Tag Archives: content curation

Content Curation – Why and How to Do It Well

Recently I had the pleasure of joining Beth Kanter’s Nten webinar, How Content Curation Builds Staff Expertise and Reduces Information Overload.  Read Beth’s summary of the session on her blog post, and get many great content curation ideas from the latest edition of Nten’s Change Journal.

While I’ve actively used my Twitter feed to discuss ephilanthropy topics, many nonprofits struggle over whether content curation is something that will actually benefit the organization.  But helping staff to develop a deep expertise in the nonprofit’s area of focus is very worthwhile, as is strengthening the overall communications strategy by sharing relevant content from inside and outside the organization.

Some additional takeaways from today’s webinar:

  • using tools like Scoop.It and Storify can help organize your efforts (I’ve been getting many of my ideas from emails, which is a good start but not the most efficient)
  • it’s important to add value to what you share, which you can’t do if you haven’t taken the time to read the page and add your own thoughts. This will really save time for those who are following you
  • Narrow your focus on what topics you are curating.  Trying to cover too much will make your posts less useful.
  • Take the time to analyze what shares are generating the most retweets and clicks.  This will tell you what your audience is most interested in
  • Learn to manage your attention.  I attended a meeting recently where practically everyone spent most of their time checking their phone.  Here are 7 tips to help you focus on what you’re doing now (check out the great infographic).

Content curation is a great way to increase your knowledge and help your nonprofit – and it doesn’t need to consume a large chunk of your time if you learn to do it right.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

Most nonprofits are on Facebook now, but fewer are using Twitter well.  Read these 24 Twitter best practices, and 8 nonprofit Twitter superstars who especially do it well, led by Charity:Water, which I highlighted in a recent post.  Also, don’t make these seven Twitter mistakes.

If you’re trying to figure out how to use content curation to benefit your cause, Beth Kanter offers this great primer as well as Content and Curation for Nonprofits on Scoop.It!  New tools such as Storify and Paper.li also offer interesting ways to consolidate great content.  (But make sure you take the time to digest content you are curating.)

Not hearing as much lately about Google Plus even though it’s now open to the public, yet I keep receiving connection notices from people I don’t recognize.  Strange.

There’s no magic bullet for how to succeed in the nonprofit sector, but thanks to Big Duck and the Taproot Foundation for offering these suggestions.

Were you able to attend the recent Blackbaud Conference for Nonprofits or the Convio Summit?  Here’s some ways on how to live tweet from an event from M&R (but make sure you participate in the live discussion – some of my best insights are from Q&A that takes place at events)  Also, Frogloop offers these takeaways on What Your Nonprofit Needs to Know.

If you missed last week’s chat with Andy Goodman on story telling, you can still get the recording from Nten.  Unfortunately, Andy reminded us that many nonprofits are ‘great at what we do, but not good in talking about it.’

Finally, if you’re spending a bit too much time on social media, here’s an important reminder from Jocelyn Harmon – put your most important relationships first.

What’s New in ePhilanthropy

If you missed this week’s Social Media for Nonprofits NYC event, you can get a great summary from Big Duck’s Farra Trompeter, who presented a great step by step tutorial on implementing Multi-Channel Campaigns.  (More session slides from this and past events are available here.)  See also Kivi Leroux Miller’s post highlighting Convio’s recently released Multi-Channel Marketing Report.

Coming up with strong content is the key behind any online strategy.  As I and many of my nonprofit colleagues around the country do, I try to find the most worthwhile posts to share with my followers.  Beth Kanter explains that Content Creation is Listening and Engaging, then followed up with this look at Scoop.It as a way to organize your content.

How can you make your website more ‘social’?  Debra Askanase explains how and gives several examples of nonprofits that are doing this well, and will follow up with a Nten webinar next month.

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen says you must focus on essential content when writing for mobile platforms.  If you’re new to email marketing, learn about Email Marketing 2.0, then learn how segmentation can help you to get better results.

Finally, if you’re trying to find a format to send to your management to summarize social media and results of other online activity, Beth offers this guest post highlighting the Smithsonian Institution’s in-house dashboard, then suggests using a small pilot project to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media.