Feed the Content Monster with the Help of a Closed-Circle Content Loop

If there is one thing search engines love more than anything, it is fresh content — and algorithms continue to get better at finding and ranking it by the minute.

But what content marketer has enough time to dedicate to feeding the content monster all day, every day?

To keep up with search engines and still preserve your time, you have to create a closed-circle content loop for your content marketing strategy. Let’s look at how to do that.

What is a closed-circle content loop?

A closed-circle content loop is an inbound content system that focuses on both the atomization of brand-new content and the repurposing of old content.

By generating many different types of new content while also recycling old content in new and relevant ways, you can ensure that your brand always has a body of fresh work to feed to search engines.

Using this two-pronged approach, you effectively close the gap in your content strategy (hence the name) and answer the struggle all content marketers face every day: so much work to create and not enough hours in the day to make it happen!

Create a variety of brand-new content

While text content like articles and blog posts may be your content strategy’s bread and butter, feeding the content monster means adding a little more spice to your recipe. Podcasts, presentations, infographics, photos, ebooks, and videos are all important for generating a diverse content offering and boosting your SEO.

But content creation is a necessary ongoing investment. Creating all those pieces takes up time and money, whether you’re doing the work yourself or hiring a writer to do it for you.

Enter atomization.

When you take one big piece of new content and repurpose it in a variety of ways, you’ll cut down on the time and cost of creating fresh work.

Say you own a construction consulting business. You could create an in-depth 10-page ebook to teach customers how to renovate a master bathroom. That ebook can also work as an infographic, a series of “quick tip” social media posts, a video series on YouTube, and more.

By publishing in a variety of formats, one piece of content can multiply into many fresh avenues to connect with your customers. And that means fresh content for search engines.

Recycle old content

Unfortunately, nothing stays fresh forever — all types of food (even Twinkies!) have expiration dates. To feed the content monster, you’ll have to continuously revisit your old work.

Create a content calendar that resembles the table of contents for a book or user guide. Decide when each piece of content will become outdated and in need of a reset, and mark it on the calendar.

By keeping track of your publication dates, you’ll be able to recycle content many times over using the same atomization strategy you use for new work.

5 hacks for creating fresh content

These tips will help you create more effective content for your closed-circle content loop.

1. Focus on quality and quantity

Many experts have weighed in over the years about whether quality or quantity matters more for content marketing.

I’m here to tell you, when it comes to your SEO, the answer is actually both. If you want to see real results in search engines, you’ll need to post quality content in higher volumes. For a small business, this usually means creating something fresh once a week or every other week.

2. Pay attention to your title and keywords

Sure, you’re creating fresh content for search engines, but so is everyone else. In such a saturated market, sometimes your title is the only tool you have to attract readers to click on a results page.
Make it count.

Keywords can help. From your title to your body text to your captions and video descriptions, all of your content needs to contain the right keywords for SEO to make sure you are found by the right people in the first place.

3. Curate as well as create

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that goes for content inspiration as well. SEO-savvy content marketers undoubtedly have a list of fellow influencers and websites that they trust for insider knowledge. Use it!

Most of your content will be created from scratch, but you can also create original work that is inspired by your favorite work online.

Did another business in your industry release an annual report jam-packed with awesome research? Consider writing an article that highlights the best pieces of data and add your personal insights to what that data means for businesses.

4. Invite your community to join you

If you want variety, get different writers. Boost the amount of content you’re churning out by inviting your community to become guest contributors.

Your biggest advocates will gladly create content in exchange for exposure. Plus, user-generated work creates a fresh dynamic for your brand and encourages other fans to engage with your company.

5. Measure, measure, measure

Don’t waste time on content that doesn’t convert. Track everything you publish, and note the pieces your customers clearly respond to.

Knowing what your audience wants to read or watch online will help you create new content in the future that speaks to their needs, and it will make sure you don’t waste time repurposing and recycling content that doesn’t actually work.

Feed the content monster

Content is the heart of your online lead generation efforts. Its impact on SEO is crucial to the success of your website, and ultimately, your business.

But creating enough fresh content to satisfy search engines can be tedious and time-consuming, especially for smaller businesses with limited resources. As a content marketer, you need to know time-saving content generation tactics and hacks that will feed your content monster, helping you boost your rankings fast and well.

By using a two-pronged, closed-circle content loop strategy, you’ll make the most of your content creation efforts and ensure that nothing you write (or design or record or film) ever goes to waste.


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Activate Your Fanbase With User-Generated Content

 In the digital era, everyone is a content creator, and that’s great news for marketers. Brands are boosting awareness by encouraging the public to share their customer experiences on platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Just to name a few notable examples, Coca Cola’s “Share a Coke” hashtag marketing campaign asked fans to snap Coke-themed photos of themselves, and Charmin solicits toilet humor from its Twitter followers. But this kind of user-generated content (“UGC”) isn’t limited to social media interactions between a brand its customers. Savvy marketers are starting to mix UGC into their email marketing campaigns — and it’s working. Recent studies have shown that UGC delivers a 73 percent increase in email click-through rates.

UGC is simply content about your brand that is created by your business’s customers or fans, whether that content is photos, videos, product reviews, or testimonials. One obvious benefit of incorporating consumer content into your email marketing is that it saves you time. Instead of having to constantly come up with new content ideas on your own, your customers are the driving creative force.

But the real key to the power and popularity of UGC is that it humanizes your sales pitch. You aren’t the one telling your subscribers how wonderful your products or services are; real customers do it for you. UGC is authentic, and when used as a part of an email marketing campaign, it builds trust in your brand.

One of the best forms of advertisement is a satisfied customer. As amazing as your email content-crafting skills may be, consumers are more interested in what their peers say about your business. In fact, 70 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations and reviews over professionally written content. Zulily takes advantage of this statistic with a “Customer Picks” emails that feature some of their best-selling products, along with a few brief but enthusiastic customer endorsements:

So how can you start integrating UGC into your email marketing? You can put out a call in your newsletter for subscribers to email photos or stories of their experiences with your products or services. Or you can come up with a brand-specific hashtag, ask customers to submit to you via social media, and feature your favorite responses in your next email. You might consider a theme for the submissions that is tied to an upcoming promotion or event.

To celebrate Star Wars Day and promote a Star Wars merchandise sale, Hot Topic asked its customers to submit photos of themselves in Star Wars gear. The best submissions were included in an email photo collage:

Of course a theme isn’t necessary. TeeFury’s emails showcase photos of happy customers wearing the company’s apparel:

To give your subscribers an extra push to submit, you can hold a contest, with a gift certificate or other prize going to the most creative submission. However you go about incorporating customer content into your emails, make sure that you’ve obtained permission from the original creator to use their content and that you’ve articulated exactly how that content will be used.

Once you get the go-ahead, don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of UGC. Photos might work well for one brand, while testimonials work better for another. But if content development is one of your email marketing pain points, then UGC could be the solution.

Read more about email content development here. 

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25 Ideas to Transform Ho-Hum Infographics into Something Extraordinary

A few weeks ago here on Copyblogger, Demian Farnworth presented the infographic as the Salvador Dalí of content marketing — the most interesting person at the cocktail party.
More than just a superficial presence, an infographic is a significant asset pillar with diverse possibilities that help you grow your media empire.
Today, let’s equate the Internet to the world of pop music. In this case, infographics are The Beatles.
They’re irresistible. They create massive hits. At their best, they balance style and substance.
They can be relentlessly imaginative. And like John, Paul, George, and Ringo, they can communicate sophisticated ideas to a mass audience.
Yep, they’re lovable. How lovable?
The factoid below comes from a 2012 infographic by NeoMam Studios.



Even stories about infographics sizzle. I wrote “The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Infographics” and it climbed to the number one spot on my chart last year.
Before we brainstorm infographic ideas, let’s discuss why infographics work.

