13 Unexpected Places to Find Social Media Content to Share

The problem with social media is that it’s so… DAILY, right? It never sleeps, never stops. You are always looking for more stuff to feed the content beast. Today, I hope to alleviate a little bit of that burden from you, by sharing some quality sources to find social media content. These are my real go to sources for myself, and my clients.

Look Within

First of all, look at what you already have, to find social media content that can be re-purposed.

1. Your blog. Re-purposing is the name of the game! One blog post could easily turn into 30-50+ individual social media updates.

• Write 5-7 different “lead ins” for posts on Facebook (posts to be spread out over a few weeks)
• Write 5-7 different “lead ins” for posts on Google+ (posts to be spread out over a few weeks)
• Write 5-7 different “lead ins” for posts on LinkedIn (posts to be spread out over a few weeks)
• Break up the steps or nuggets of wisdom into multiple posts for Instagram (for example, I could make each numbered item in this blog post a single post on Instagram, and do a “13 Days To Finding Better Social Media Content” series)
• Write 20 tweets for Twitter
• Pin it to Pinterest

Note: a “lead in” is the piece of copy for your post that entices someone to click on your link.

2. Your other social media channels.You don’t want to overdo it, but cross-promote content between your social media channels. For example, I tweet about 6-10 times per day, and one of those posts is always pushed from my Instagram. The rest of my tweets are posted natively (tweets written for Twitter, posted directly to Twitter), but I add value from my Instagram every day.
3. Your top performing content from the past! No one sees every single thing you post. Re-post content that performed well the first time around. What do I mean by “performed well?” That’s up to you. Maybe it got lots of likes, comments, or shares. Maybe it drove a lot of clicks to your website. Share, share, and share again.

Help keep the social media content beast fed by cross-promoting across various channels. Click To Tweet

Look To Authority Sites

4. News Sites. Large news websites cover a variety of topics and have tons of contributors. Search keywords on these sites to find relevant stories, or even discover newer writers with smaller audiences who have content that hasn’t already been over shared.
5. Industry Associations. Every industry has some kind of association, guild, or governing body. These groups exist to report on relevant industry topics, yet they are frequently overlooked as great sources to find social media content.

Piggyback on Trends

6. Holidays. While real holidays are nice, here I’m talking about the less serious ones. You can find a holiday that displays appreciation for just about anything. Tacos, circus performers, HAM radios. Seriously, anything. Check out National Day Calendar or Days of the Year to find your special day. And if you need to make one up, I won’t tell anyone.
7. Hashtags. There’s a hashtag for everything and several for each day of the week… And if not, just make one up! #WellnessWednesday, #MotivationMonday, #WineWednesday, #TipTuesday. You are sure to find something that fits in with your niche.

Search It Out

8. Pinterest. I love searching Pinterest, because you often get very different results than what you find on Google. Plus, you can see what is trending and share worthy because Pinterest displays the number of repins on each pin.
9. Post Planner. Post Planner identifies itself as a “social media engagement app.” Basically, it has algorithms that scan and rate social media content to determine what is getting the best engagement. You can create filters and run searches on keywords, and it will return content that it believes to be engaging. I have the major keywords for all of my clients set up in the app, and it finds me some great articles.
10. BuzzSumo. Use BuzzSumo in a similar way. Search your keywords to find content that has the most shares and likes, or browse various categories to see what’s trending.
11. Google Trends & Google Alerts. These are actually two separate tools, but I really wanted this list to have an odd number. “14 Unexpected Places to Find Social Media Content” just doesn’t have the same ring. #keepingitreal. Anyway, with Google Trends you can see what subjects are trending on the interwebs. You can see general trends, like what has been popular this month or year, or you can see what is trending right this moment. When you know what keywords you are interested in, you can set up Google Alerts. Google Alerts will email you popular and relevant articles for your keywords, at an interval you set up. For instance, I get daily Google Alerts for the word “Instagram,” so that I’m sure to know about any big Insta-news right away.
12. Social Bookmarking Sites. There are many social bookmarking sites to choose from. With social bookmarking sites, users can save and tag various links that they find valuable. These shared links have the ability to be exponentially saved and shared by other users (like with Pinterest). Some are StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious. Check social bookmarking sites for your keywords to see what popular articles people are saving.
13. Twitter. Search your keywords on Twitter and see what the trending tweets are. Chances are, you can find an article or two on your topic that’s being shared a lot. You can share it yourself while it’s still a hot topic.

Find shareworthy social media content by searching your keywords on Twitter for trending articles. Click To Tweet

What are your favorite sources for finding high-quality social media content?

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