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Social Selling Tool Kit: Building a Content Library

Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks

Social Selling Toolkit
Welcome to the Social Selling Toolkit Series. This is the beginning of a bi-weekly blog series that is going to focus on a specific segment of Social Selling tools in each post. The topic focuses will cover areas like CRMS, tracking & automation tools, mobile integrations and online meeting platforms.

Under each tool highlighted we will provide a short summary and use case for the tool as well as a link back to the tool’s website where you can learn more about it. Some tools will be available free-of-charge and some will be available only by paid subscription. We will clarify which is which. And as always, if you have any suggestions for other tools we can include in our post, please feel free to mention them via the comment box provided below.

This week’s post focuses on Social Selling tools you can use to help build a content library. As you may know, regularly sharing content with your network is one of the cornerstones of Social Selling success. In order to do this on a daily basis in an efficient manor, we recommend that you use at least one or more of the tools listed below to help gather content on a particular topic focus.

Content Library Tools

Google Alerts

Price Range: FREE
Google Alerts is one of the best tools available for regularly receiving content on a particular topic. This keyword driven tool allows you to quickly create a search based on any topic you’d like (an industry buzz word or company name, for example) and setup alerts sent to your email, based on those queries, at the frequency of your choosing.

You can also use the available filters to target specific information sources or geographic areas if you’d like. This is by far one of the most used Social Selling tools in my personal tool kit.

In addition to finding content on industry topics for your content library, Google Alerts is also awesome for finding competitor intelligence… Shhhh you didn’t hear that from me though 😉

Feedly

Price Range: FREE → $
Feedly is another Google owned product but this time one that was acquired rather than developed by the search giant. Feedly is an amazing content aggregator where users can easily compile multiple sources of information and sort them by topic focus. The product operates on a “freemium” model meaning that much of the functionality is available at no cost. There is a monthly premium charged for certain levels of integration for instance direct sharing to LinkedIn. Not to worry though, the free version is good enough to source an article through Feedly and then share through other means afterwards.

Another awesome component of Feedly is its mobile app which acts as a content library on-the-go. Once you setup your Feedly account you can access it on your smartphone/tablet and stay up-to-date on your favorite topics every where you go (i.e. commuting or waiting for a client meeting).

Pocket

Price Range: FREE
Pocket is a cool little Social Selling tool that is relatively new to the tool kit. It acts as a browser extension that links back to a private content repository. Any time you come across a cool article that you want to save and share with your network or a client later, you can simply click the pocket button located in the upper right hand corner of your browser and it is automatically saved to your account.

You can also add tags to easily find and sort through the content again when you’re ready to share it with the world. I use pocket simultaneous for professional and personal use by differentiating my content with the tag feature. Another cool feature: all of the content is available offline, on your desktop or anywhere you set up the app.

Twitter Lists

Price Range: FREE → $
Lists are an under utilized feature of Twitter that enable users to sift through the noise and focus on the content that’s important to them. If you want to create a Twitter list you can do so by logging into your account, finding a series of sources that post information on your topic of choice, clicking the little gear icon that appears on their profile and then choosing “add or remove from list.” If you have not already done so, you create a new list at this time based on your topic focus and add as many sources to it as you’d like.

Orrrrr you could let someone else do the leg work for you. If you are choosing a popular topic focus such as “business analytics” or “mobile strategy,” chances are someone has already created a public list that you can simply subscribe to. You can do this by entering your search term at the top of your twitter page, clicking “Timelines” on the left hand side of the page, finding a relevant list and then clicking “Subscribe.” I’d recommend checking this out first for popular lists before going to all the effort of creating a new one from scratch.

PostBeyond

Price Range: $ → $$
PostBeyond is a social advocacy platform that bridges the gap between sales and marketing departments, especially when corporate sharing regulations are involved. It is available by subscription and is an invaluable tool if you are looking to leverage your sales team as extensions of your brand.

The marketing department and/or management is able to fill the library with content that is preapproved for sales reps to share out with their networks. Sales reps are then able to quickly review and post the content right from within PostBeyond. It also offers integrations with other content aggregator tools like Feedly. If you are looking to increase your sales team’s engagement with your marketing team’s content, I’d highly recommend checking out this tool.

I hope you’ve found this article helpful in your endeavors of building a content library to share with your network. Do keep in mind, these tools are particularly useful for finding 3rd party content to share with your network. It is also very beneficial to share your own original content whenever possible.

Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for other content library tools to check out via the comment box provided. And if you’d like to book a quick convo together you can do so by clicking the green “Let’s Talk Social Selling” button below.

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