Why do we love infographics?

Here are 15 reasons I’ve assessed:

1. They’re so webable. First, I must offer my theory and ask you to live with my funny new word. Although data visualizations exist in traditional media, they’ve exploded in the digital age because they perfectly suit new media and the devices we use to consume information.
2. We’re visual creatures. The fun, interactive infographic, “13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics,” makes this case with powerful data points.

3. They simplify complex ideas. Infographics aid comprehension by pairing text with straightforward pictures.
4. They’re easy to share. We love to share information we find valuable. It feeds our appetites for being conduits of wisdom. Creators and publishers of infographics encourage you to share their content and often simplify the process by providing code you can embed on your website.
5. They’re familiar. The general recipe for infographics features ingredients we’re comfortable with: illustrations, icons, charts, diagrams, and captions. The familiarity speaks to us and obliterates any objections.
6. They travel well. Infographics are multi-screen portable. They translate nicely to slides and also tend to work on paper.
7. They’re fast. Up above, in Number Two, you see an interesting data point about how fast we’re able to process visual information. The process of reading takes time. Given our short attention spans, the speed with which we can absorb visual information makes infographics attractive.
8. They’re less taxing. A related, but slightly different idea than the one above about speed is we give ourselves a little break when we digest information aided by visuals. We encounter a lot of information daily. We can only read so much. The data below comes from:
   • Welcome to the information age — 174 newspapers a day, The Telegraph.
   • Measuring Consumer Information, International Journal of Communication, Vol 6.
   • How Little Do Users Read?


9. People thrive on data. We’re drawn to data and proof points. I like this presentation from Juice, Inc. that explains how data drives exploration, understanding, presentation, discovery, motivation, learning, and above all, “doing.”
10. They tell stories. A lot of infographics use storytelling tactics including characters, conflicts, problems, and resolutions. Stories hold our attention as we relate to characters and go on journeys with them.
11. They promote branding. When infographics are republished, a brand travels with the image, which usually includes a logo and URL.
12. People search for them. Because they’re so useful (and often entertaining), people search for infographics, as evidenced in the statistic presented above. Since search engines can’t index the content within an image, headlines often appear with the explicit label “Infographic”.
13. People collect them. Do you do this? I sure do. I stash infographics for safekeeping on Pinterest and in my swipe files if I suspect I’ll want to reference them (or use them) again in the future.
14. They dominate the page. I believe one of the many factors that make infographics appealing is they tend to dominate a webpage.
15. They’re generally large and colorful. Unlike plain text, infographics defeat distractions and help us focus on the content.

Ready to create your own infographic?

Here are 25 infographic types, themes, and concepts:

1. Process. Create an infographic to explain a process. They’re ideal for breaking down and simplifying a multi-step process that may otherwise appear intimidating.
2. Comparison. These images may include sections such as: before and after, this vs. that, old way vs. new way, us and them, etc.
3. Timeline. Infographics help illustrate the evolution of a subject matter.
4. Roundup. Various types of roundups, such as quotes, reviews, favorites, etc. can be presented as a collection.
5. Components. Just as it’s useful to break down a process into steps, you can decouple the components of just about anything to aid understanding, i.e., an engine, recipe, or team.
6. Instructions. Use an infographic to simplify complex tutorials or communicate how to complete a task.
7. Charts and tables. Simple charts or tables featuring icons or images representing a topic create visual interest.
8. Categories. Take any category of interest to your audience and tell a story with an infographic. Check out one of my favorites, “The Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music”. Amazing.
9. Study of a “universe.” Produce massive visual collections on: beers, bands, books, bikes, beaches, etc. Here’s The Ultimate Infographic on Infographics from Curata.
10. Warnings. This popular article style tends to be irresistible. A list of dangers, myths, or mistakes is a powerhouse for infographics, too.
11. Metaphor. I love it when an interesting metaphor presents a concept. I bet you do too.
12. Résumé. Job hunting? The résumé as an infographic is such an engaging idea, services such as vizualize.me and kinzaa.com have sprung forth.
13. Report. Research and survey results offer great value in traditional report formats, but the same information, or highlights from it, make compelling infographics.
14. Product or service. You may not score a viral hit with an infographic that showcases what you sell, but you’re likely to have an engaging tool that presents your goods to potential buyers.
15. Trend. Showcasing a trend in an infographic makes a newsworthy story even more fun.
16. Past to present. This is another timeline idea that displays the history of a topic.
17. Place or event. Any place (from a nation to a campground) or any event (from a war to a conference) can be summarized in an infographic.
18. Guide. A rather obvious theme, I know, but any “how to” begs to be transformed into an infographic.
19. Family tree. These can be downright intoxicating. You can use a tree, flow chart, or similar symbols to explain relationships.
20. Cause and effect. You probably see a “this caused that” form of presentation more than you realize. It’s simple and smart.
21. Biography. Perform a search for “biography of Steve Jobs infographic” and you’ll discover some amazingly creative graphics. Study them for inspiration.
22. Story. Simple one here. Tell a story, like a picture book.
23. Manifesto. This approach can be a stellar branding tool. Write a manifesto that defines what you stand for and have a great designer create an infographic that makes you proud.
24. List. Don’t ignore this age-old, can’t-miss tactic for communicating fascinating, useful content.
25. Acronym. Spell out an acronym or abbreviation, with pictures, of course, and you’ll have a double-whammy simplification of a robust idea.

Grow your audience with infographics

Which type of infographic will you make to reach and educate a larger audience?


Flickr Creative Commons Image via Saad Faruque.
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How to Make Your Writing Real

 In this day and age, substance matters.

What you say must be meaningful to the people you’re trying to attract. Your content must solve real problems and satisfy real desires.

So why should it matter how you say it?

The reality is, how you say it has always mattered, and it matters even more today. For content marketing, it’s basically the difference between success and failure.

You’re in a battle for attention. A headline that doesn’t specifically convey a compelling promise results in content that is too often simply ignored.

Beyond that, your copy has to hold that precious attention, sentence by sentence, until the conclusion. Even the appearance of your content on the page matters when trying to make a substantive point.

Finally, the way you convey information, no matter how independently valuable, affects everything from clarity to engagement to retention at a psychological level. Your ideas and advice must stick in people’s heads for you to succeed.

In short, how you say it is what you say.

Here’s an example

If someone asks you what’s for dinner, you can stick with the substance:

Tonight we’re having pasta for dinner.

Or you can add a bit of craft and style to make it more tangible:

Tonight we’ll enjoy a dinner of tender linguini, topped with a homemade marinara sauce featuring vine-ripened tomatoes, fragrant basil, and fresh oregano straight from our garden, accented with just a hint of garlic and red wine flavoring.

Same basic information — we indeed will be having pasta for dinner.

Is one more enticing and memorable than the other?

Let’s look at another example.

Popcorn is bad for you

The book Made to Stick gives us the case of Art Silverman, a guy with a vendetta against popcorn. Silverman wanted to educate the public about the fact that a typical bag of movie popcorn has 37 grams of saturated fat, while the USDA recommends you have no more than 20 grams in an entire day.

Instead of simply citing that surprising — if dry — statistic, Silverman made the message meaningful by making it real. He said:

“A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings — combined!”

Ummm … I’ll go ahead and skip the popcorn, thanks.

Make the benefits tangible

Yes, substance matters. Your content must be more than just relevant — it’s got to be meaningful to the people you’re trying to attract.

But never forget that it’s the relevant and tangible expression of that substance that creates meaning.

People have to get connected with your content in the first place before they comment, share, buy, or recommend your products or services.

Make your messages as real to people as possible, and you’ll find that content marketing has a payoff way bigger than the investment. Really.

