In order to establish yourself as an expert in your niche and build your brand, one of the most vital components of your tool kit is finding and sharing great content. There is truly an art to this and a skill set that can be learned. The trick is finding fun, unique and exciting content that is educational, sparks conversation when shared, and inspires retweets and re-shares.
For dietitians, a popular source of content is our daily Knowledge Center email from the Academy, providing URLs to all nutrition-related links in the news. This is a good starting point, but I confess I follow many dietitians and these are shared by many. If you’re going to share them, you need to put your own spin on them.
Here are some other ideas:
1. Create Google email alerts for topics you are interested in. These will suggest news articles on a particular topic.
2. Follow your favorite news organizations on Twitter, Facebook and so forth to see articles that get your interest. Favorite them on Twitter, then re-share on your social media channels. I will stress though, if a colleague has shared it, be sure to mention him or her when re-sharing.
3. Download various news apps for articles. Some off-the-beaten-path suggestions:
- Prismatic — another relatively new content-creation app used by professional marketers.
- Feedly — both a great app and website that allows you to tailor a news feed based on preferences. It is also a good replacement for the old Google reader as it pulls the RSS feeds from blogs you may have followed there.
- Smart Brief — also a website and app with various folders on topics such as social media, travel, tourism and the restaurant industry. It also has a folder titled Smartbrief for Nutritionists. The app has a team of people that search for articles to add — you simply refresh the app for new links to check out.
- Flipboard — another popular app that pulls content based on your preferences.
- Trove — a newcomer, it allows you to create your own trove from suggested articles. You then pick and add to your trove, others can in turn follow you and you can follow them. I have found some gems here but honestly it is a little technical.
4. Many news organizations also have apps, such as USA Today, Associated Press, Washington Post, NBC News and many other U.S. newspapers. Some others I like:
- The BBC News app (Android users and iPhone/iPad users) is one of my favorites as it has a great health section.
- Reuters News Pro is a nice app with a good health section.
5. And, finally, we can’t ignore social media:
- One to watch will be Facebook’s new Paper app, which will feature a news feed from friends and pages you follow, and you can also add other sections based on interests. With the app, you can read articles and then share to your Facebook wall or tweet. With a lovely, fresh and easy-to-navigate design, this app has huge potential and is getting great reviews.
- Vine is also fun — following interesting folks around the world. You can re-vine or tweet clips you like. For example, I enjoy sharing food market posts and cooking clips.
What are your favorite places to find great content?
