Do's and Don'ts of Content Curation

The final post in this weeklong series on content curation is the "do's and don'ts."

• No matter where you publish, always remember to add something of your own to the curated content. Just sharing a link on Twitter isn't content curation; neither is copying and pasting sections of someone else's article to your blog, even if you give them attribution. 
• Try using your curated content as the basis for explaining your opinions, giving insights on a new topic, or exploring the opinions of others.

Did you miss any of this week's blog posts on content curation? Check them out here:
Curating Content to Attract New Clients
Best Practices in Content Curation
Where to Find Careers Content to Curate
Five Great Tools for Content Curation

Working With Challenging, Controlling, or Just Plain Pain-in-the-A$$ Clients

There has been a great discussion going on about "controlling" clients on the NRWA E-List as of late. My favorite tip list was shared by colleague Kelly Donovan, CPRW.

Here, with her permission, is Kelly's list of "PITA Warning Signs":

• Asking for a discount or questioning whether the investment is worth it.
• Saying their project will be "simple" (the "simple" ones are always PITAs!)
• Saying anything that reveals doubt/skepticism about your qualifications
• Mentioning they had a problem with another resume writer (ask for details!) 
• Asking for a watered-down version of your services with a lower price tag (is it really something you can scale down?)
• Calling/emailing with unusually high frequency (sign of being high-maintenance or disorganized)
• Calling before 8:00 a.m. or after 7:00 p.m.-ish (unless for a scheduled call)
• Complaining about any aspect of their experience with you (your voice mail, how long you took to get back to them, etc.) 

I wrote a previous blog post on the subject of challenging and pain-in-the-a$$ (PITA) clients in 2008 that also contains some warning signs to be wary of: "We Do Not Negotiate With Terrorists."

Kelly says when you encounter one of these warning signs, "trust your instincts and just say no. If they end up being a PITA, it won't be a profitable project regardless of whether you get paid (and keep it) or not."

Do you have other warning signs to share? Please add a comment!

Five Great Tools for Content Curation

As we've talked about in the previous posts in this week's blog series on content curation, as a content curator, your first and primary job is searching out valuable content that is relevant to your readers. The time you save creating original careers industry content will be spent hunting for it. While seeking the best content can be time-consuming, here are five tools that can help make the search easier.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts

Enter specific keywords and Google will send latest published content from everything it searches. Receive information via email or your Google Reader.

Google Alerts is a free service that lets you choose keywords and then tells you whenever new content has been posted using those keywords. You can find articles, blogs, stories, videos, and other content to share as soon as it has been indexed by Google. All you need to do is enter keywords and Google Alerts will either send you results via email or send them to your Google Reader account.

If you refine your Google Alerts keywords, you'll get more relevant results. One way to do this is to use quotation marks. When you search for 'interview preparation' rather than the terms interview and preparation separately, it will only bring up results where the exact phrase 'interview preparation' is used (and not every mention of the words 'interview' or 'preparation'). You can also use Boolean search terms such as AND, NOT, and so on to refine searches. (You'll find it takes some time to refine your Google Alerts to get the types of results you're looking for.)

Google Reader

Google Reader – http://www.google.com/reader

Organize your feed subscriptions so you can keep track of the latest content from your favorite sources.

Google Reader is a tool that lets you subscribe to certain blogs and websites. If you use Google Alerts, you'll start to see the same sites popping up again and again with content you can use. You can use Reader to follow these sites directly. Just like Google Alerts, Google Reader offers advanced search features that help you refine your search and cut down on sifting time.

There are a number of free and paid mobile apps that help you use Google Reader on your smart phone, such as Feedr and Reeder. These are great if you're searching for content on-the-go using your mobile device. You can quickly review your feeds and even share directly from within the app.

Facebook Lists
Facebook originally launched its Lists feature to protect users' privacy, but its Subscribe tool has made it a great way to search for content through this social media site. It works in much the same way as Google Reader, but everything is done through Facebook.

Journalists, bloggers, celebrities, organizations and others whose content your readers like may have a Subscribe button on their profiles. When you subscribe to their page it adds their news to your feed. You can then customize those settings to make sure you're getting the content you want.

Twitter
Twitter makes it easy to find content by searching for keywords using its hashtags. Hashtags are simply keywords with a hash (#) in front of them. A few examples would be #interviewquestions, #resumetips, #careerchange and #jobsearch. When you enter one of these terms, you get the latest posts that include them.

Twitter Lists are similar to Google Reader. They filter tweets and help you organize them. Anyone can make a list and you can follow them. What you then see is all of the sources where they're pulling their content from. So, if you find a Twitter user such as a famous marketer or a careers industry expert who shares great content, you can subscribe to them and to any of their lists. This gives you their top picks, which you can then share with your followers.