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How to Write with Power and Authority, Even if You Feel Like a Nobody

In this overcrowded online world, do you ever wonder why people would listen to your advice?
I used to feel the same way.
I didn’t understand why people would read my writing tips when the web is awash with writing advice from people more experienced, more knowledgeable, and more authoritative than me.

Why would anyone listen to me?

I’ve learned that mindset was flawed.
When I learned how to write well, a new world opened up. I connected with people across the world. I built a thriving blog. People started listening to my advice — and more importantly, they acted on it.

Can you make an impact with your words?

As writers, our toolbox may seem limited. We can’t shout. We can’t use body language. We can’t even bang on a table to add weight to a message.
We only have our words to communicate with passion and power.
But written words are enormously powerful. You know that. When was the last time words made you smile? Or cry? Or inspire you to take action?

Once you learn how to write with power, readers start listening to your ideas, acting on your advice, and buying your products and services. You can inspire change — even if you feel you don’t have the required clout or authority right now.

Want to learn how?

Step #1: Write with clarity and substance

Weak writing rambles, rattles, and prattles.
Powerful writing, in contrast, is simple and to the point.
Many writers misunderstand this …
Writing with substance is not about writing longer articles. It’s not about word count. It’s not sharing as many tips as possible. The opposite is true. Often long articles lack substance; too many superficial ideas that compete for the reader’s attention weaken the content.
Substance is not about the breadth of your ideas; it’s about the depth of your arguments. Even an email of 100 words can have substance. A nugget of wisdom. A super-practical tip. A spark of inspiration.
Substance is about adding value, exceeding your readers’ expectations, and moving beyond the echo chamber.

“If you’re not adding value, you’re taking up space. The more space you take up, the more difficult it becomes to continuously earn your spot, and the more likely you are to become ignored and irrelevant.” – Sally Hogshead

So, how do you write with substance?

• Have a clear purpose for each piece of content — how will you help your readers?
• Create a list or mind map of what you want to include in your article.
• Review your ideas and narrow down your topic — an initial mind map is often too unwieldy, so cull irrelevant ideas that lead readers astray.
• Revisit your content’s purpose — will your content deliver on your promise? Will you solve a problem?

Becoming an authority is not about you. It’s about your readers. About their lives, their worries, their challenges, and their dreams.
Powerful writing starts with empathy, generosity, and a passionate drive to help your readers.

Step #2: Boost your authority with these content tricks

Focusing on a narrow topic may feel scary. Can you write enough? Will your article seem flimsy?
Don’t panic.
And don’t start adding irrelevant ideas and semi-related trains of thought.
Instead, use the three content tricks below to turn flimsy writing into persuasive and authoritative content.

Authority content trick #1: use specific examples

My favorite way to boost authority is using examples. They are an undervalued tool in your authority tool box.
Examples demonstrate how you translate theory into practice. Examples breathe life into your content by making abstract concepts concrete. Readers can visualize your ideas, and you show you’re not just talking the talk; you know what you’re talking about.
Want examples?

• Earlier this year on Copyblogger, I wrote a fun post with seven tips for conversational writing — I demonstrated each tip with a before-and-after example; the post currently has more than 3,000 social shares.
• Using Apple’s web copy as an example, I wrote a guest post for KISSmetrics explaining how to write seductive sales copy; this post launched my freelance writing career.
• My post about turning 31 measly words into a valuable blog post shows the steps I take to turn a teeny-tiny idea into solid content.

Each post discusses one narrow topic (writing in a conversational tone, writing sales copy, writing with substance) with a series of examples.

Authority content trick #2: add compelling statistics

Statistics are not my favorite type of content. I find numbers boring.
But it’s a mistake to ignore numbers.
Because numbers add substance to an argument. They show you know your field. They instantly make your content more factual.
For instance, for my own Enchanting Marketing blog, I wrote a post about 10 proven headline formulas. First, I present figures to explain how important headlines are:

“The average click through rate on Twitter, for instance, is only 1.64% (source, 2012), so 98 out of 100 people may read only your headline, and fewer than 2 of them click through.”

Then, for each of the headline formulas, I provide examples of popular headlines and support my points with facts:

“The ‘Burning Question’ formula is probably the most underused formula on the list. But its attraction is undeniable: the third most popular post on Moz (8.2k shares) and the fifth most popular post on HubSpot (13k shares) use this formula. We also know from research that questions get more clicks on Twitter than statements, and that subject lines with question marks get 44% more opens than those with exclamation marks (source).”

Statistics boost your credibility and appeal to rationality. But be careful: Don’t let the numbers undermine the clarity of your message. Only add research results and other numbers if they help clarify your ideas.

Authority content trick #3: support with quotes from experts

Can’t find any statistics to back up your argument?
Try using quotes from well-known experts. A quote demonstrates you’re familiar with other work in your field. Notice how I quoted Sally Hogshead earlier?
Strategically selected quotes support your claims. They help you “borrow” other people’s authority to grow your own.

Step #3: Inject power into your words

Does power make you think of dictators, bullies, and other dominant personalities?
As Sally Hogshead explains in her book How the World Sees You, power lives on a spectrum. Power’s gentle side manifests itself in the parental nudge and in the sports coach who motivates you to train harder.
Powerful writing inspires readers to take action. An effective sales page, for instance, encourages readers to click and buy. Strong social media updates make people click to read more. And authoritative blog posts motivate readers to implement your tips.
How?
Embrace your inner bossiness by using the imperative form and shorter sentences.
For instance, read this paragraph aloud:

Your job as a blogger is not simply to write tutorials that share tips, facts, and advice.
A useful tip that’s not implemented is like a riveting book that’s never opened. It’s forgotten and useless.
Instead of acting solely like a blogger dishing out your tips, you should become a mentor for your readers, a chief of your village, a leader of your tribe. You should fire up your tribe and jump-start their actions because your readers are waiting for you.

It feels a little flat, right? That’s because the sentences are long and the final sentences use “you should” instead of the imperative.
The alternative version below (from A Rabble-Rouser’s Rules for Writing Kick-Ass Closing Paragraphs) is more inspirational because it uses shorter sentences and the imperative form (“Fire up your tribe” instead of “You should fire up your tribe”):

Your job as a blogger is not simply to write tutorials.
Your job is not to share tips and facts and advice.
A useful tip that’s not implemented is like a riveting book that’s never opened. It’s forgotten and useless.
You’re not simply a blogger. You’re a mentor for your readers, a chief of your village, a leader of your tribe.
Come on. Fire up your tribe. Jump-start their actions.
Your readers are waiting for you.

Does that inspire you more?

The magic of writing

When I started writing, I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I doubted my skills. I didn’t know whether I had enough ideas.
But every time I had to write an article, I learned more about writing. I followed my curiosity. I discovered what I’m passionate about, and I learned what resonated with my audience.
You might think you don’t have enough to share. Or you might doubt your writing skills.
This is what I’d like to tell you:

You’re unique. You have unique experiences. And you’ll discover your voice and your passions when you write more. Writing brings clarity, deepens your understanding, and strengthens your ideas.

So, commit to writing. To creating valuable content. To being helpful to your readers.
Start making tiny ripples.
That’s how change begins.


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23 Content Creation Tools Every Affiliate Marketer Needs

 Are you spending way too much time on creating content for your site/ social media/marketing campaigns?

Content creation takes up huge chunks of time for most affiliate marketers. Unfortunately, there is no way around this.

However, there are definitely some great content creation tools that can make life much easier for you.

These are some of my most-used tools. I've separated them into categories to make it easier to find the type of tool you need the most. 

Tools For Generating Ideas

If you're running low on ideas for content and don't know where to look, these tools are worth checking out. 

1. Portent Title Maker

This is one of my favorite tools, purely because it's so much fun and often makes me laugh.

