Social Media Brainstorming

Social media is an important part of your small business marketing plan. Coming up with relevant and interesting content to post on a regular basis (that isn’t just about your biz) requires a little extra time.

At this point, you might be thinking that you don’t have time to sit around, browse the web, find great content and then post it to your social media accounts. Thankfully, there are free and low cost tools out there designed for busy small businesses like you.

You can use curation tools. These social media tools find or suggest content that your audience will like and make it easy for you to share it. Here’s a list of three to check out:

1. Swayy

Swayy is focused entirely on social media curation. You tell it what topics you’re interested in and it’ll generate a list of related content. It also looks at your posts, your audience’s interests and their engagement with your business to add to the list.

The content is presented in a visual way, making it easy to scroll through and find interesting items to share. Here’s what a curated list of content looks like:

If you what to share something, you can do so immediately or schedule it to appear at a later date. Swayy will analyze how well it did with your audience and refine the content search for the next time around. You can also view your analytics reports in real-time.

The free version gives you one dashboard. If you want to add to it, plans start at $9 a month.

2. Zite

Similar to Swayy, Zite gives you a list of content that matches your interests. As you look through the content, you can “like it” and the site will suggest similar content. As your list of liked content grows, the site hones in on your taste and gives you specifically tailored content to check out.

It has a clean layout, mimicking that of a newspaper or magazine. Here’s an example of what you’ll see:

When you find a must-share article, you can post it directly to your site or social networks.

Added bonus: It’s free.

3. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a popular social media tool. Many small business owners use it to manage multiple social sites, but it suggests content too. There’s a “suggested content” section where you can select topics of interest and get a list of popular posts that fit in that category.

If you see something you like, you can post it to your account with a few easy clicks. Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see, the content is set up in a list format, which is a different look than other tools.

As mentioned, Hootsuite is not just a curation tool. It’s a social media management tool as well, so you can access several social sites all from one dashboard, which is helpful for Aly Silverio, founder of independent clothing line Jawbreaking.

“It’s awesome being able to line up our tweets and not have to worry about constantly being on our phones to post tweets,” she says.

You get a double feature with this tool: curation and management.

There is a free version, with limited features. Paid plans start at $9.99 a month.

How to get started

Before you dive into any of these platforms, figure out what specific goals you want to achieve. Are you hoping to drive more visitors to your website? Would you like to find relevant content to share with your audience? Are you curious about whether or not your audience enjoys the content you’re sharing?

Once you know what you’d like to achieve, try out the free versions of the platforms and select one that fits your needs.

Which social media curation tools are your favorites? Let us know in the comments section below.

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