Content Curation: The Importance of Being “Stupid”?

by PR Coach

Scoopit Public Relations Insight mastheadIt’s been just over a year since I started using Scoop.it  shortly after its launch. Since then, the little social media channel has grown from a curator’s secret weapon into a full-fledged micropublishing platform, search engine and busy community of curators. In fact, it had a record 14,125,814 page views in January 2013.

I’m going to share my insight into why it’s such a valuable tool in the social PR toolbox.

So, why the “stupid” in the headline?

It’s because I often use voice recognition software for writing. Every time I say the phrase “Scoop.it”, it pops up as “stupid”. A year later, it still makes me laugh. Every time.

It also reminds me I was anything but stupid to start using Scoop.it.

Scoop.it as Curation Tool

I won’t get technical here. Scoop.it is intuitive and easy to use. You’ll be curating and publishing in no time

How do you use it for curation?

Simply open a free account to get started. Name your publication/channel, add some key information, connect several social media accounts and you’re good to go.

Curation on Scoop.it is easy

Curation is easy on Scoop.it

With the simple browser bookmark, click on or “scoop” a story, news article, blog post, video or any other web content you want to share. A small screen (left) pops up with a suggested headline, visual, summary, social media sharing options and link back to the original source, full version content.

In under a minute, you can cut and paste, write, edit and publish a summary with visuals (including video). Add further editorial content, change the visuals and edit headlines if you wish. Click publish. It’s published immediately in your own personal channel or magazine.

You can see an example of how the magazine looks on my topic Public Relations & Social PR Insight.

Scoop.it content curation toolScoop.it is beautifully designed and displayed. It looks and feels like a magazine though it has elements of Tumblr and Pinterest.

It’s the perfect companion to my other micro-blogging favorite – Twitter. In my @thePRCoach Twitter stream, I curate PR, media relations, storytelling, crisis management, social PR, content marketing and anything else that fits into today’s public relations toolbox.

Then I share and publish some of my content snippets on Scoop.it where I tend to highlight social PR and visual content. Or, if I publish first to Scoop.it, I can share it immediately on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and many other social media channels. It’s also integrated with Hootsuite so sharing on Twitter and other social media is even faster.

Another bonus. Scoop.it creates an archive of your curated content. Looking for that article you saved on crisis management? Search on your channel or just scroll down to find it again.

How cool is that?

Scoop.it as Social Media Channel

As well as using Scoop.it for curation, you can use it as a blog. It’s as easy or easier than Tumblr and much simpler than WordPress or other full blogging tools. The biggest difference is your design is not customizable.

Curation is easy on Scoop.it

Four choices for curation on Scoop.it

On your home page, just hit “New Scoop.” You’ll get four choices for adding content:

  1. Scoop webpage content you discover as described above.
  2. Scoop content suggested by Scoop.it.
  3. Create your own post and content in the form of a blog post.
  4. Rescoop and share from others you follow.

It’s so simple, yet so powerful.

Scoop.it as Search Engine

Way back in 2000-2001, I blogged and curated PR content at About.com as it evolved  from its start as The Mining Company in 1995. The terms “blogging” and “content curation” didn’t even exist back then. We all fumbled through html to share content and I wish we had had the simple, yet powerful tools we now enjoy.

Today, Scoop.it is emerging as an impressive search engine as well as a curation tool. It has a community of more than 300,000 curators with more than 400,000 topics. Its recently reached 7 million unique visitors and is growing at+25% per month. And that January 2013  number of 14,125,814 page views is worth repeating.

Hardly surprising, it has an Alexa.com ranking of #911 which puts it in the top 1000 sites on the internet.

By any measure, those are not “stupid” numbers unless you’re a Geek or skateboarder.

You’ll find some useful search topic results from experts and passionate curators. Most articles or posts are current and it’s a very fast way to browse valuable, human-curated content.

Scoop.it curation and search engineThe search engine delivers good results. A recent search for “public relations” found 6979 scoops, 170 related topics and 173 users.

Some are experts in social PR (ahem), storytelling, content curation, social media for nonprofits, crisis management and pretty much any other PR, marketing or social media topic you can imagine. Those are just a small number of topics that I follow.

Maybe other esoteric topics will strike your fancy like Antiques, Designer’s Resources, Craft Brew Review, All Geeks, Kill the Record Industry, Cafe Racers, and Where Is the Love?

Wondering how big some of these topics are? How about Fuji X-Pro 1 with 1.4M views; The Billy Pulpit (Miami-centric news; 909.5K views); and Quite Interesting News (548.3K).

The “Suggested Content” tool still needs work to find even better results and suggestions from the internet but it is improving.

All in all, Scoop.it is a helpful search tool in addition to Google and the other standards.

Scoop.it as Community

CEO Guillaume Decugis and the Scoop.it Team walk the talk. They actively curate and publish themselves and work very hard to encourage community.

Some of my best Twitter friends are active on the platform. Even better, I’ve made many friends and new connections with others in the PR and social media fields.

Social media sharing on Scoop.it“Scoops” or it’s Rescoop sharing function are an important element of this community. Quality content gets rescooped, shared and commented on extensively.

One of Scoop.it’s best community features is how it integrates effortlessly with other social media channels. Share your content easily with one or several clicks to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedln, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+ and more.

You can also connect on the regular #Scoopitchat on Twitter with interesting topics and tips on curation and content strategies.

Scoop.it Metrics Matter

Scoop.it analytics are valuable

Scoop.it analytics are valuable

It has useful metrics including a running total of views, daily page views, curator credibility “score”, number of visitors and followers, number of scoops and reactions.

The reason I decided to write this post was to celebrate my success so far. I just passed 10,000 views on my site and I’m at more than 1,000 followers.

Wait, there’s more!

Scoop.it provides search engine benefits too. In my case, more than 20% of my PR Coach website traffic comes from my curation site.

Scoop.it Is Inexpensive, Robust & the Best Curation Tool Available

Scoop.it, with basic but substantial functions, is FREE!

PRO ($12.99/mo) and Business ($79/mo) accounts add more topics, analytics, design, branding and other features of interest to power users, professional content pros and curators.

I’ve tested and tried many other curation tools such as RebelMouse, Twylah and Paper.li. They’re much more automated, yet it’s the human curation factor and the Scoop.it community that make all the difference.

I love being stupid. I mean Scoop.it. It makes me so much smarter and it’s a great way to use curation to establish yourself as a thought leader. If you haven’t tried it yet, what are you waiting for?

Author: Jeff Domansky

Visuals: Scoop.it



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