page to that of a colleague. She credits my page and add her own thoughts.
Here is a share from a colleague’s page to my own Facebook Page. Deb of
For The Love Of Your Biz is one of my influencers, so I share her content without question.
Robin of
R & R Web Design credited the original poster by adding a H/T to the end of the description in this Facebook post.
(H/T = hat tip = tipping you hat to someone for finding this information and HT = Heard Through = mainly used on Twitter)
If you find something on Facebook and share it elsewhere, still tag, h/t or credit the person who originally found and curated it! It’s polite, of course, but it’s also a way to build up trust and cultivate online relationships!
FACEBOOK WRAP UP
Facebook is an incredible source of content! Facebook continues to lead and innovate and add new features for marketers and consumers alike. Keep an eye out for
Instant Articles (on mobile), available now to a select few brands, coming your way in April 2016; a new way to highlight and share content on Facebook.
This is also why you need to check your links before you repin something, each and every time! 
