How to Find a Wealth of Content on Facebook

ARE YOU USING FACEBOOK AS A SOURCE FOR CONTENT CURATION?

If your answer to this question is ‘No, I have not seriously used Facebook for content curation’, you have to read on because Facebook is a great place to find, and then share curated content.

Here is another novel idea.

Content you find on Facebook does not need to stay on Facebook.

Yes, really!

You can share content you find on Facebook to other social media platforms. 

Think Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+, just to get you started.

Of course there’s a right way and a wrong way to share this content you find on Facebook.

Are you ready to learn more? 

Please read on to find out

• What curated content is
• Why you need curated content for your social media strategy
• How to ‘vet’ content before sharing it with your audience
• How to search on Facebook and use certain Facebook features to find very specific content for curation purposes
• How to properly share curated content

WHAT IS CURATED CONTENT?

Curated content is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme, interest or industry. Curation involves sifting, sorting, arranging, compiling and publishing information to a specific social media platform. 

WHY DO YOU NEED CURATED CONTENT?

Unless you are the social media director of Coca-Cola or Oreo, you will most likely need curated content to fill your social media channels with interesting, fun, inspiring, motivational and informative information your audience will love, like, comment on and share.

There is an ongoing debate within our industry of how much content should be curated and how much should be created.

The ‘industry standard’ – and bare in mind we don’t know who set this standard – is 80%/20% curated vs created = other people’s content vs your own content.

If you are interested in my take on this, check out this article I wrote for the Curatti blog on this topic!

HOW DO YOU KNOW CONTENT IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE CURATED?

Curated content needs to be vetted!

This goes for articles, but also for images, videos and infographics!

First and foremost, I share articles from people I know, like and trust. These people are my influencers.
I have Facebook influencers and Twitter influencers.

I will share content from these influencers freely because I know they are great at what they do, I trust their writing and I rely on their industry knowledge and proven track-record of producing great content.

When I find an article from a website I am not familiar with, or by an author I’ve not heard of, I go and investigate.

✓ First, I click on the article I find (whether that’s on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn or anywhere else) and I follow if back to the source. I want to find the original source of the content, so I can share it from there.

✓ Next, I will read the article. (I read it, or if I am short on time, I scan it – this is where your H2 headers come in bloggers! Use the H2 headers to tell your story to those who scan your content. Don’t forget bullet points for even easier scanning!)

✓ Lastly, I check for comments, social shares of this article, I read the author’s bio and I do a quick check up on the website.

Once I have done all of this, I still need to evaluate if the content is a good fit for my audience.

Only then will I decide to whether to share it, or not!

HOW TO FIND A WEALTH OF CONTENT ON FACEBOOK TO CURATE.

This is not the first time I’ve written about curating content from Facebook. This is an important enough topic to do so a second time.

In my article 6 Surprisingly Fast Ways To Curate Content From Facebook I mention 6 ways to ‘grab and go’ content from Facebook, mainly when you are in a pinch. 

These ways include

1. Trending Topics
2. News Ticker
3. Interest Lists
4. Facebook Groups
5. Hashtag Search
6. Graph Search
   

Learn how to use each of these for curating content by reading the full article here.

Today I have four additional ways to curate content from Facebook. They include

1. Page Newsfeed
2. Blog Click Through
3. Industry Leaders
4. Saved Content
   

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

1) Page Newsfeed(s) – I am sure you are familiar with your newsfeed. It’s what you are on when you read about your friends and family and what they are doing on Facebook. You might also see some ads in your newsfeed, as well as posts by pages you’ve previously liked. Did you know you have a second newsfeed? Your page has a newsfeed as well, but the Facebook page newsfeed can only be accessed on desktop, not on mobile. 

As a page, More In Media has ‘liked’ many local and industry related pages. Therefore, I get access to all their most recent and top posts.Why is this so powerful? It’s easy to share a post from one page to another. There’s a share button under each post and this makes it one of the quickest ways to curate content from Facebook to Facebook. But don’t stop there! I often find great content in this newsfeed that fits with my LinkedIn strategic goals, and sometimes I find content that I think my Google+ and Pinterest audiences will like. Whichever platform I share it on, my Facebook Page newsfeed is a great source for content.

