On Old-School Web Content Curation
There’s been a lot of talk over the past few months (and really, years) about how content curation is the next wave of social media. The reasoning goes that with the massive rise in new information channels spewing a flood of content at consumers, we’re teetering in the midst of an attention crash of sorts.
Better content filtering – feed searches and such – is one way to cope, paired with dedicated tools and even people whose job it is to curate all that information into useful collections for the rest of us. The tools – social bookmarkers like Delicious for example – help everyone who uses them become a vast web of curators in effect. Newer tools like Alltop in effect attempt to curate blogs around selected topics. And link sharing via Twitter and Facebook are exploding the concept even further, with more focus on realtime push and less on the archiving and organizing aspect found in social bookmarking.
I’d like to highlight an older kind of Web content curation, that I think often gets left out of this conversation: the link blog. It wraps the “filtered and trusted firehose” style of link sharing found on Twitter with a touch of commentary and editorial that ads real value and context to those links.
By way of example, take two very popular blogs: Boing Boing and Daring Fireball. Another great tool for this sort of thing by the way is Tumblr, but I won’t dive into it here.
Boing Boing, kind of the granddaddy of all link blogs, bills itself as “A directory of wonderful things.” Which it truly is – it’s a firehose of content in its own right, but of organized content sprinkled with light editorial provided by interesting authors, serving as something of a guided tour to all the quirky parts of the Web.
Daring Fireball, the link-ish blog of John Gruber, in contrast is mostly focused on the Apple community and in particular the Apple developer community. Lots of small links, with a sentence or few of editorial, interspersed with a longer article here and there.
Neither blog is designed to really “curate” content for long term categorization and reference in the way a social bookmarking tool does, yet they do spew out links in much the way you’ll find on Twitter. The value, and the difference, lies in the commentary attached to each link, commentary coming from sources whose judgement and authority many people trust.
It’s because of this short form editorial, from authoritative authors, that they are both among my first stops in the morning. I trust the Boing Boing crew and Mr. Gruber to find and share interesting, relevant links and I enjoy the bits of commentary they provide on each.
In the current era of mass link sharing via social networks, Boing Boing and DF can appear to almost be anachronisms. After all, blogs are soooo 2007, right? But their continued success and relevance I think points to a larger point: everyone has their own preferences for how they consume drips from that grand firehose of Web content, and no one tool or format is the “right” one.
Some people prefer to consume curated content in 140 characters or less (Twitter), some want it only from close trusted friends and in lower volume (Facebook), and some enjoy it with a bit more commentary fed out via RSS readers (link blogs). Which is why I see a future filled with a variety of Web content curation tools and styles, and tend to discount all the frantic stories that surface about how the rise of App X will kill Apps Y, Z, and everything else for that matter. In the case of Web content curation, we have a wide variety of tools and styles already co-existing, as people select what best suits their needs and taste.
Creating a Simple Mac Workflow for Posting Blog Images
Blogs look better with nice in-post images, just admit it. Yes, content is king, but pure text without some eye candy is just plain boring. Continually adding images though, from a blogger’s perspective, can be a real pain, from finding them to editing to ensuring fit and finish. To keep things simple, here is my workflow:
1. Find the Image
If you have an expense account and are looking for solid rights to generally high quality images, go over to www.istockphoto.com and search to your heart’s delight. There are some wonderful images for incredibly reasonably prices. However, thanks to Flickr’s fantastic use of Creative Commons, and the Advanced Search feature (check the CC search option towards the bottom), finding legally usable, high quality, and relevant imagery for your everyday blog posts can be fast and easy.
Just *always* remember to check the type of CC license, and ensure you provide proper attribution to give the photography credit for their work.
For screen caps and shots, the easiest tool I’ve found is Grab, which comes with OSX (search for it in Spotlight). Add this handy utility to your Dock.
2. Understand Your Layout
Figure out how wide your main blog column is, so you know the max image width. An easy and fast way to do this is by using the Firebug extension for Firefox. Right click somewhere over some text in one your blog posts, select Inspect Element, and then look at the bottom right window. Select Layout, and look at the first number (e.g. 520 x 190) in the center box. That *should* be the pixel width of your main blog content column. Your mileage may vary.
3. Use ImageWell Templates for fast editing
I highly recommend ImageWell for fast image editing on a Mac (and no, that’s not an affiliate link). It may cost $20 or so, but it’s well worth it and saves you from trying to string something together with iPhoto or firing up that beastly overkill known as PhotoShop. Open ImageWell, drag your saved image into its window, click “edit” and resize/crop the image to your desired width.
If you use full column width images on every post – which makes things much easier by obviating the need for text wrap, IMO – you only need to do this once by hand in ImageWell. Set up the max width, ad a border if you like, then select “Add Template” and name it. From then on, every time you edit a photo in ImageWell, just select “File > Templates > yourtemplatename” and done. Your image will be resized, border applied, etc.
4. Upload and enjoy!
You can either use the handy “Send To” feature in ImageWell to FTP the image directly to your blog’s content folder, or use something like WordPress’ image gallery upload feature to get the image where you need it.
Once you get the hang of it, the longest part of the process will be fretting over which image to actually use. The download/edit/upload process should take mere seconds, and you’re on your way to blogging bliss. Good luck!
Photo within the screen shot is by vernhart on Flickr via CC License. Screenshot itself taken of ImageWell during a sample editing process.
