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3 Content Aggregators For The B2B Community Manager Toolkit

Lauren Donovan on June 21, 2012 at 12:18 pm

It’s nothing new to preach the importance of sharing non-competitive, complementary, third party content for brands actively participating in social media. To make friends, you have to be friendly – that’s true for B2C and B2B alike. Friendly friends discuss mutual interests that fascinate and benefit one another. They don’t talk about themselves the whole time.

To that end, we teach clients that best practice is to have a rich, informative, and consistently flowing social feed comprised of at least 80% non-branded content, 20% branded. But where, oh sweet social media community manager in heaven, where does that 80% come from?

Many modern day community managers have dynamic job descriptions that span reputation monitoring, orchestrating feed content, publication management, and handling intra-community bloodshed and brand crises.

It’s not feasible to spend hours each day hunting down topical articles, videos, and infographics worth tweeting and posting to Facebook. Agency CMs who spread themselves across multiple communities with which they may be more or less unfamiliar are at more of a disadvantage.

The solution: Automated content aggregation!

No, we don’t mean turning on a robot at a desk and letting it run the show. Tisk tisk. But there are fabulous tools to be leveraged for streamlining the aggregation of top-shelf content that can then be generously shared with your B2B community. Gone are the days of scouring the Web for quality content your community will dig!

Here’s a run-through of some tremendous content aggregators that make locating awesome content to share fun and incredibly easy.

First thing’s first. Look to classic keyword research and social demographic research for keen insight on how your target audience talks about your company’s goods and services, and what their own interests and hobbies are. Focus on the short-tail keywords and map those babies to some or all of the aggregators below.

AllTop

Whenever we speak at conferences on the importance of content aggregation, we’re astounded to learn that some marketers and community managers still don’t know about AllTop. This is the mother of all content aggregators!

AllTop operates on preset categories, so you actually don’t have to be too inventive with how you navigate the site or surf for content. Ten main categories break down into dozens upon dozens of subcategories, and each subcategory is a portal for a heaping pile of topical blog feeds with links to the five most recent posts.

Libraries, for example, is a subcategory under “Interests.” Check out the loot:

You can get lost for centuries cruising around all the fresh posts and photos… or you can spend five minutes in the morning with your cup of coffee and skim the goods, bookmark a handful links, then sprinkle them with thoughtful editorial in your corporate B2B tweet-stream throughout the day. Heck, you can even schedule the tweets, check in periodically for @mentions, and focus on another task at hand.

Buzzfeed

Want to share something fresh, fabulous, popular, and trending with your community? Skip on over to Buzzfeed, one of a few homes for “the hottest, most social content on the Web.”

Links on Buzzfeed have a serious propensity to go viral, or are OMG-famous already. Spend a few minutes plugging in keywords or targets from social demographic research to hone in on tasty, topical content your target audience will love.

Note: Everyone loves adorable cat / puppy / sloth / red panda / furry animals in general photos. Everyone.

Oh yeah, we went there. The trendy social bookmarking darling many B2B brands think “just isn’t for them” actually has a variety of uses beyond powerful content aggregation.

But for starters, go ahead! Stick in some interests or keywords related to your community or business. See if there’s nothing there for you to scope out. Odds are, there’s a gem or two, at least.

Factor in social endorsements. Look for content with an intersection of quality, relevance, and repins, likes, and comments.

Special Bonus: Pinterest for Friend-Making & Cunning Competitive Intelligence

So… did you find a cool piece of relevant content pinned by someone you don’t know? Check out PinReach to learn a little more about him or her. Enter a profile URL, identify their far-reaching pins, popular pins are, and more. Perhaps this is an authority user you should begin wooing…

In the mood for a little reconnaissance? Go here now! http://pinterest.com/source/COMPETITORWEBSITE.com.

Behold: Everything anyone in the world has pinned from your competitors’ sites. Are your corporate rivals doing something you’re not? Creating or rebroadcasting hot content you’re not? Use their activity and engagement for inspiration. Devise a counter-attack… and strike!

Happy sharing, hunting, sleuthing, and friending.

About The Author

Lauren Donovan

Lauren Donovan has worked in online marketing since 2006, specializing in content generation, organic social media, community management, real-time journalism, and holistic social befriending. She currently serves as the Content Marketing Manager at Third Door Media, parent company to Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today, SMX, and The MarTech Conference.