Social Media for Lawyers: Content Curation vs. App Spam

The social media marketing world currently is in the thrall of “content curation,” and justifiably so. When executed with a coherent vision, purpose and rigor, curation is demonstrably effective in helping content marketers achieve increased website/blog traffic, subject matter authority and followers (aka thought leadership).

One of the most widely cited working definitions of content marketing was coined by social marketing expert Rohit Bhargavan, who describes it as “the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue. The essence of curation, then, is the curator’s informed and discriminating point of view and active participation.

As with most endeavors that require extra personal attention and effort, there’s strong temptation to look for shortcuts –  that means you, Paper.li and Summify. It’s worth noting that Twitter ranking/management clients like TwitCleaner classify tools that  auto-aggregate and auto-tweet your content feed  as “app spam.” Over-reliance on those tools can negatively impact your social media profile and rankings, and those items are less likely to be shared than ones you’ve clearly considered and bundled on your own.

However, there are other applications that help make the work of genuine curation more manageable. Four of the most promising content curation tools are:

• Storify
• Scoop.it
• Curated.by
• Pearltrees

Have you tried any of these tools? How are they working out for you?