Event Blog: Learning Healthcare Social Media from Mayo Clinic
Yesterday I attended a seminar on social media in healthcare, hosted by GA Creative and featuring Lee Aase (@leeaase) from the Mayo Clinic. Lee is an entertaining speaker and brought a wealth of information about how Mayo is using social media tools to deeply engage their patients, staff, and the media. I haven’t seen the exact slides from today, but here is a similar presentation Lee posted to Slideshare:
Some quick takeaways:
You’ll never realize value from social media unless you get out there and do it
A couple quotes/paraphrases: “Your kids aren’t smarter than you. They’re just less afraid to look dumb.” “Your mileage may vary, but you have to at least get a car first.” Both speak to the need to avoid paralysis from analysis and just get out and there and try social media. Claim your orgs Twitter handle, set up a FB fan page, establish a foothold in the social media space. At least start listening.
HIPAA creates unique privacy challenges for healthcare organizations embracing social media
This is true for new content, such as sharing patient stories, and even for blog comment moderation. For example, you have to moderate or “de-identify” (change names) comments from people who are sharing medical stories from relatives in order to guard against HIPAA violations.
Video is a great way to generate content without stressing the experts
Lee had an early concern about how to generate a steady flow of good content (posts, mainly) without over-stressing the doctors and researchers with writing asks. The solution was a cheap Flip video, short and fast interviews, and simple editing guidelines.
Capital investment are close to zero, yet staff time costs can also be kept in check
An oft-quoted slide in Lee’s deck – he has presented similar decks elsewhere – refers to “$0″ as the cost of using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Mayo runs their blogs via WordPress.com, and pays about $75/year for options. All in all, dirt cheap, which is a key part of Lee’s story – it doesn’t take thousands of dollars to get a social media effort up and running.
Obviously the question is about staff time and skills – the triple challenges of mastering the tools, monitoring the conversation flow, and generating compelling content can be a vast time suck. This is a very real barrier for many companies who would otherwise embrace new media technologies.
I appreciate Lee’s reply that you should avoid creating a social media staff silo, avoid dumping it off to “the kids” (aka interns and junior staff), but rather make use of the untapped creativity and potential of your existing team members. Identify a “gray haired” champion who can advocate to senior management and help get these efforts elevated on the staff priority list. The nature of social media tools is not that they let you do radically new things, but rather they help your staff do what they do already – media relations, patient communications, etc – more effectively, faster, and cheaper than ever before. This is one of Lee’s key recommendations: don’t focus on the discontinuity social media tools bring (that scare people off) but highlight how they help them do their current jobs better.
6 Recurring Posts Topics for your Company Blog
Monday morning. Blog posting time. Blank screen. No ideas. Panic time.
If you’ve run a company blog, you’ve probably been there. No matter how well you build out a content plan, there may come a time where the well has run dry and the “just in case” reserve has been used up. No new customer case studies have been published, no product news to announce, no webinars or trade show events to talk up. What next?
Try adding in a set of recurring post topics to your regular posting schedule. These are simple posts, set for publishing on given days of each week (or alternating weeks, or 3rd Tuesdays…whatever works), with content largely pulled from outside the corporate firewall. Look at these as wonderful opportunities to point the blog lens outwards and participate a bit more in your user and industry communities. Here are five common types of recurring posts to consider adding to your own content plan:
1. Must Reads
Each week in your normal blog, industry news, and general online reading the research, bookmark articles and sites of particular interest. A hot new research report, an insightful blog post, key news about trends in your business, whatever they may be. Sign up for a social bookmarking tool such as Delicious, Instapaper, or use the Google Reader “share” function to capture them throughout the week, and then post on Friday or Monday a quick run down. It’s a great way to send some link love out – one of the best ways to get links back in – and it will provide real value to your regular readers, provided you stay on topic (no “oh so adorable” LOLcats, unless that’s the focus of your company).
2. User/Member Profiles
These go by many names: “Featured Commenter” “Customer Profile” “Star Contributor” and so on. They can be long and in depth, complimented by a podcast or video, or they can be quick and simple. On the latter, grab a headshot photo, some relevant info, a link or two as appropriate, and some nice words on their contribution to your community, support forums, blog, or success with your products (if they have approved a testimonial or case study). These work wonders for any company with an online community or forum aspect to their site, and they are a great way to showcase case studies or testimonials if you’re lucky enough to have a steady supply.
3. Employee Profile
Sometimes shining the spotlight back inside the company can do wonders for your brand. Develop a stock questionnaire, including some quirky questions – favorite customer story, most embarrassing day at work, what one thing you’d find on their desk, etc. Collect these plus a headshot photo from willing staff, and post these once a week or so. They add a degree of humanity to your blog and company, and help your readers and customers connect with your brand and team on a more direct and personal level.
4. New Content Digest
For content-heavy sites, especially if you churn new content on a fairly frequent basis, a fast, easy, and very helpful recurring post topic is the new content digest. Highlight new articles, whitepapers, case studies, releases, how-to’s, and so on. Keep it short and sweet, and link directly.
5. Old Content Salvage Post
Sometimes great content gets buried, even on well designed sites. Don’t rely on site search or your no doubt awesome SEO efforts to expose great pages, posts, articles, and the like – highlight the best of them in a recurring post series!
6. Forum Thread Of the Week
If you host a user or customer forums – support, ideas, feedback, self-help, etc. – consider flagging one thread each week that is either uniquely interesting or is drawing above average readership or participation. Write up a post to draw attention to it and invite your readers to participate. This is also a great way to highlight and celebrate a featured forum contributor (see #2).
Mix and match as appropriate, and plan ahead so you have a few of these in your back pocket come crunch time.
Remember, if you need help with your blog content planning, writing, or blog development, drop us a line!
As we all know, the world marketer's face has changed forever, and here is yet another oddly named blog to help you navigate it all. I'm Kevin Briody, lifelong marketer, ex-Microsoftie, startup and nonprofit veteran, current agency -type, and your host. 
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