• Paolo Tosolini speaking about enterprise social video
• Jarrod Gingras sharing his views on enterprise collaboration
• Gordon Ross discussing the role of archetypes in intranets

Gordon, Jarrod, Paolo and I spoke at the IntraTeam Event in Copenhagen this spring. These guys really know their subject matter; you may learn a thing or two from them, as I did.

If you listen to these interviews, please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Photos by Kurt Kragh Sørensen: Scenes from Copenhagen. Lower right: IntraTeam Event organizer Kurt Kragh Sørensen, me, Paolo Tosolini, Gordon Ross.

So how can you find great stuff as part of your content marketing efforts? Even better, how can you become a curator known for generously sharing the best of relevant content? Here are some tips for you. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, but instead shows simple steps you can start today.

First, you need to find great content.

• Subscribe to blogs and newsletters in your field; use Feedly, now that Google Reader is fading away, to keep those subscriptions up to date and in order.
• Check mainstream news sources daily (New York Times, Guardian, Mashable, etc.)
• Read LinkedIn Today for ideas.
• Sign up for updates from News.me, which gleans what it determines to be top stories from your Facebook and Twitter feeds, and delivers them to you as daily emails.
• Set up persistent searches in Twitter for keywords you’re interested in (for me, it’s podcasting, storytelling, curation and so on).
• Follow smart people on Twitter and subscribe to Twitter lists of “thought leaders” in your areas of interest.
• Get involved in Google+ Communities, where you’ll find plenty of insights and news around the niche topics you care about.
• Subscribe to “newspapers” on Paper.li; look for papers that focus on subject matter that’s meaningful to you.  Here’s a quick video on Paper.li (slightly out of date but still apropos).
• Flip through Flipboard on your mobile device to find interesting stuff. You can share items directly to your social media accounts via Flipboard too.
• Sign up for Scoop.it, a publishing-by-curation platform, designed around your favorite keywords.

Next, you have to organize this wonderful content you’ve found.
My favorite tool for organizing my content is Delicious, a social bookmarking service. This slightly dated video shows you how it works. Some of my colleagues prefer Diigo or Pearltrees. Whichever social bookmarking tool you choose, be sure it allows you to add as many tags as you want, to make it easier to find content later. Do not rely on your browser bookmarks. Trust me on this!

Finally, you want to publish your great content.
Certainly there are a zillion ways to do this, but here are a few suggestions:

• Write blog posts, using the information you’re found as a jumping off point, while adding your own experience, insights and opinions.
• Tweet interesting blog posts, news items, etc., to your followers; share the content on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ too.
• If the content is visual, consider sharing it on Pinterest.
• Publish your own “newspapers” on Scoop.it or Paper.li and share them via social media.
• Use Storify to gather up tweets around a particular hashtag (great for events!) and share them on social media or embed them in your blog.
• For an organization, consider using such paid services as Curata or Curation Station to curate content.

You’ll become a true curator when you consistently find, organize, annotate and share the best of relevant content. As I’ve mentioned, the above is not a complete list, and I’m curious to learn about your favourite ways to find, organize and share content. Please comment below.

By the way, if you’re interested in the topic of curation, you might find these presentations helpful:
Best practices for content curation
Content curation

Those experienced with Twitter know to never click on these links. Newbies, however, will usually fall for this scam. I see it several times a week, as the DMs appear in my Twitter stream. Soon after these rogue DMs pop up, friends will warn the Twitter newcomers to change their passwords.

“I’ve been hacked!” the victims cry. Technically they haven’t been hacked. In fact, they’ve co-authored this sad story by being phished.

Phishing is the act of attempting to grab usernames, passwords or credit card information by pretending to be someone you trust.

Here’s a great tutorial on how to avoid phishing scams on Twitter as well as elsewhere on the Web. Scammers are likely to send messages that purport to be from PayPal or FedEx or even your bank. Always check the URL of the suspect link, and never share your passwords.

Happy, safe tweeting to you!

When I speak about podcasting, I like to demystify the topic. Last week I did a short talk for Social Media Breakfast Waterloo Region on “Secrets to Podcast Success.” On May 14 I’ll be sharing an expanded version of this presentation for Silicon Halton, including information on how you might use a podcast to establish thought leadership, to expand your content marketing efforts, and to build community.

Here’s a sneak peek at just a few of the ideas we’ll be discussing.

If you live or work in Halton Region, I hope you’ll come out to this meeting, not just to learn about podcasting, but to meet the members of the vibrant Silicon Halton network.

Eventually I moved from print to Constant Contact, which has a good user interface and also enabled me to easily add people to my database. A couple of years ago I wanted to add specific signup forms on my websites for additional lists, but this seemed cumbersome with Constant Contact, so I opened an account with Aweber. However, I hesitated to abandon Constant Contact altogether because I liked the look of the newsletters it allowed me to create. At the time, Constant Contact let me insert photos directly into my newsletter, whereas Aweber required that photos be hosted online.

Recently, Aweber upped its game. You can now insert graphics more easily, and their newsletter templates have become more attractive.  I’ve also found that my Aweber newsletters always get through, whereas some email providers were blocking the Constant Contact newsletters.

