Sharing is Caring

Content creation is incredibly important these days.  It’s all the rage and all that people are talking about lately.  Needing to create video, audio, picture, and text content is so important to that ever elusive rank on Google that we have all become content creators.  Whether it’s the blog we write complaining about a company or the Vine video we share as we shop, it’s content that we are sharing on all of our social media channels, from blogs to Facebook.  From Twitter to Pinterest.  We create and we share.

But, eventually, we will all hit that brick wall.  That stopping point when we have nothing left to say.  It may happen weekly.  I find I have this problem quite frequently.  I have trouble finding topics to write about.  Maybe it’s because I believe in the phrase, “there is no such thing as an original thought.”  And, because I read and subscribe to so many blogs, I feel that it has all been said and all been done.

So, what is a blogger to do?

We need to find content that others have created, and that is relevant to our audience, to enable us to have something to share.

Experts (those elusive beings that know more than we do) say that within social media, 80% of what we share should be other people’s content.  After all, sharing is caring.  And only 20% should be content we create, offers we extend, and items we want to sell.

So, the question remains, where do we find content to share?

Alltop

There are some great tools to find content, but my favorite is Alltop.  This site bill itself as having “all the top stories” and they do.  In addition, you can create an account, and curate only the topics of interest to you and your audience.  One visit a day, and you could have content for a week. 

RebelMouse

This site can organize your online presence into a dynamic social site, and it can be embedded to your website, enabling you to create a social stream within your own property.  Not only can you find some great articles here, but by adding it to your website, you have continually updated content.  They even pull in the images associated with the posts, to make it inviting and engaging.  Check out my Social Stream, courtesy of RebelMouse:

(discloser – author owns Social Ribbit)

Paper.Li

The final tool I’ll discuss is called Paper.li.  This is an incredibly easy tool to create an on-line newspaper, that finds, publishes and promotes articles, photos and videos from across the internet.

But, in addition to sharing curated content, this service will automatically tweet out your newspaper, allows you to embed it to your website, and if you want to upgrade, you can utilize Google analytics to see how your content is spreading.

Although these are just some of the tools available to us, even more basic is finding other blogs within your industry, subscribing and sharing.  The great content you are searching for will find you.

So, you have no excuse to not have content to share with your audience.  Get out there and curate!

What other sites do you use to find great content?  Let’s share our tips below!

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