SmartBrief on Your Career
If you're just getting started with content curation, one good (FREE) email newsletter to sign up for is SmartBrief on Your Career. It's a content curation site itself, but it can lead you to resources that you can then curate for use with your own clients. The editors of SmartBrief on Your Career choose articles from "thousands of news sites, blogs, and other sources." You can start your content curation with SmartBrief, but be sure to provide your own insight and analysis to the articles you share.

Remember: Curation, Not Collection
These are all easy ways to get content to share with jobseekers, but remember that curation isn't the same as collection. Be selective about what you share, making sure it is relevant to your readers. Give them only what you think will be helpful or interesting to them, and then add your own comments or insights. With content curation, less is more. Don't share 25 links — instead, share 2, or 5.

Other ideas:

Social Mention - http://www.socialmention.com/
Search social networks for content based on keywords and receive results via email. Also has a widget for tracking realtime news.

Monitter - http://monitter.com/
For Twitter search – Get real time and trending search results based on keywords

Social bookmarking sites
Most social bookmarking sites make it easy to keep track of content you find interesting so that you can go back to it later – Delicious, Diigo, Stumbleupon, Reddit, etc.

Instapaper – http://www.instapaper.com/
Tool for saving content to read later. Great for when you come across something interesting but just don’t have even a few minutes to look at it.

Alltop - http://my.alltop.com/
Organize your favorite content sources so you can access them easily. You can also share your collections.

Flipboard - http://flipboard.com/
App for iPhone, iPad and Android that organizes your content sources into a magazine format in which you can “flip” the pages with your finger. You can also share from within the app.

Next Up (Last Post in the Series): Do's and Don'ts of Content Curation

Where To Find Careers Content to Curate

This is the third post in a weeklong series on content curation. I've talked about what content curation is, and shared some best practices for content curation. But I'll bet you're wondering, "Where do I find the stuff to share?"

Where To Find Content to Curate 
The idea of content curation sounds simple enough. You find content your readers would like and share it with them, either summarizing it or just adding your opinions somewhere in the post. But where do you start? There's obviously a LOT of great content out there (and lots of NOT-SO-GREAT content too!). Once you start curating content, you'll realize that it takes a bit of focus and creativity to find really good content — content that is worth sharing.

Scheduling Your Content Search
The best way to find content is to work it into your regular routine. It's much better than spending a whole day tracking down content all at once. It's better because when you spend a little time each day, you find fresh content that's up to date. You also keep yourself from burning out searching the Internet for things to share. While you're curating content, you're also learning new things yourself — so the time you spend on content curation each day can be like a little mini "learning break" for you.

Choose a time to set aside each day. Try to find a time when you're most likely to enjoy the search. For example, first thing in the morning before you start your day, it might be fun to scan the Web looking for news. Or, you might prefer to do it at night while you're catching up on some TV.

Searching for content is also a great activity to do when you're killing time waiting for something. You might have 10 spare minutes before the kids come home, 20 minutes while waiting for a ballet lesson to finish, or a half hour while waiting on hold with tech support. These little nooks and crannies of time aren't great for serious, focused work, but you can use them to find content. You might not take the time to do the commenting at this point, but simply locating the content is going to give you a leg up when it comes time to actually curating. I recommend using Evernote to store your un-curated clips. You can start an Evernote Note for specific subjects and then copy-and-paste links into the Note for later use. (Have I mentioned how much I love Evernote?)

Resisting Shiny Object Syndrome
The Internet is full of shiny objects that can distract you and lead you astray. When you're looking for content, it's easier than ever to get distracted. You'll find something of interest to you and start reading, even though you have no intention of sharing it.

First of all, set aside your content search time and designate it for only searching. During that time, say to yourself, "I'm only looking for content to share." Every time you stop on a site and begin reading, ask yourself if it's something you might share. If it's not, save the link so that you can read it later in your spare time. (Again, this is a great use for an Evernote note called "To Read." Simply copy the link and paste it into the note, and move on!)

Search with an Open Mind
You need to stick to the task at hand, but don't get stuck in a rut. When you ask yourself whether the content in question is sharable, be open-minded. Try to see if there's a way you can tie it into your niche. Look for creative ideas from other industries. If you can do this successfully, you'll come up with unique content other resume writers wouldn't find.

For example, if you have a blog on executive career search, you may share an article on the new James Bond movie, Skyfall. You might reference how 007 works with a team to achieve outrageous objectives. If you work with students, you might share content about zombies. Why? Because this will attract their attention AND it's important to teach them about not "following the pack" when it comes to job search.

Think outside the box and don't forget that you can also share content you disagree with. This often gets the best reaction from readers.

Watch your audience's response to your content and judge whether or not it was a good find based on that response. Don't make the mistake of choosing content you like; always choose content that your readers will engage with.

Next up: Five Great Tools for Content Curation