Are you having trouble coming up with great online content to share with your customers on a regular basis? You’re not alone. It happens to lots of businesses.

One of the ways to fix this issue is through content curation. If you’re unfamiliar with this practice, it’s the process of collecting web content on a specific theme from third-party sources and sharing them via online channels. This can include social media, blogging, webinars, etc.

As an example, you might find a great infographic on a blog that you want to share with customers on your company blog or Facebook page. This is the beginning of content curation.

The idea is to build up a collection of online content from third-party sources, so you always have information to share with your customers. By doing this, it helps to establish your business as an online thought leader, so customers look to you for help with their problems and buy from you.

So how do you find and curate content? It all starts by using the right online tools. Here are some of the top online tools and resources that will help you with content curation.

 

News Resources

1. Google News Alerts: This is a free, powerful tool that sends you email notifications on various news topics. Just type in a keyword on a given topic and you’ll get notifications sent to your email. Google Alerts are a great way to stay on top of the latest happenings in your industry.

2. RSS News Feeds: Using an RSS reader to collect and gather news feeds from around the web is a great way to stay on top of the latest information on a given topic. Start by following the news feeds of important blogs and news websites in your industry. One of most popular RSS readers is Google Reader.

3. Newsletters: There are probably a good number of email newsletters in your industry. Start subscribing to them. Most likely, industry trade organizations and trade magazines have email newsletters. It’s good to start with those.

4. Alltop: This has become one of our favorite places to search for content. Alltop organizes the most popular news and information about your industry into easy-to-follow categories that help you stay on top of the very latest in your industry. You’ll find lots of great content to share with your customers.

5. Online Forums: Online forums are a great way to get a pulse on what is going on in your industry. You’ll come away with excellent content and ideas that you can share with your customers online.

 

Research Tools

6. Google Search: Google has two great search functions that allow you to explore blogs and news. With Google Blog Search, you can find great blog content just by typing in important keywords. Google News allows you to probe news outlets on the very latest industry news.

7. Reddit: If you’re interested in seeing what’s going viral on the web, you have to stop by Reddit. You can search Reddit to find great content in your industry that’s starting to go viral on the web. It’s an excellent content curation research tool.

8. Public Databases: Depending on your industry, public databases can provide you with a wealth of information. Popular ones include: ABI/Inform (Business), Engineering Village (Engineering), LEXISNEXIS (News), PubMed/Medline (Medicine), World of Science (Science).

9. Icerocket: This is another powerful tool that allows you to search blogs, Twitter, Facebook and images. Icerocket makes it easy to search and curate content to share with your customers whether it’s blog posts, infographics or Tweets.

10. Technorati: Technorati is a powerful blog search tool that allows you to dig deep to find great sources of content to share with your customers. Technorati scours the web searching blogs both big and small. You get a complete search with Technorati.

11. Storify: With Storify, you can search several social networks at one time. It’s a great way to discover valuable content to share with your customers. It’s also helps you see what’s trending on the web in real time.

 

Social Media Resources

12. Twitter: All the major influencers have Twitter accounts. The key is to find and follow the thought leaders and top people in your industry on Twitter. HashTags.org is a great way to start finding influencers on Twitter. Just type in your industry and click search.

13. Facebook: You probably have a company Facebook page. But do you follow influential people and organizations? If you’re not, you’re missing out on a whole lot of content ideas and information that you can share with your customers. Start by following industry trade organizations as well as the competition on your personal Facebook account.

14. LinkedIn: This is perhaps one of the most underrated and overlooked sources. LinkedIn is a treasure chest full of valuable content. Most likely, you’ll find industry groups where people regularly share valuable information. You can find relevant groups by visiting the LinkedIn Groups Directory.

15. Google+: Google+ is quickly becoming a popular social network. Many industry thought leaders are setting up shop on this social network and sharing valuable information. It’s a great place to find excellent content.

16. Twitter Trends: Twitter Trends is a powerful search tool that lets you explore some of the most popular posts on Twitter by subject. Just type in your industry and you’re bound to find some great content.

17. Traackr: This social media tool helps you find the top influencers in social media. Traackr will help you discover the right people to follow in your industry so you can get the very best content to share with your customers.

 

 

Video & Image Resources

18. YouTube: YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google. If you’re looking for videos to share with your customers, you need to use YouTube. Subscribe to YouTube Channels that regularly provide excellent videos.

19. Pinterest: Pinterest is quickly becoming one of the most popular photo sharing websites. You’ll find lots of great infographics and other images that could become viral if you share them via your online channels.

20. Slideshare: Find great slide presentations on Slideshare. It’s a great place to find interesting statistics, best practices and more. Just use the Slideshare search function to find excellent slide presentations for content curation.

21. Flickr: Before Pinterest, there was Flickr. Flickr is still a very popular photo sharing website where you’ll find great images that you can share with your customers.

22. Chill: Chill is an online video community where people share their favorite videos from around the web. The website has a great search function that allows you to search popular videos by topic. It’s a great place to discover potential viral videos.

 

Curation & Bookmarking Tools

23. Scoop.it: Scoop.it is a great tool where you can store content that you like from around the web. You can add blog posts, articles, videos and other content that you want to share with your customers. It’s one of the better curation tools on the web.

24. Paper.li: With Paper.li, you can take all of the content that you’re gathering and create an online newspaper that you can share via social media. It’s easy to use and very popular to use on social media channels like Twitter.

25. BagTheWeb: This is a cool content curation tool that allows you to store and organize content that you find from around the web. On BagTheWeb, you sort content into different “bags,” which makes it easy to store and share content.

26. Pearltrees: With Pearltrees, you can organize and curate all of your content in one place. It’s an excellent website for you to collect, organize and share content with your customers. It’s easy to sign up and use.

27. Delicious: This social bookmarking website makes it a breeze to collect content from around the web. Delicious is one of the first social bookmarking websites. It’s easy to use and a great way to organize and curate content.

28. Curata: Curata scours the web to help you find content that is relevant to your business. It makes it easy to find, organize and share content. Curata is free to try for a month. Then you must pay a subscription fee.

 

These are some of our favorite content curation tools to use at Right On – No Bull Marketing. We are experts at content development that will help you increase sales. We produce sales generating content in lots of formats including text, audio and video.

If you need help brainstorming content ideas or developing viral content, visit our content development services page for more information.