Enter a keyword to see a suggestion for a blog post title. If you don't like it, hit refresh to get a new title.

Usually, I don't use the exact titles suggested by Portent, but use them as ideas for writing future posts. Try it! 

2. Buzz Sumo

Buzz Sumo is a great tool to understand and analyze what content is working in your niche. Enter a topic to see what sort of content others are writing, what is getting shared on social media and more. It's a handy tool when you have a topic but are stuck on which direction to take. Buzz Sumo can help you find the right angle.

3. Blog Topics Generator

Hubspot also has a blog topic generator that I find very useful. It works in a similar way to the Portent tool. Enter in three keywords, and the tool will return five topic ideas for you to work with.

Tools For Writing 

Make your content writing better and error-free with these web content creation tools. 

4. Hemingway

The key to writing good content that engages your users? Keep it simple. But this is often easier said than done. 

Most of us get caught up in long sentences and complicated words. Hemingway is a great tool to help you simplify your writing. It points out complex sentences and other common errors. Simply paste in your content to see what the app thinks.

5. Grammarly

Don't trust yourself to proofread your own work? Grammarly helps you by catching your grammatical errors before hit the Publish button. No more silly typos! 

6. WordPress Distraction-Free Editor

Most of you are probably using WordPress as your site's CMS. However, I find that sometimes the sidebars and everything else on the page can be pretty distracting. Add some Zen to your writing space by using the built-in distraction-free editor. Simply hit the four-way arrow icon to eliminate everything but the content area of the post .

Tools For Visual Content

Visual content is the king of content marketing. Here are some great tools to help you create quality and engaging visual content with ease. 

7. Canva

I'm no designer, so a tool like Canva has made life SO much easier for me. There are pre-made templates, social media-ready images and lots of funky fonts. The best part is the drag and drop interface means you never have to worry about understanding Photoshop layers again. 

Other similar tools include Pablo by Buffer and PicMonkey.

8. Infogr.am

If you like to create infographics, and other data visualization charts, Infogr.am is your tool. 

9. Giphy

GIFs rule the internet. Find the perfect GIF for every emotion on Giphy.

I spend way too much time on this site. You probably will too, once you discover they have GIFs for everything from your favorite TV shows and movies to fashion and food. And your favorite celebrities.  

10. Jing

Jing is my favorite tool for taking screenshots (e.g., the ones in this article). You can add arrows, highlight and circle parts of the image. You can also record videos of your screen (useful for instructional videos). You can then upload it and share the link with others, or save the file to your computer and add it to blog posts (like I have). 

Camtasia is another popular tool in the same category. You can create high-quality videos of your screen and easily upload videos from your hard drive as well. 

11. Meme Generator

No matter how many memes you see online, they never stop getting funny. If you want to create your own memes, this is the tool you should be using.

Tools For Getting Help

If you find you're running out of time to create the content you want and need, have you considered getting help?

By help, I mean finding a freelancer who can help you fill the gaps. This could mean finding a writer to help you keep your blog up to date or a talented designer who will create that infographic that has been on your mind for a while. You could even find someone to do all your instructional videos. 

Whatever you need, it's likely there's a freelancer who can help you out. 

Some popular places to find the freelancers you need include:

12. Upwork (formerly known as oDesk. Elance has also merged into Upwork.)

13. Fiverr (All jobs done for $5, but you can pay for extras, too.) 

14. Freelancer

15. 99designs

16. Textbroker

17. Visual.ly (This one is great for infographics.)

Tools For Social Media Content

Spending a lot of time creating social media content? To be honest, there are so many social media tools out there that it would probably take me all day to list them. I like two pieces of software for content creation. They help me create better content, but also more of it. 

18. Buffer

There are a lot of social media scheduling tools out there, but Buffer is one of my favorites these days. It's an especially good tool for adding third party/curated content to your social media feeds. 

You can share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn with the free plan. Definitely download the Chrome plugin for Buffer. That way, every time you find a piece of content you think your audience will enjoy, simply hit the button and it goes into your Buffer feed. 

19. Twitshot

Tweets with images definitely get more attention than text-based tweets alone. But until I discovered Twitshot, it was quite a painful process to do this. You had to manually save each image from an article and then upload it as a Twitter image.

Twitshot simplifies this process so much. Just add the link in and it will give you a selection of images from the article to add to your tweet. Plus it integrates with Buffer, which makes life even easier. 

   

Other Useful Content Creation Tools

20. Evernote

Evernote is the perfect tool to collect and curate all your ideas in one place while you put a piece of content together. You can add text, images, video, screen grabs, hyperlinks and more. I find it very useful at the research and draft stage of writing any piece of content. It's also great for creating checklists, saving links from the web, and more. 

21. Audacity

If you're a podcaster, Audacity is an excellent tool for recording, editing and publishing your podcasts. 

22. Prezi

Easily create presentations that are visually appealing and engaging. Plus it syncs with all your devices, so you can create on the go and share when you're ready. 

23. List.ly

Lists work very well online. List.ly allows you to easily create lists and add them to your blog. You can also make it a crowd-sourced list, so your readers can add to it and your list keeps growing. 

Regularly creating content is hard work, there's no doubt about that. So put these content creation tools to work for you and make your life a little bit easier. 

Of course I haven't managed to list every content creation tool available. There are thousands! Let me know if you have a favorite and tell me it helps with your content creation process. 

Source

The Top Content Curation Tools: 50 Killer Tools for Discovering, Sharing, and Scheduling the Best Content

Content is leading the way in online marketing, and studies show that marketers are creating more content now than ever before. And, because marketers are spending more time creating more content, they want to know that their time is being spent wisely and that they are getting a return that makes all of their time spent creating content worth it. It’s no wonder, then, that marketers are searching for content curation tools to make the process a little easier. With the right content curation tool, marketers shave valuable time off their content creation process.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STATE OF MARKETING PRODUCTIVITY REPORT 2016

Because the goal of a content curation tool is to save time during the content creation process, it is important to choose a content curation tool that is useful and beneficial. That’s why we have compiled our list of the 50 top content curation tools, to help you find the right one for your content curation and creation needs. To make our list, the content curation tools must be reliable and accurate. Our content curation tools include news aggregators, organizational tools, bookmarking tools, and clipping tools, among other awesome content curation tools, to help you make the most of your marketing content. Please note, our top content curation tools are listed here, in no particular order.

1. Pocket
@Pocket



The content curation tool that helps you save something that you want to read, watch, or share later, Pocket works on any device at any time. A leading save-for-later service, Pocket is integrated into more than 1,500 apps and is available for most major platforms and devices.

Key Features:
Save articles, videos, or nearly any other web content in Pocket
Save from your browser or apps like Twitter, Clipboard, Pulse, and Zite
Once the content is in Pocket, it’s available on your phone, tablet, or computer, even if you don’t have a web connection

Cost: FREE

2. Curata
@curata



Curata is a content curation and content marketing software solution. Curata Curation Software is the tool of choice among content marketers looking to scale content to grow leads and increase revenue.

Key Features:
Curate’s self-learning engine helps you discover the best content
Easily organize, annotate, and contextualize your content with just a few clicks
Quickly publish and promote content from anywhere, any time
Get the most relevant content delivered automatically in one place from hundreds of thousands of sources
Enables crowdsourcing from across the organization
Intelligently pre-populates the curated post

Cost: Contact for a quote

3. ContentGems
@ContentGems



ContentGems is content curation software for professional content marketers. With ContentGems, you can easily find and share valuable content. Known for its easy-to-use platform, ContentGems is an extremely popular content curation solution.

