Content curation is an essential aspect of social media marketing. Whether you focus on one social network or many, one thing is certain: you need a lot of content. What you don’t have—or at least I don’t—is a lot of time. The good news is that you don’t need much time when you use a few minutes here and there for curating content from your smartphone. Here are my top five apps for content curation.
1. Pocket – This app is an absolute lifesaver when paired with the browser extensions. When you read an interesting article or blog post on your phone, add it to Pocket if you don’t want to share it immediately. The next time you’re at your computer, pull up the article using the handy browser extension and load it into Hootsuite, Buffer or your social media scheduler of choice. You can also share content on your social media profiles directly from the Pocket app. Use the tag feature to make it easier to sort through your content, and delete content after you’ve shared it to keep the list manageable.
2. Evernote – Full disclosure: I am a diehard Evernote fan. I use it for everything, from compiling research to saving pictures of my son’s artwork. It’s an excellent tool for content curation, too. With a premium subscription, the text within images is searchable. So if you read a thought-provoking article at your dentist’s office, you can use the camera to snap a picture of the article to spark your own ideas or to share it later. Evernote also works well with IFTTT (If This Then That), which I use to send Tweets that I mark as “favorites” to my Evernote account where I label them for later use.
3. Feedly – Feedly is a magazine-style RSS reader that’s perfectly suited to reading and browsing content on smartphones. You can bookmark articles to read later and place a higher priority on certain articles by starring them. Share content on Twitter with just a tap, and share on other networks using the dropdown menu. Of course, you can also add content to Pocket or Evernote to minimize the number of places where you store content to share later.
4. Pinterest – The Pinterest app is not only a great tool for curating content for yourself, but it can also help you build online authority. Create Pinterest boards that provide useful, educational material for your followers. For example, a lawn care business may want to consider creating an informational board providing lawn care tips. In addition to pinning your own content, pin resources from other industry experts. Instead of playing Candy Crush the next time you’re waiting in line, pin some helpful articles instead.
5. Bundlr – I recently started using Bundlr, and while it’s not as intuitive as a smartphone app should be, it’s easy to create and store “bundles” of information. Note that you need a premium account for private bundles; all others are public. Like Pinterest, though, Bundlr can be a useful tool for building authority on topics within your niche. To use the app from your smartphone, you’ll need to be proficient in using the copy and paste functions to add urls to your clips within each bundle.
What are your favorite apps for curating content on the go? Share them in the comments!
Donella Crigger is a freelance writer specializing in apps, business and the outdoors. She currently writes for Peku Publications as well as several private clients. In the rare moments that her phone or tablet are not in her hand, you can find her spending time outdoors with her husband, her two-year-old son, and their rambunctious pets.