To Your Heart’s Content

If you are in any way affiliated with marketing, you probably spend a significant amount of your time managing social media accounts. And to keep things interesting that may mean curating LOTS of content that your followers will appreciate and that they haven’t seen before. And THAT means you are constantly (perhaps frantically) scouring the Internet for funny/outrageous/newsworthy articles, images, and videos for inspiration.

But searching for a needle in a haystack – even if that haystack is powered by Google – can be a bit daunting. Stay on track and follow these steps, and you’ll have more witty* posts than Twitter can handle.

1. Add insight. Before we get started on WHERE to find content, we want to focus on what to do with that content in the first place. Your purpose online isn’t just to entertain (well, maybe it is a little bit), it’s to educate and add value to other people’s lives. People follow you for your knowledge and your unique point of view. A fascinating article is only as worthwhile as the insight you provide with it, so insert your own commentary and include a clever introduction. Instead of tweeting “Interesting article! http//:bit.ly/link #cool,” lead with a witty phrase and or your individual perspective.

2. Avoid the “echo chamber.” Ever feel like you’re tweeting into the ether and no one is listening? You might be in the “echo chamber.” In a blog post on the topic, Chris Pirillo gives some great tips on how to eliminate the “echo chamber,” a dangerous territory where your social media content has become repetitive, dull and generic. Finding the right material (as you’ll learn below) and positioning it carefully (as we mentioned above), will keep you on the right track.

1. Go with what you know. Once your brand has been established, it will help to briefly outline a few go-to publications or resources for material. For instance, if you sell organic frozen bananas to upper-middle class monkeys, you’ll probably want to follow a few food blogs, the local zoo blog (for the baby monkey pics), and the banana market in a major newspaper. Keep a running list of your most successful spots, and bookmark them so they’re easily accessible.
2. Explore the road least traveled. Once you’ve created your tried and true list, dig deeper. Most blogs and articles link to other blogs and articles. It’s a little bit of a rabbit hole, but if you click around, you’ll likely find smaller publications with content that’s a little bit off the beaten path. These juicy treats will take your social media accounts from predictable to genuinely informative and diverse.
   5. Agree-GREAT.Yes, that is a silly pun, but it is great advice. There is a wellspring of content aggregators out there, and you would be foolish not to take advantage of them. Our favorite is Alltop, which organizes recent blog posts by topic (even “great Tweet material”) is an amazing place to see lots of information at once, but even the line of Gawker sites works well (depending on your goals), albeit with a slight editorial slant.
   6. Crowdsource. The whole point of social media is to share information quickly, so don’t be afraid to find new people to follow who provide just what you’re looking for. Of course, the only rule here is to give credit where it’s due and cite your references. Yep, plager-tweet-ism is not cool.
   If you love what you’re company or clients do, then this job can actually be kind of fun. You’ll be surprised at what you learn, and you may even find sites that you can use for other accounts. At Black Sheep, we TRY to keep a reserve of cool links and ideas in a Dropbox document or Google doc just in case the pickings are slim.
   
   *In all actuality, the wittiness is up to you. This just helps you find the source material.