Key Features:
Monitors the best online sources, including more than 200,000 news sources, blogs, and social media accounts
Filters results based on your keywords, social signals, and more
Share commentary and curated content to social media or your website
Frequently post to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and your WordPress site with tools such as HootSuite and Buffer

Cost:
FREE – 2 interests, monitor 1 Twitter account, 20 custom RSS sources, daily content suggestions
Personal: $9/month – 10 interests, monitor 2 Twitter accounts, 100 custom RSS sources, real-time content suggestions, automated RSS feed, and share to RSS
Pro: $19/month – $9/month – 25 interests, monitor42 Twitter accounts, 500 custom RSS sources, real-time content suggestions, automated RSS feed, and share to RSS
Business: $49/month – 100 interests, monitor 10 Twitter accounts, 5,000 custom RSS sources, real-time content suggestions, automated RSS feed, and share to RSS
Personal Annual: $99/year – 12 interests, monitor 3 Twitter accounts, 100 custom RSS sources, real-time content suggestions, automated RSS feed, and share to RSS

4. Juxtapost
@JuxtapostFans



Juxtapost helps you keep track of web content with its easy-to-use tools to “bookmark” content into categorized pasteboards and then easily curate them. Content marketers also make use of Juxtapost’s social discovery to browse other members’ streams to identify popular content. Juxtapost becomes an especially powerful content curation tool when content marketers follow members in their own industry.

Key Features:
Postboard collaboration tool
Use the “More Like This” button to instantly branch off to similar posts without leaving the page you are viewing
Export all your posts, including original links and descriptions, to an Excel spreadsheet for easy content planning
Utilize preview zoom to see content in detail without leaving the browser
Share content instantly with Facebook or send directly to email addresses

Cost: FREE

5. Learnist
@LearnistTweets



Learnist is a content curation tool for organizing text, images, video, and audio. Better yet, Learnist features “expertly curated web, print and video content covering tens-of-thousands of topics,” so that expert content is available at users’ fingertips for fast content curation.

Key Features:
Learnist boards are curated by knowledge leaders in a variety of subjects
Create learn boards dedicated to topics of choice to keep track of websites and content
Keep all relevant content in one place and access it any time
Share your Learnist pages with others for collaboration

Cost: FREE

6. Kuratur
@Kuratur



Kuratur is a WordPress plugin that enables content marketers to have fresh, relevant content on their websites and blogs. With Kuratur, you can publish your own web magazine in minutes.

Key Features:
Have as many as 10 magazines at one time, or contact support if you need more
Integrate into your existing blog or website with total customization of the magazine’s look and feel to match yours
Supports Twitter, Facebook, and any blog that shares an RSS feed
Magazines are search engine friendly

Cost: FREE

7. Storify
@Storify



Storify helps content marketers use the web to tell a story. This content curation tool makes it easier to “find the voices online that matter.” With Storify, you can find, collect, and share content from nearly anywhere on the web, and then leverage social media to share your curated content.

Key Features:
Connects to countless social media site and other web sources for an all-in-one search experience
Use Storify tools such as the bookmarklet or Chrome extension to capture content on the web
Drag and drop anything into Storify’s story editor to embed it instantly
Collaborate with Storify’s enterprise plan for an advanced, multi-editor experience and streamline content curation and creation
Built-in features help to put your story in front of an audience to increase the chances of going viral

Cost:
FREE
Enterprise Plan – Contact for a quote

8. Zemanta
@zemanta



Zemanta is a dedicated demand-side platform (DSP) for content ads. Because Zemanta believes “content marketing should be performance driven,” they provide access to campaign analytics and an unlimited supply of ad content. Make curating your content ads simple with Zemanta.

Key Features:
Aggregates and indexes marketing content for multiple content ad formats
Expands content distribution efforts
Target your audience, where they spend their time online most

Cost: Contact for a quote

9. Triberr
@Triberr



Triberr is a social network for bloggers, podcasters, and YouTubers, and brands and agencies. Tribe helps content marketers connect with industry leaders and curate their content. Join a tribe, begin curating content, and then share your content.

Key Features:
Suited to bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and brands and agencies
Helps brands find and connect with influencers through Influencer Marketing, a self-serve content curation and creation tool
Reblog content from Triberr by sending the full article to your blog in a single click
Much easier and faster than guest blogging

Cost:
FREE
Premium: $10/month
Influencer Marketing: FREE signup, setup, and usage – Contact for information on the direct payout to the influencers you work with

10. elink



elink is an all-in-one content curation tool that turns links and bookmarks into beautiful newsletters and web pages in minutes. elink has been designed in a way that allows you to access elink’s curation tool from any device (computers, tablet, phones). It’s fully responsive, making it easy for you to publish, edit and curate content on the go.

Key Features:
Embed curated content on your website that can be updated in real-time.
Collect web content on any topic and turn it into beautiful web page to share with anyone.
Share informative content and send it off as a beautiful newsletter to anyone.
Curate interesting rich media from YouTube, Vimeo, TED videos & SlideShare presentations.

Cost:
Free Forever For Personal
$15 per month Pro Plan for Work
Enterprise for teams – contact for a quote

11. Pearltrees
@pearltrees



Pearltrees is the content curation tool that organizes all of your interests and allows you to explore new collections based on your interests and to collaborate. Find web pages, photos, and other web content and save and organize them naturally for content curation. Premium Pearltress members have the ability to make their collections private.

Key Features:
Organize, explore, and share web content
Access your account any time and share anything from your computer, smartphone, or tablet
Collects are connected to other contributors’ collects that share similar elements
Add web pages, files, photos, notes, and more

Cost:
FREE – Organize, explore, and share content
Personal: $2.99/month or $29.99/year – 10GB storage, create private collections and private teams, offline mode on mobile and tablet, customize everything, high priority support, and no ads or promotions
Advanced: $4.99/month or $49.99/year – 100GB storage, create private collections and private teams, offline mode on mobile and tablet, annotate and edit web pages to enrich content, archive web pages forever with cached pages and screenshots, customize everything, high priority support, and no ads or promotions
Professional: $9.99/month or $99.99/year – 1TB storage, create private collections and private teams, offline mode on mobile and tablet, annotate and edit web pages to enrich content, archive web pages forever with cached pages and screenshots, protect data with PIN lock, backup and pro encryption, share white label collections, customize everything, high priority support, and no ads or promotions

12. Flipboard
@Flipboard



Flipboard is a content curation tool that serves as a social magazine. Available for iOS, Android, Windows 8, and Windows phone, you can use Flipboard anywhere, including a computer. Flipboard collects the quality content you need and then presents it in a magazine format so that it is organized and easy to view.

Key Features:
Collects high-quality content from trusted sources
Showcases content, including articles, videos, photos, and audio, and brands
Content is portable, shareable, and valuable
Tools like the web bookmarklet, Flip.It button, magazine widget, and profile badge make it easier to curate and share content and for people to find your content

Cost: FREE

13. Bundle Post
@Bundlepost



Bundle Post is the content curation tool that makes it possible for you to “discover, distribute, and promote in less time.” Bundle Post aggregates and schedules social media content, helping content marketers schedule “unique curated content, your marketing messages, hashtagged and scheduled for 3-5 days in 20 minutes.”

Key Features:
Manages curated posts from several sources easily, when you add any RSS feed, Google Alert, or other feed to the system
Find, schedule, hashtag, and post curated content much more quickly
Select up to 100 unique social media posts from a variety of sources, merge them with a customized schedule, and automatically hashtag them
Create repository folders of social media posts so that you consistently share your own marketing messages

Cost: FREE trial available for 30 days
Personal Individual User: $19.99/month – 2 queue folders, 1 curated RSS channel, 1 curated alert and feed channel, 2 auto hash tagging folder, 2 social media accounts, and much more
Expanded Marketer: $50/month – 4 queue folders, 2 curated RSS channels, 2 curated alerts and feed channels, 4 auto hash tagging folders, 4 social media accounts, and much more
Pro Marketers & Agencies: $100/mont – Unlimited queue folders, curated RSS channels, curated alerts and feed channels, auto hash tagging folders, social media accounts, and much more

14. LinkedIn SlideShare
@SlideShare




LinkedIn SlideShare is a popular way to present and share knowledge. In terms of content curation, content marketers browse Slideshares of others in their industry for new information and content. Then, they curate it to include in their own content marketing campaigns.