2) Blog Click Through – When I find an interesting article on Facebook I want to share with my audience on one of my social media networks, I don’t stop there. I click through not just to the article to read and ‘vet’ the content of that one article, but I click through to the rest of the blog to find more content like it to share! NOTE to Bloggers: This is where your Facebook Authorship comes in!
Why is this so powerful?  Once you’ve decided that the content you have found is of good quality and will suit your audience, you have found a potential source of a lot of content. Exciting, right? I look at frequency of publishing, number of blog comments and topics. If it’s a good fit, I will add this new blogger to my Interest List or the feed of the blog to my Feedly account. In essence, I have found a new Facebook influencer.

3) Industry Leaders – When in search of great content, go to the industry leaders within your industry on Facebook. Check both on their personal profile – you can follow their public posts, even if you don’t want to friend them – and their Facebook Page. These leaders are industry leaders for a reason; they have become influencers by being

• trustworthy
• consistent
• timely
• informative
• strategic

with their Facebook posts!

Why is this so powerful? By sharing their content, you accomplish two things. First, you are now ‘linked’ to this person of influence. Believe me when I say that they notice who shares their content. Second, your audience now knows you are up on trends and industry news because you shared from these leaders. People will look to you for more content like it because it’s good.

4) Saved Content – Whenever I see content in my newsfeed that entices me, but I do not have time to read (or watch), vet and share it, I save it! Did you know you can save

• links
• videos
• products
• photos
• places
• music
• books
• movies
• TV shows
• events

and that Facebook will save it for you until you watch, read, share or archive it?

Why is this so powerful?  I save all sorts of content. However, most of the content I save are links to articles and videos (at times I do not have time to read or watch videos) and ads. Yes, I save ads and sponsored content, too! It’s powerful because once it’s bookmarked as ‘saved’ in Facebook, I can easily access it when its needed and share on any page I admin, or to any platform I wish to share it to. I love, love, love this feature yet I think it’s under-used by marketers.

HOW SHOULD YOU PROPERLY SHARE CURATED CONTENT?

This is important!

Please share from the original source and credit the person who shared the content to Facebook.

On social media this might look like this.

This is a a share from my Facebook Page to that of a colleague. She credits my page and add her own thoughts.

Here is a share from a colleague’s page to my own Facebook Page. Deb of For The Love Of Your Biz is one of my influencers, so I share her content without question.

Robin of R & R Web Design credited the original poster by adding a  H/T to the end of the description in this Facebook post.
(H/T = hat tip = tipping you hat to someone for finding this information and HT = Heard Through = mainly used on Twitter)

If you find something on Facebook and share it elsewhere, still tag, h/t or credit the person who originally found and curated it! It’s polite, of course, but it’s also a way to build up trust and cultivate online relationships!

FACEBOOK WRAP UP

Facebook is an incredible source of content! Facebook continues to lead and innovate and add new features for marketers and consumers alike.

To view the original article Click Here

How to Use Content That Isn’t Yours

The Oatmeal’s creator Matthew Inman posted a comic comparing having a baby to having a cat. For those who eschewed procreation in favor of raising felines, the comic is a (hilarious) validation. It also rings true for parents who have gone the baby route. The web-based comic went viral, racking up over 300,000 shares on Facebook alone.

That massive traffic proved all too alluring, and a blogger at the Huffington Post reposted the entire comic in the body of an article. Understandably peeved that another corporate entity was profiting from his hard work, Inman switched the image connected to the link, with this message:

While there was a predictable amount of schadenfreude expressed by competing media outlets, the incident highlighted a complicated challenge that publishers – traditional media companies or brands engaged in content marketing – face when developing policies on how to use other people’s content.

While there’s no straightforward rule book to consult for those who want to engage in ethical content creation or to incorporate other people’s content into their own content marketing, here are a few approaches you might try.

Keep it 100% legal

In a nutshell, any original image, writing, or recording in a fixed medium (written down or saved as a file) is protected by copyright law. So if you take a photo with your digital camera, you have the rights to that photo immediately. Similarly, when you hit save on a Word doc, you have a copyright to that content. The only notable exceptions are when you create something for work (your employer would own it), or when you use something that already has copyright protection as the basis for your work. That means that your Harry Potter fan fiction, a company blog post, or a Beyonce mash-up you mix probably wouldn’t belong to you.

The same principle applies to brands: Any original content their employees create belongs to the brand.

If you want to use someone else’s content, you should ensure that you:

• Obtain written permission: Enter a formal agreement with the creator or through the terms of service on a user-generated content site. For example, you can embed YouTube videos wherever you like because all YouTube posters have agreed to its terms of service (including embedding videos by others).

