Struggling to produce engaging posts and find content for Instagram, Facebook and the rest?
You’ve got a couple of options:
A) Take even MORE time out of your day to create posts your fans will like.
B) Spend just a few minutes curating popular content.
Data-driven content strategies focus on EFFICIENCY.
Posting content ALREADY proven to be successful is the most efficient route to take.
That means your most efficient option is B!
Instead of writing THOUSANDS of words every month or taking TONS of pics — post popular content from around the web!
Looking for a quick hack? Try Post Planner for free — it's a social media content curation app that's PROVEN to increase engagement.
How to Find Content for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter
We’ll cover these topics so you can use curated content to attract more people to your page (and turn them into paying customers):
- Pro tip: Use your blog for evergreen curation
- 3 Benefits of using curated content
- What types of social media content should I look for?
- How to find social media content the old-fashioned way
- How to use Post Planner to save TONS of time finding content for social media
These tips and strategies can be used to find the BEST content for Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and MORE!
Pro tip: Use your blog for curation
Every business should have a blog.
Why?
Blogs are great for:
- Driving organic search traffic
- Nurturing leads
- Building an audience with trust from EDUCATION-based marketing
This educational content is perfect for repurposing into social media content.
Just make sure your content is evergreen if you want to get the most out of your blog.
Evergreen content is content that will still be relevant in YEARS from now.
Think of content topics like:
- Tips
- How to's
- Strategies
Do you have at least 30 blog posts that are educational and evergreen?
Perfect!
That means you have a month’s worth of content that you can put on autopilot by adding them to a social media schedule.
Here's how:
- Share 1 of those posts every day on social media.
- Post a shortened version or snippet of the blog post's content on social media.
- Include a link to the article to drive social visits to your website!
- Then, you can recycle (or re-share) the best posts in future months!
These posts are the baited hooks that help you “catch” and monetize new viewers.
However, you’ll never catch a whole boatload of fish with just baited hooks.
For that, you have to “chum the waters” with engaging 3rd party content that can attract larger numbers of people.
3 Reasons why you need curated content
Is it really worth the effort it takes to find 3rd-party content?
Will sharing 3rd-party content help your website, or is it just “fluff” that you should avoid?
These are common questions when it comes to curated content.
You want to know that the time they spend looking for 3rd-party content will be rewarded.
I don’t blame you.
It'd be pointless to spend time looking for content if it didn’t ultimately help your business thrive.
Curated content provides 3 awesome benefits you CAN’T get just from your own content:
1. It saves you time (if you know how to look for it).
2. It increases engagement.
3. It encourages others to repay the favor.
1. It saves you time
If you’ve ever written blog posts, you know that it can take a TON of time.
Writing is a long, drawn-out process including the following tasks:
- Performing audience analysis
- Doing keyword research
- Writing thousands of words
- Editing, optimizing, and posting
All told, a single blog post normally takes nearly ALL DAY to complete.
As a business owner, you simply don’t have that kind of time.
Saving time is the first area where curated content comes in handy.
If you know where to look, finding content for social media is a straightforward process.
BEWARE: We never recommend using ONLY curated content in your social media content strategy.
However, we do recommend adding it to your social media calendar's mix to save a TON of time on your todo list (while engaging your audience).
2. It increases your engagement
Variety is the spice of life.
Variety is also the spice of creating a successful social media strategy (doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?).
If all you ever post is self-promotional content, your engagement WILL drop.
People will eventually get bored of the repetition (especially if you’re recycling your evergreen content).
They’ll stop clicking through to your profile or your website.
They may even unfollow your social media accounts.
But there’s a solution: Mix in varied 3rd-party content from around the web!
Curated content keeps your social media accounts FRESH and engaging.
People will continue to click, comment, and share your posts because they’re still interesting.
For example, look at this engaging Facebook post:
Running a health blog?
Sharing a valuable post like this one will keep your followers interested in YOU.
Why?
2 reasons:
1. It shows that you’re staying up-to-date with research
2. It shows you're aware of what other industry leaders are talking about
3. Reciprocation
Posting curated content encourages others to share YOUR content on THEIR pages.
In other words, people thank you for sharing their content by sharing your content.
This reaction can start to snowball and greatly increase the number of people who view and share your content.
This can result in mentions and shout outs to your profile, which is extremely helpful for expanding your audience.
The most important rule to sharing curated content: ALWAYS give credit to the original poster.
If you don’t, you’ll come across as a content thief!
