Michael Patterson
Is your schedule packed full of social media content?
Some experts schedule their entire social media calendar months in advance, while others like wing it day-to-day.
Either way, there is one thing all the social pros have in common…
They are pumping out lots of consistent content.
So we need content and lots of it if we want to make a lasting impression on social media.
Where do we find it all?
A big time-sucker for most social media managers comes from finding relevant, interesting pieces of content to fill up their social media calendar.
Not everything you find is solid gold, and wading your way through the noise to find thought-provoking content is tough.
That’s why I put together 21 of the top places you can find or create content to share on your social networks.
Create your own content
Creating your own content will ensure that you always have something new to share with your followers.
Although it’s more time consuming, creating content from scratch gives you more control over the message.
From photo to video, here are the places that make crafting new content easy.
1. Company blog
A company blog is a solid place to turn for social media content.
You have complete control over the topic you choose to write about, and when you share a link with your followers you’re driving potential customers back to your own site instead of someone else’s.
If you don’t have a blog to source content from you should consider starting one.
2. Canva
Canva is a web-based design tool that allows you to easily create images you can share across your social networks.
Canva is fantastic because it even has an entire section of social media templates that let you create posts perfectly sized for each social network.
Plus, its “Design School” blog has tips and tricks for creating great images.
3. Instagram
You can’t build a user-base of over 300 million people without having a fantastic product.
Instagram is such an amazing tool that its filters can make even the most novice photographer look like a professional.
The site also makes it easy to quickly share your photos to other networks.
4. Wistia
Wistia is a video hosting and analytics platform that makes it easy to upload videos to share across your social networks.
One of the great things about Wistia is the new “Learning Hub,” which has a ton of fantastic resources that help you get started with your own video marketing.
5. Piktochart
Piktochart is a site for creating your own infographics.
Infographics are a very popular way to deliver data-driven content to your followers.
Although they take a while to put together, Infographics have a unique way of increasing your social shares.
6. Vine
Although Vine is owned by Twitter, you can still share your content from the site to other social networks. In fact, the platform just recently announced a new share screen that contains a handful of updates to their sharing functionality, like the ability to send Vines directly to Tumblr.
7. Text updates
You don’t always need to share photos, videos or links with your audience.
Sometimes regular text updates will yield better engagement.
One example of a brand with great text updates is Denny’s Diner. The brand often garners incredible engagement on posts that are strictly text.
waffles have the cuuuuutest dimples
— Denny’s (@DennysDiner) May 27, 2015
Tip: Follow Denny’s on Twitter, their posts are hilarious.
Source your content online
Creating content is great, but sometimes finding content is better for speed.
Here are the sites that you can visit to find popular, thought-provoking content to share with your social following.
8. Pinterest
Pinterest allows you to follow content hubs curated by individuals or brands called ‘Boards’.
You can follow Boards based on the topics that you’re interested in or brands you like, and Pinterest shows you a feed of all the content they create.
You can then share these posts right to your social networks.
9. YouTube
We all know what YouTube is, but did you know 300 hours of video get uploaded to the site every minute?
With all of that content readily available, you’re bound to find a video relevant to your audience that you can share.
10. Feedly
Feedly allows you to subscribe to some of your favorite blogs and streams all the new posts into your inbox.
You can also integrate your Feedly account into social tools like Sprout Social which then makes it easy to share the articles you enjoy.
11. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a tool that allows you to search for the most socially shared content by topic or domain name.
This gives you access to the content you already know people enjoy.
Someone looking for topics similar to this post could search “content curation” to find other pieces.
12. Scoop.it
Scoop.it is essentially a social network for content curation.
You create a profile, follow the people and topics that you find interesting and your feed fills up with interesting content.
Then you can easily schedule that content to post across all of your social networks.
13. Curata
Curata’s platform was created specifically for content curation.
It sources articles from thousands of places and uses a proprietary algorithm to adapt the content it recommends you to fit personal preferences.
You can then share the recommended posts to your social networks.
Follow content submission sites
Some sites out there rely on marketers to submit their favorite posts, articles and news for their content.
That makes these sites a great resource to find some of the newest, most insightful articles to share with your followers.
14. Inbound.org
Inbound is an online marketing community of around 65,000 marketers that come from all around the world to share their favorite content.
If you’re interested in anything related to inbound marketing, this is the place for you to source articles.
15. Reddit
Reddit, also known as the “front page of the internet,” has a massive community of users who are constantly adding content to the site.
As long as you know how to navigate the subreddits—topic pages—you should never be short on quality content to share.
16. GrowthHackers
GrowthHackers is a community very similar to Inbound.org, except that the submissions are all about growth marketing.
This makes it a great place for early stage companies to find the best content to share.
17. BizSugar
BizSugar operates just like Inbound and GrowthHackers, except the main subject is small business news and tips.
So check this site out if your audience needs tips on small business.
User generated content
Word of mouth marketing is very important for brands. That’s why it’s always a great idea to source positive content from your current customers or followers.
Take advantage of these strategies to find great user generated content to share.
18. Surprise and delight
This is a phrase that we use at Sprout Social. We find one of our top social fans or product users and surprise them with a box of Sprout swag.
Almost 100% of the time these people will mention it on social, and then we re-share their post.
As if I couldn’t love @SproutSocial more, they go ahead and send me this box full of needed goodies ❤️ #SproutLove pic.twitter.com/YnoIrBHcbc
— Marji J. Sherman (@MarjiJSherman) May 28, 2015
19. Contests
Many companies find positive user generated social posts by running contests asking their users to Tweet to them using a certain phrase or hashtag.
These companies can then pick and choose some of those Tweets to share with their followers.
20. Monitor social mentions
You may like to use a social media tool like Sprout Social to monitor Twitter for mentions of your brand.
Then, whenever you see positive Tweets you can Retweet them to your audience.
That provides an easy piece of content to share that shows your followers how well you’re received by your clients.
21. Find guests
If you’re running a blog and you’re pressed for new content you can invite guest bloggers to submit a post to your site.
They’ll benefit from the increase in brand awareness, and you’ll benefit from a new piece of social media content to share.
Go with what works for you
No two brands have identical social media followings, so what works for some companies may not necessarily work for you.
The key is to share different forms of content, and monitor your followers’ feedback to see what resonates with them.
Then you can continue to test and optimize for success.
(270)