• Engage in fair use: You’re allowed to copy work to criticize, comment, or parody. When you pull a block quote from Joe Pulizzi’s latest blog post to talk about how brilliant he is, there’s nothing he can do to stop you. But if you copy his entire post, you’re in trouble. Similarly, taking a screen-grab from a movie to create a meme is likely OK.

A good question to determine whether fair use applies: Would your use of the content in any way subtract from the value that would otherwise go to the content creator? If the answer is no, then you should be in the clear to use it.

If you want more detail, here’s a good copyright law overview.

Get an informal OK

Getting written permission is ideal, but you’ll still be on ethical high ground if you ask the creator if you can use the content and you get a less formal “yes” – send a quick email, tweet, or LinkedIn ping.

See? In this tweet exchange, a local TV station asks a person who uploaded his photo of a plane fire. When you reach out, promise to include attribution and a link back to the person’s website to sweeten the deal (and give the much-deserved credit.)

Don’t ask, but do provide credit and links

Always try your best to track down the original host of the content and credit it by linking to it. Many consider links to be a form of currency that provide real value to the content creator in the form of SEO and exposure.

In fact, a lot of content creators are in it just for the exposure; they’ll probably be thrilled you used their image, video, or writing – as long as it’s clear that they’re the brilliant mind behind it. By giving good attribution alone you’re not necessarily in the right legally, but you’re probably still in the right.

Follow these two best practices:

• Find the original source: In this age of syndicated content, aggregation, and sharing, it can be pretty easy to give credit to the wrong person or build a link to the wrong site. To give credit where it’s due, follow the trail of attribution back to the hosting source. And if you want to be an ethical superstar, copy two sentences from a written piece into your Google search bar (or use a reverse image search for photos, infographics, etc.) to locate the true source. As an example, this phrase pops up several places, but credit should go to the CMI site:
• 

• Use embed features. Many major social platforms offer codes that allow you to easily embed their content onto your own website. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook all provide this function. Be sure to read each social platform’s embed policies and terms of service but, generally speaking, content embedded on social sites such as Twitter is often legal to publish as long as you use the platform’s embed code. If you download and republish the asset, you lose the legal authority to have it on your site and make it harder for people to find their way back to the original.

Subscribe to stock-image platforms

If you need an accompanying image for a blog post, in many cases a royalty-free image or illustration will suffice. It’s important to note though that royalty free does not mean that the image is free to use. Royalty-free images have a license fee but you are not required to pay a royalty each time you use the image.

Be sure to read the restrictions outlined in the image provider’s license, which may limit the frequency of an image’s use or preclude its use for commercial purposes. On Shutterstock, for example, you need to identify the expected reach of the image, which determines the fee or image package available.

Use Creative Commons content

Millions of artists and content creators are uploading their work onto the web under a Creative Commons license, which is a more permissive form of copyright. (Creative Commonsis a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creative content and knowledge through free legal tools. It was popularized by artists who thought their work should be shared.)

You can search for Creative Commons photos on Flickr, for example. Remember – just because a work is listed as Creative Commons doesn’t mean credit isn’t required or restrictions don’t exist. (Most Creative Commons licenses require you to seek permission if you want to use the content for commercial reasons.)

Honor takedown requests

There may be a time when a content creator doesn’t want you to use his content. Take the example I shared at the beginning. Huffington Post credited The Oatmeal for the use of its comic and it used the image file from The Oatmeal site, but it resulted in so many server calls that The Oatmeal wanted it taken down. The Huffington Post eventually apologized for the error, removed the image from the post, and replaced it with a link to The Oatmeal’s website.

Bottom line: If you don’t have legal permission, don’t argue with the creator when he or she comes a-callin’. It creates bad blood and gives the creator ammunition that can be used in court. Apologize and offer to take down the content immediately. If you respond promptly, the owner of that content usually will be understanding and take no further action.

Protect your original content

Since you’re a content creator, too, you may be on the other side of these issues. Want to check on the use of your original content by others? Google and Google image search are the best place to start (though not really scalable if you want to keep tabs on a lot of content). There are a bunch of other tools, including Copyscape, which is a great plagiarism and stolen copy checker.

If you want to get someone to cease, desist, or just give you credit for your original content, here’s a good guide to responding to plagiarism.

Conclusion

Would it be much easier if you could view any content that floats across your screen as fair game for re-posting? Sure, but that approach hurts both content creator and replicator. If we accept the premise that quality content contains value, then we must recognize that value by being respectful to those who produced it.

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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