If you’re stealing people’s content, they’re probably not going to thank you for it.
To avoid that issue, just make sure you always give credit to the original source.
For example, take a look at this Facebook post that clearly credits and links the photographer:
What types of social media content should I look for?
Not all social media content is created equal.
Looking through social media posts, you’ll find:
- Poor quality photos
- Inaccurate info
- Typos and grammatical errors
- Inappropriate content
Generally speaking, you should avoid anything that may reflect poorly on your brand.
However, you should also vary the types of social media content you post to keep your viewers’ attention.
In other words, focus on QUALITY!
As long as quality is your top priority, you can’t go wrong.
Be especially vigilant about incorporating these 3 types of content into your social media schedule:
- Text
- Visual content
- 3rd party links
Let’s quickly look at each of these 3 types of social media content and talk about how to integrate them into your posting schedule.
Text
One of the most popular ways to introduce text-based 3rd-party content into your social media content plan is by curating quotes for your viewers.
There are a few ways to incorporate quotes into your posts:
- Popular quotes
- Quotes from industry leaders that your viewers may find helpful
- Statistics
- Funny quotes to introduce a theme
The key to text-based curated content is to be creative.
You can put curated text into a photo description, or you can make a photo out of the text itself.
For an example of how to incorporate text into your content schedule, take a look at this Facebook post:
Visual content
When most people hear the words “visual content,” they just think of pictures.
While pictures certainly do fall under this category, it also includes other types of visual content like:
- Infographics
- Gifs
- Videos
Visual content boosts engagement by 230% on Facebook and 150% on Twitter!
You can’t afford NOT to regularly post visual content on all your social media channels.
Just like with text-based posts, try to vary the type of visual content you share.
Make sure that the visual content supports the main point of the post.
In other words, don’t post an unrelated picture with your article just because you want to boost engagement.
It needs to directly relate to your content (which should be relevant to your niche).
3rd-party links
Ready for some advice that might seem counterintuitive?
Include 3rd-party links to articles, videos, and other content on your social media page.
Why promote someone else’s content?
Promoting other blogs is a kind gesture.
On social media, that kind of generosity helps in a few ways:
- It positions you as a connector within your niche.
- It exposes you to other people’s audiences, which boosts your clicks and follows.
- It encourages reciprocity — when you share other people’s content, they may share yours in return.
But don’t give up on writing and posting your own articles!
Remember: 3rd-party content should never REPLACE your own original content.
It should only SUPPLEMENT it.
How to find content for Instagram, Facebook and the rest (the old-fashioned way)
Now that you know what type of content you’re looking for, let’s talk about finding content to share on social media.
You definitely don’t want to spend hours scouring the web for 3rd-party content.
But that’s exactly what can happen if you don’t know how to efficiently curate content.
We’ve compiled two methods for looking for content:
- The old-fashioned way
- The Post Planner way
The old-fashioned way isn’t a bad option.
It just takes more time and effort to execute.
Let’s talk about the old-fashioned method of content curation and how you can make it work for you.
Manually search for relevant Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Facebook feeds
Let’s say that your business is targeting the keyword “fitness.”
Search for that term on the social media platform you’re using.
Searching within the social media platform helps you find content already optimized for that channel.
For example, I searched for “Fitness” on Facebook.
Then I limited my search to “Pages.”
After you find a helpful page, click on the 3 dots on the right side of the page and choose “save.”
That adds the page to a collection you can reference later.
Name the collection and continue to add pages to it as needed.
Repeat this process for all of the keywords you want to target.
Create a new collection for each keyword.
You can repeat the exact same process using Twitter lists.
Creating collections will allow you to easily access the MOST valuable pages when you want to post curated content.
Repost the best content to your social media pages
When it’s time to post curated content to your social media pages, just go back through your collections to look for the most relevant content.
Take the collections I created around the “fitness” keyword.
I can quickly find relevant fitness content by going through the profiles saved to my Facebook collection or Twitter list.
For example, I found this post with a (very delicious looking) recipe designed for people who are working out in just a few minutes:
I can share this post on my own fitness enthusiast page.
It incorporates visual content and text, which makes it extra interesting to our followers!
Revisit each page regularly to find new content
This is where it gets really easy.
Regularly revisit each of your collections to look for content that might appeal to your viewers.
When you find something relevant, interesting, and valuable, share it!
Don’t be afraid to inject your own flair into each of the posts you make.
But always remember the golden rule of content curation:
CREDIT THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR!