Key Features:
Over 18 million uploads in 40 content categories, making it one of the top 100 most visited websites in the world
Presentations, infographics, documents, and videos are available with expert content from industry leaders
Contains well-presented content from top experts that you can flip through quickly without scrolling through pages

Cost: FREE

15. Paper.li
@paper_li



Paper.li is a content curation platform for creating online newspapers from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and RSS feeds. Paper.li is a top choice among content curation tools because it makes it simple to collect, publish, and share content on the web and social media.

Key Features:
Access articles, blog posts, and rich media content
Allow Paper.li to automatically find content on any subject or add your own content sources yourself
Control the sites and individual contributors for your content
Deliver fresh, relevant content daily or on your own schedule

Cost: FREE

16. Waywire Enterprise
@waywire



A leading provider of cloud-based video curation solutions, Waywire makes it easy to curate, upload, and aggregate content. Waywire Enterprise is an even more powerful online video curation platform because it provides a robust, scalable, cost effective way to complement original video efforts with third-part video content. Create even more engaging marketing videos and entice your audience with Waywire.

Key Features:
Embed hundreds of top-quality sources from trusted media makers
Find, filter, and present content in an agile, html5, flexible environment
Track views, play times, player locations, and more

Cost: Contact for a quote

17. MyCurator
@WordPress



MyCurator, a WordPres plugin, is content curation software that includes a cloud AI module for classifying articles based on their relevance to you. Get the articles and content of most value to you, choose them for curation, and add your own insights and comments for sharing.

Key Features:
AI classification weeds out up to 90% of the irrelevant articles on the web
Get articles throughout the day from your sources
Filter content for your keywords and other parameters
Pre-fills the post with an image, attribution link, and an excerpt into the WordPress Editor
Selective Auto-Post capability uses AI classification to automatically post pre-filled curations

Cost: FREE trial available for 30 days
Individual Plan: FREE – 1 topic of curated content, single site only, 2 notebooks, and 5 sources
Pro Plan: $10/month – Up to 6 topics of curated content, use on 2 sites, unlimited notebooks, and unlimited sources
Business Plan: $30/month – Unlimited topics of curated content, use on up to 6 sites, unlimited notebooks, and unlimited sources

18. Kapost
@kapost



When Kapost partnered with Curata, content marketers were overjoyed. They got the best of Curata’s content curation tools and Kapost’s workflow and calendar options. Once you link your Curata account to Kapost, you will be able to add your curated content into Kapost with one click. So, we consider Kapost to be pretty great for content curation and creation, too.

Key Features:
Add curated content pieces inside of Kapost and then edit them as you desire
Republish the newly curated content to the connections you have set up in Kapost
Centralized calendar for coordinating people, programs, and organization-wide content initiatives

Cost:
Standard Package: Contact for a quote
Bulk Upload Package: $2,900
Gallery Launch with Bulk Upload Package: $3,500

19. Listly
@listly



Listly is the content curation tool for curating the web’s top social lists. Listly gives you the ability to find, create, curate, and share “beautiful and fun listicles” to increase audience engagement.

Key Features:
Chrome extension, WordPress plugin, and bookmarklet available
Collaboration features
Easily create and then make your lists social

Cost:
FREE – 3 free lists for new users, 1 its per week, 10 items per day, WordPress plugin for embeds
Pro: $9.99/month or $99/year – Unlimited lists and items, private lists, premium layouts, customized embeds, advanced moderation, no ads, maintain short links, and maintain affiliate links
Team: $9.99/month/user or $99/year/user – All Pro plan features, plus team moderation and priority support

20. RebelMouse
@RebelMouse



With RebelMouse, content marketers curate content and publish more quickly to grow audiences. With more social publishing thanks to RebelMouse, you’re able to build a more lasting, loyal community.

Key Features:
For distributed content, not just websites and social properties
Efficiently and effectively publish content fit for the multi-channel, multi-device world
Build your community around your topics and interests and invite contributions for more content sources

Cost: Contact for a quote; FREE for individuals

21. Sniply
@sniply



Sniply leads to an increase in web traffic because it enables you to add a call-to-action to every shared link. So, you can curate as much content as you want and still drive conversion rates because you are attaching your call-to-action to everything you share online.

Key Features:
Share other people’s content but bring them back to your own
Get more return on the links you share by attaching a message to the page itself, including a link back to your own website, Eventbrite page, and more
Continue curating and sharing content as you normally do but start turning followers into users and customers

Cost:
FREE – 1,000 clicks/month, 1 Sniply profile, 1 team member, Sniply Analytics, and platform integrations
Pro: $29/month – 5,000 clicks/month, 2 Sniply profiles, 1 team member, customizable colors, and multiple Sniply profiles
Startup: $79/month – 20,000 clicks/month, 6 Sniply profiles, 3 team members, invite team members, and custom banner upload
Business: $149/month – 50,000 clicks/month, 10 Sniply profiles, 5 team members, custom URL, and hide Sniply logo

22. Themeefy
@Themeefy



You may have thought Themeefy was just for students and teachers, but its curation tools are for anyone who wants to curate, learn, and teach. Perfect for content marketing beginners or bloggers, Themeefy will help you find, curate, and create quality content.

Key Features:
Browse content in the library and assemble by topic
Create projects easily
Compatible with mobile devices
Archive and share projects

Cost: FREE; Contact for premium options quote

23. Post Planner
@PostPlanner



PostPlanner makes it feel like you have an entire Facebook marketing team. It is the content curation tool that helps you find just the right content, post it, and increase your audience engagement.

Key Features:
Find all the content you need for any article, including photos, articles, status ideas, and more
Searches content from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your favorite blogs
Let PostPlanner’s data-driven content suggestions determine your social media posts
Posts and tweets round the clock, for even more engagement
Automatically reposts best content so that it continues to be present in the social world

Cost:
Master: $39 billed annually – 25 profiles, 250 posts per day, unlimited planned posts, and more
Agency: $79 billed annually – 75 profiles, 750 posts per day, unlimited planned posts, and more
Venture: $199 billed annually – 200 profiles, unlimited posts per day, unlimited planned posts, and more

24. Trapit
@Trapit



Trapit is a content curation tool that puts your employees’ social media presence to work. Streamline your social selling and create a community of empowered employee advocates by giving them relevant content to share with their own social networks, with just one click.

Key Features:
Combine branded content with content from more than 100,000 sources, including blogs, journals, magazines, news services, videos, and podcasts
Highly scalable employee advocacy program because of the vast content library
Built-in analytics and reports so you can better shape your employee advocacy and social selling strategies

Cost: Contact for a quote

25. Newsle
@newsle



Newsle is not your ordinary content curation tool. Rather, it alerts you when your friends and colleagues make the news, so that you have access to content relevant to your industry. With Newsle, a member of the LinkedIn family, you’ll never miss an article of real, relevant news again.

Key Features:
Finds blogs and articles that mention colleagues, bosses, industry thought leaders, and others important to you and notifies you within seconds of publication
Cuts through the social noise to get to the most relevant content
Great for business intelligence, too

Cost: FREE

26. Quora
@Quora



Quora is the place to get answers and knowledge, which makes it a great content curation tool. Questions asked on Quora are put out to a number of experts and authorities, and then answers are archived and organized for anyone to access. The content already is curated for you, so you can find content on nearly any topic, often with links to more complete content pieces.