This month, to streamline my newsletter operation (and save a few dollars per month), I decided to switch from Constant Contact altogether and use Aweber exclusively.

Of course Aweber requires a double opt-in, to prevent spam, so I couldn’t just pop hundreds of names into it.  Instead, I had to get people to take action in order to move them.

I wondered if I would lose subscribers during the move. Here’s the answer: Yes, I’ve lost some subscribers. But you know what? Those were mostly people who weren’t reading my newsletter anyway. I’d rather have X number of dedicated readers than X times 2 who don’t care.

Every now and then, independent professionals or other small business owners ask me: “Is a newsletter worthwhile as a marketing vehicle?” For me, it has been – for sure. And now when someone asks me to recommend an email newsletter provider, I can recommend Aweber wholeheartedly. You can try Aweber here. (This is an affiliate link. The first time I’ve ever used it!)

So I’m pleased to share this short video with you of one of my favourite storytelling experts, Nancy Duarte. I saw her speak at an IABC world conference a few years ago, and she was wonderful, even better than I anticipated. I can still remember how I felt when she shared a touching story and photographs from her childhood.

In this clip, Duarte talks about why story is important, why emotional connection matters, and how stories can help spread ideas. She makes the point that great stories resonate, make us feel, and can even change us.

Each has a unique reason for taking the time to attend a workshop. Here’s what some have told me:

• I started using Twitter but don’t feel confident at all with it and I know I’m “missing” something.
• My manager says we’d better find out what this social media stuff is all about.
• I’m using Facebook to socialize but have no idea how to make it work for business.
• I am a consultant, and I want to teach my own clients how to make better use of social media, so I need to get up to speed myself.
• I’ve found myself in the job market, and employers seem to expect me to know about social media. Help!
• I’ve tried to ignore social media for a couple of years, but I can’t any longer.

If someone you know needs to learn more about LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and more, please tell them about the Hands-on Social Media Workshop in Oakville on April 13. Detailed information and registration here. Thanks!

Paolo Tosolini

One of the benefits of speaking at conferences is meeting and socializing with the other presenters. In the case of the IntraTeam Event Copenhagen, I was able to catch up with Paolo Tosolini, whom I’d met years ago at a new media convention in Las Vegas.

It was a pleasure to see him again in Denmark. And rather than do a rushed interview there, we scheduled a conversation for a few weeks later.

In the latest edition of the Trafcom News Podcast, I’m happy to share this chat with Paolo, in which we discuss the value of  internal video for sharing knowledge. Oh, and he talks about some really cool mobile video tools too.

You can read the show notes and listen on the Trafcom News Podcast page. I hope you enjoy this episode.

If not, why not? Slideshare is the secret weapon in many marketers’ arsenals, especially in the B2B world. Yes, it’s the world’s most popular platform for sharing your PowerPoint or Keynote slide decks, but it’s also much more. Slideshare is a social network, too, and a way to enrich your content marketing efforts, because search engines will serve up your presentations.

A case in point: A presentation that I posted almost two years ago comes up on the first page of Google search results for “content curation best practices.” At the time I posted it, I wasn’t using Slideshare much, since I thought of it as merely a convenient place to upload slides when people wanted to refer to them after one of my presentations.

And then a funny thing happened.

Within a couple of months, my slide deck was viewed more than 10,000 times. Now the number is north of 13,000. After the sudden and unexpected popularity of that presentation, I started to think of Slideshare differently.

I should add this note, in case you look at the content curation presentation shown below: It was very well received at the conference where I presented it, but I don’t think the deck works well as a standalone piece of content. Most presentations don’t. At the time, I used a template suggested by the conference organizer. Soon after, I totally redesigned the master template for all of my presentations, with the help of a graphic designer, and purchased a proprietary font too.

Here are some suggestions for using Slideshare successfully as part of your content marketing efforts:

• If you, like me, don’t use wordy slides when you do live presentations, consider creating a second deck for use on Slideshare, so that your presentation makes sense without your narration. Avoid boring bullet points!
• Or, consider adding an audio track on Slideshare. Be sure to use a decent microphone to record your audio, something like the Blue Yeti. If you use your built-internal microphone or a cheap headset, lousy audio quality will degrade the image you’re trying to project.
• Be sure to give your Slideshare presentation a name that uses keywords people would use in search. If your title is too clever, no one will find it.
• Do be aware that the content of your slides is automatically transcribed, which will also boost your SEO.
• Upload your presentation as a PDF, not as PPT or PPTx, especially if you use a proprietary font as I do.
• Embed your Slideshare content in your blog, link to it on Twitter, and so on. In other words, be sure your followers know your content exists.

Are you having success with Slideshare? Please share your experience in the comments.

Related resource
7 secrets to becoming a Slideshare power user

That’s why I’m offering a one-hour Lunch-and-Learn workshop in person in the Toronto area, or via teleseminar if you’re outside the GTA. In this interactive session, we cover:

• The importance of strategy first
• A review of the major social media tools and the role they can play; the pros and cons of each
• Insights into monitoring and measurement
• How to use content marketing (including curation) and social media together to establish thought leadership

Interested? Contact me for details.