How to use Post Planner to save TONS of time finding content for Instagram, etc.
The old-fashioned method of finding content works.
You’ll find great material, boost your engagement, and gain new customers.
The biggest problem?
The old-fashioned method is reeeeeally slow.
It takes quite a bit of effort to get your collections or lists set up.
That doesn’t include the time it takes to manually go through them EVERY time you want to post.
That’s where Post Planner comes in.
Post Planner streamlines the whole process and makes finding relevant content a breeze.
Keep reading for a step-by-step look at how to find great content on Post Planner’s content streams.
1. Look through the popular content streams
It’s a good idea to occasionally take a break from super niche content and post content with broad appeal.
Post Planner has a great selection of quotes, pictures, articles, and statuses you can use.
Simply scroll down to the “Popular Content Streams” section of your dashboard and select one that interests you.
Once you choose a content stream:
- Look through the popular posts.
- Find something you like.
- Add it to your schedule to be automatically posted.
The “Popular” section is usually useful to everyone, no matter what your niche is.
It’s the kind of content that everybody likes.
2. Do a keyword search for relevant content
When looking for content specific to your niche, do a keyword search on Post Planner.
For example, I searched for fitness.
Instantly, Post Planner returned a collection of curated content from around the web.
I also had the option to limit my search by social media platform.
You can also limit your searches to certain types of content:
- Images
- GIFs
- Videos
- Articles
3. Look through pre-made content streams
Post Planner also allows you to access content streams made by other Post Planner users.
Other Post Planner users have likely already done the heavy lifting of research for you.
All you have to do is add their content stream to your dashboard.
There are also pre-made collections of content from Facebook and Twitter.
If you want to see content exclusively from one of those channels, add a pre-made feed.
You can find pre-made content streams for almost any keyword on Post Planner.
That makes finding new content sources INCREDIBLY quick and simple.
4. Add the best content sources to a new content stream
What if you can’t find a content stream that has the kind of content you want?
Just make a new one!
It’s super easy to make a new content stream:
1. Perform a keyword search for one of your target terms.
2. Hover over one of the profiles that you want to add to your content stream.
3. Click the plus symbol.
4. Customize your new stream with a name, image, and color.
5. Click “Create New Stream.”
Continue adding new feeds to your stream until you have enough variety for your social media calendar.
Your new stream will continuously update itself as the pages within it post new content.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for your main keywords
You’re probably targeting more than 1 keyword.
Repeat the process of looking for content streams for EACH of the keywords you want to use.
By the end of this process, you’ll have access to content from dozens (even hundreds) of pages across multiple social media channels.
How do you access that wealth of content?
Click on the content stream that you want to look at from your dashboard.
The most recent posts on your saved feeds will AUTOMATICALLY appear!
6. Add content to your social media calendar
Post Planner isn’t just a content finder for social media.
It’s also a scheduler and a social media calendar.
What exactly does that mean? Post Planner will:
- Automatically post content whenever you want it to.
- Allow you to customize posting days and times for each social media channel.
- Allow you to determine exactly what type of media is allowed to post at certain times of the day.
Add to your calendar by selecting the content you found in your stream and clicking “Create Post.”
Fill in all the details for the caption.
Then click “Add to Plan.”
Post Planner will automatically publish posts to your social media accounts EXACTLY when you choose.
Repeat this process to get a whole month’s worth of posting done in an afternoon!
7. Recycle popular content
Recycling your most popular content is a great way to beef up your social media content strategy.
After all, why post something you aren’t sure about when you can post something you KNOW will do well?
Post Planner makes this easy for you to do.
Take a closer look at the bottom corner of the post we selected above.
There is an option to toggle “Recycle.”
If you turn it on, Post Planner will save that post for future use.
Recycling content without an automated scheduler can be a pain.
You’d have to go back and find the content manually.
Then you have to repost it.
On Post Planner, you just have to click one button.
It’s that easy.
Final Thoughts on how to find content for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and more
Variety brings social media pages to life.
Try different types of social media content and see what works best for your audience.
Remember to always focus on the QUALITY of your posts.
If you provide outstanding quality to your readers, you’ll see consistent growth over time.
Curating content is a time-effective way to offer a wide variety of high-value content.
That leads to increased engagement, website traffic, leads, and conversions!
Post Planner helps you to take full advantage of the BEST 3rd-party content the internet has to offer.
How have you used 3rd-party content to boost your engagement and make more sales?
Tell us in the comments!
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