Key Features:
Distributes quality content on nearly any topic from experts, authorities, and regular people with relevant knowledge
Gather knowledge and content from a number of sources
Easily searched

Cost: FREE

27. Thinglink
@ThingLink



A content curation tool, ThingLink allows users to easily layer videos, images, web links, sound, text, and more web content to images and videos. By making your content more interactive, you will engage more people.

Key Features:
Create, share, engage, and measure interactive images and videos
Cross-platform solution and creative community for interactive media
Track content interaction

Cost:
Basic: FREE – Create interactive images, videos, and slideshows with unlimited use, but with Thinglink branding
Pro: $10/month or $100/year – Customize images and videos for individuals and small companies, 100+ preloaded icons, upload your custom icons, customize your popups, create and embed slideshows, advanced analytics, and unlimited use but with some Thinglink branding
Whitelabel: $49/month or $499/year – Market your brand with custom look and feel – All Pro plan features, plus video hosting, 200,000 monthly views, and the ability to remove Thinglink branding and touch/share
Premium: $250/month or $2,500/year – For publishers and agencies looking for more views and seats, all Whitelabel plan features, plus group management, private images, and 1.5 million monthly views

28. Diigo
@diigo



Diigo typically is used for social bookmarking, but it allows for bookmarking, organizing, and discovering links on the web and organizing them for sharing, making it a handy content curation tool. In fact, with Diigo, you can save and tag online resources for easy access any time, anywhere, to enhance your content curation process.

Key Features:
Annotate web pages and PDFs directly as you browse online
Organize links, references, and personal input for a structured research base through Outliner
Share research with colleagues through the collaborative platform for knowledge sharing

Cost:
FREE – Unlimited bookmarks/notes, limited social privileges for anti-spam, 5 outliners, 500 highlights, 100 images
Social: $5/year – Unlimited social privileges, certain advanced features, 10 outliners, 2,000 highlights, 500 images, and no ads
Standard: $5/month or $40/year – All Social plan features, plus unlimited outliners, unlimited cache with full-text search, unlimited images, and 100 PDF files with annotation
Professional: $6/month or $59/year – All Standard plan features, plus unlimited PDF annotation and unlimited groups

29. Scoop.it
@scoopit



Scoop.it seeks to simplify content marketing for SMB and enterprise. Content curation and content marketing software, Scoop.it increases your online visibility by helping you discover, curate, and publish quality content.

Key Features:
Perfect for thought leaders looking to develop a personal brand among professional networks and knowledge managers looking to unlock, organize, and propagate intelligence across the enterprise
Conduct smart searches and discover quality content
Scoop content that is most relevant to you and add your own perspective
Publish to social networks, blogs, and a Google-friendly splash page with one click

Cost: FREE trial of Premium plan available
FREE – For personal use, 1 user, 1 topic, 2 social accounts, and 10 scoops per day
Pro Annual: $11/month paid annually – 1 user, 5 topics, 5 social accounts, unlimited scoops per day, 1 newsletter/month publishing, basic content suggestions, and limited customization
Business Annual: $67/month paid annually – 1 user, 15 topics, unlimited social accounts, scoops per day, and newsletter publishing, and advanced content suggestions and customization
Content Director: From $333/month paid annually – 5 users, custom topics, unlimited social accounts, scoops per day, and newsletter publishing, advanced content suggestions and customization, and much more

30. Meddle
@Meddleit



Meddle is a content curation tool that transforms the content you read into high-impact blogs, Tweets, and LinkedIn and Facebook posts. Content marketers, bloggers, and company executives and leaders save vast amounts of time by never having to start a blog post from scratch again.

Key Features:
Become an industry influencer by offering perspectives on content you read
Improve online visibility by curating content tailored to your audience
Perfect for non-content marketers who are too busy to blog but can curate content to show how their companies are the best sources in the industry

Cost: Contact for a quote

31. Symbaloo
@Symbaloo



Symbaloo is a personal start page that allows you to create and share online interests and discover those of others. With Symbaloo, you compile your favorite sites into one visual interface, save your bookmarks in the cloud, and access them from anywhere with any device, at any time. That’s why Symbaloo acts as a content curation tool, too; it allows you to access to all of your content sources in any organized form that you create.

Key Features:
Visual bookmarking to simply organize your best web content sources
Access bookmarks rom any device, anywhere and share your online resources with others
Connect your social media, RSS feeds, and widgets
Symbaloo Pro is accessible anywhere with dedicated smartphone and tablet apps
Customize and personalize accounts to individual users’ needs

Cost: FREE trial of Symbaloo Pro available
Basic: FREE
Pro: $10/month – Symbaloo Pro Control Panel, up to 250 users, app and tablet version, no advertising, 1 moth free trial
Pro Plus: $25/month – Custom domain, up to 1,000 users, secure login available, integrated analytics, online workshops for entire team
Custom: Contact for a quote – Customized Symbaloo widgets, unlimited users, analytics, option to connect to external services, additional development on request

32. Bundlr
@bundlr



Bundlr is a content curation tool for discovering and bookmarking quality content. Content marketers create bundles of photos, videos, tweets, and documents and then share them. Available on the web, Android, and iPhone, Bundlr enables you to select only the most relevant content about your industry niche.

Key Features:
Select photos, videos, tweets, presentations, or articles
Stay on top of the latest posts or breaking news articles that contain the content you need
Use Bundlr’s browser button, “Bundle This!” to clip content while browsing the internet
Each bundle has its own public webpage to share freely, either through its link or on social networks, or embed on any website

Cost:
FREE – Branded embeds and collaboration
Premium: $19.99/year – Private bundles, unbranded embed, no ads, statistics, and collaboration

33. Pinterest
@Pinterest

Pinterest helps users discover and save ideas for nearly any imaginable topic. It is an incredibly useful content curation tool because you can follow people in your industry, or even pop culture icons, for content ideas and inspiration. Pinterest for Business also is a useful content curation tool, because it puts connects businesses with a massive audience of potential buyers and customers.

Key Features:
Visual bookmarking tool that enables you to discover and save content and ideas
Pinterest Analytics
Promoted pins and rich pins

Cost: FREE

34. Portent
@Portent



Portent covers all aspects of internet marketing: content creation, design, development, PPC, search, and social. Portent works to help content marketers create content that connects with target audiences, and their content curation tool is a title idea generator that is sure to help you write content page titles that will catch people’s attention.

Key Features:
Simple to use – just enter your subject and the tool generates titles for you
Includes content strategy suggestions to help you continue to curate and create content
Guides you through a content strategy so that your content matches your strategy and is served in the best media form to impact your target market

Cost: Contact for a quote

35. DrumUp
@drumupio



DrumUp helps users “energize your social media presence” by serving as an intelligent social media manager. With DrumUp, you are better equipped to discover quality content and share it to your social media accounts in order to begin valuable conversations with followers.

Key Features:
Mines through content all across the web in real time and uses algorithms to recommend fresh, relevant stories
A smart workflow enables you to quickly review and publish posts to social media followers, often cutting previous social media management time by 90%
Add multiple social media accounts to your dashboard and tweak their settings as needed
Link your blog to Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
Schedule and queue custom posts for the next few days

Cost: FREE for a limited time

36. Delicious
@Delicious

Delicious is a content curation tool that discovers, remembers, and highlights selected content from anywhere on the internet. Make the most popular links work for you by collecting and organizing them with Delicious, and then have access to the content you want to curate at any time.

Key Features:
Remembers your content
Easily build a collection of links, basically creating your own personal search engine
Organize links quickly and easily and then find content quickly with smart search

Cost: FREE

37. NetVibes
@netvibes



NetVibes is a content curation tool that offers real-time monitoring, social analytics, mobile alerts, and systems integration in one. A leading dashboard intelligence platform for the web, NetVibes monitors social media and sends alerts about content that is relevant to you.

Key Features:
Monitor and analyze anything from your feed to Twitter, so you have insight into trends and influencers and can visualize social impacts
Available for personal use, agencies, and enterprises
Manage interactions between apps, devices, and events automatically, giving you control over your corner of the internet

Cost: FREE trial of the Individual plan available for 14 days
Basic: FREE – Limit of 5 potions, article retention for 24 hours, and much more
VIP: $2/month – All Basic plan features, plus unlimited number of potions and article retention for 48 hour, plus VIP support, and much more
Individual: $649/month – all VIP plan features, plus analytics, article retention for 90+ days, and much more
Team: Contact for a quote – all Individual plan features, plus user permissions, content control, custom branding, and much more
Enterprise: Contact for a quote – all Team plan features, plus hierarchical washboarding, enterprise-only app catalog, and SaaS or on-premise

38. IndividUrls
@individurls



Create your own custom news aggregator with IndividUrls, so that you have a compilation of the best content from the sites that most interest you. IndividUrls makes it easy to cut through all of the noise online and get to the content that is most relevant and valuable to you, so that you can begin curating content as quickly as possible.

Key Features:
Clean, easy-to-use interface
Quick set-up
Feed categories and custom feed names
Continuous scroll rather than pagination
Easily add sites with the bookmarklet
For the web and iPhone

Cost: FREE

39. Klout
@klout



Klout is a content curation tool that simplifies the process of finding and sharing online content that engages your audience. Designed especially for “people who want to be great at social media,” Klout recommends content that your audience has yet to see so that you can make a big impact online.

Key Features:
Clout Perks, exclusive rewards earned for the impact you have online, are available to Klout users
Identify, target, and engage top influencers and experts
Use your content to drive valuable earned media marketing, plus deliver the right results to improve your social marketing ROI

Cost: Contact for a quote

40. Hootsuite
@hootsuite



The social media news and tips from Hootsuite are useful in content curation because you can make use of the suggested content section and select topics of interest. Then, get lists of popular posts to fit that category so that you are getting the most relevant content for your content curation needs.

Key Features:
Save time finding and automating content to publish
Measure your social media performance with analytics
Connect with more than 35 social networks
Increase social reach and productivity with the Hootsuite App Directory, a collection of more than 80 apps like Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and Marketo, in the social media dashboard

Cost: FREE trial available for 30 days
FREE – For personal use or the casual enthusiast, for up to 3 social profiles
Pro: From $9.99/month – For small businesses, social media professionals, and consultants, 50 included social profiles
Enterprise: Contact for a quote – For businesses, organizations, agencies, and governments, 100+ included social profiles

41. HeadSlinger
@headslingercom



HeadSlinger delivers “all the news, half the time” as a useful content curation tool. HeadSlingers makes it possible to scan your favorite sites’ headlines in a few seconds, plus avoid the hassle of using a content curation tool rife with ads.

Key Features:
Store your best news sources in quick, easy to find folders
Share your reading list
Free of ads

Cost: FREE

42. PublishThis
@PublishThis



PublishThis boasts a unique sort of content science that makes it a top content curation tool. Whether you’re a publishers, brand, agency, or content marketer, you are better equipped to curate and create more engaging content across all digital channels with Publish This.

Key Features:
Content IQ engine uses a semantic search and tagging technology to deliver the most relevant content
Data-driven dashboard enables you to monitor your industry to curate and create engaging content for your targeted audience
All content, including videos, blogs, and infographics, is organized in one place
Easily publish content to all of your digital channels and apps

Cost: Contact for a quote

43. Addict-o-matic
@addictomatic



Sometimes, the key to great content curation is having easy access to the latest buzz on the hottest trending topics. That’s where Addict-o-matic comes in. This content curation tool helps you instantly create a custom page for your topic by searching the best live sites on the web for the latest news, blog posts, videos, and images.

Key Features:
Personalize the search results dashboard and then bookmark the page for access to your personalized results dashboard every time
News page provides latest headlines on popular topics
Get all of the feeds from the best content sources in each category

Cost: FREE

44. BuzzSumo
@BuzzSumo



BuzzSumo, a content curation tool that offers “content marketing intelligence,” helps content marketeers curate content using the most shared content and influencer content for any topic or site. The popular content discovered by BuzzSumo is powerful because you analyze the content that performs the best and then curate it for your target audience, winning them over every time.

Key Features:
Find the key influencers to promote your content
Analyze the content that performs best for any topic or competitor
Quickly determine which content works well in the industry and identify major influencers
Immediately know which topics related to your industry receive the most attention

Cost:
Pro: $99/month – Starter plan for bloggers and small teams
Agency: $299/month – For agency teams, with all Pro features, plus API access and more
Enterprise: Contact for a quote – Ideal for brands and publishers with advanced functionality for large teams

45. ProtoPage
@protopage



ProtoPage is a start page and RSS reader that serves as a content curation tool because you select the blogs and news you want in your collection and it imports headlines from nearly any website. Access your chosen content easily and get fresh content quickly with ProtoPage.

Key Features:
Access from any PC, Mac, iPad, or smartphone
Imports news headlines from nearly any website
Keep bookmarks, to-do-lists, sticky notes, and much more with your own selection of content

Cost: FREE

46. Spundge
@spundge



Spundge is a content curation tool that is specifically designed for financial professionals. With Spundge, anyone in the financing industry can curate, create, and distribute content quickly and easily.

Key Features:
Discover, organize, and curate content using the most relevant content available
Add your knowledge and expertise to the content you curate
Set up content subscriptions quickly to begin monetizing your expertise, while you keep all of the rights to your intellectual property

Cost: FREE

47. CLIPZINE
@Clipzine_me



A content curation platform for curating and creating sharable content, CLIPZINE helps you clip relevant content, style it with your own contributions, and share to increase click rate and customer engagement. This visual curation platform helps you “collect, classify, create your zine.”

Key Features:
Clipping and styling tools to create more creative content from others’ existing content
Share and reuse curated content
A variety of ways to share, submit, embed, and download your curated content for more engagement
Use the “+Clip it button” to clip content and related images and text while searching the web

Cost: FREE

48. CurationSoft
@CurationSoft



CurationSoft enables “content curation for any web platform.” An extremely popular, easy to use content curation tool, CurationSoft enables users to discover, review, and curate content in posts and publications.

Key Features:
Get results quickly and easily
Higher search engine rankings
Curate content from Google blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, and more, plus from any RSS feed

Cost:
FREE – Excellent for hobbyist bloggers
Pro: $47/year, Up to 3 PCs – 18 built-in content sources, ideal for business use with higher-quality results and ad-free software
Lifetime: $79/lifetime, Up to 3 PCs – Lifetime license and updates, 18 built-in content sources, ideal for business use with limitless content discovery and higher-quality results

49. Feedly
@feedly

Feedly collects content from your favorite sites and packages it in a personalized magazine. This content curation tool gives you a single place for reading all of the news and content you need for powerful content curation.

Key Features:
Get all of the latest stories from the publications you rely on and trust
Follow blogs from anywhere on the web
See new YouTube videos in the same place you read your news
Sort through more content in less time by organizing feeds into easy-to-read collections

Cost: Contact for a quote

50. If This, Then That
@IFTTT



If This, Then That (IFTTT) is the content curation tool for getting as much relevant content from the web as possible. Im fact, IFTTT saves you time during the content curation process, because it follows user recipes that trigger one action to cause another.

Key Features:
Get creative control over your products and apps
Runs on recipes, or simple connections between products and apps
DO Recipes run with just a tap, enabling you to create your own personalized Button, Camera, and Notepad
IF Recipes automatically run in the background, allowing you to create powerful connections with a single statement, “If this, then that”

Cost: FREE

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