Jeremy Caplan is the Director of Education, Tow-Knight Center Entrepreneurial Journalism and an amazing teacher. I’ve never met him face-to-face, but I’ve learned some much from reading and using his curated instructional materials. He recently shared “Toolsets for Social Media,” a brilliantly curated collection of tools. Before we dig into the content, let me point out why this so brilliant.
- A stellar example of content curation: Content curation is not aggregation or a big gigantic list of links. A content curator vets, filters, organizes, and presents information in a instructional way. He has organized clusters of tools around different concepts of use that a social media professional might need.
- Information Design: Good content curators categorize according to the needs of their audience. This list of tools is organized into 7 work flow areas that journalist using social media tools will use. These are all tools that mostly for mobile phones, easy to use, and for individuals, not enterprise. Most are free or low cost.
- Format: He has organized this resource in a Google document — his slides, FAQ, and links are on one page. He has also made the document editable and invited feedback. He also makes full use of Google Document formating features so the document is visually pleasing and easy to use.
With that said, not only has he organized his list of tools to be instructional, he has carefully selected clusters of tools for each part of the work flow, like a sommelier selecting a fine wine to match each part of an exquisite meal. And, he has not selected the same old, same old social media tools that we hear about all the time.
Here’s an example: Make Ideas More Visible
- Oneshot: Highlight screenshots of text and share on Twitter
- Viz: Create simple charts and graphs
- Pablo: Create engaging images for your social media posts in minutes
- Share As Image: Create visual micro content
Anyway, what I love most about this resource is the way it is chunked so you can learn to master a few tools at a time. In other words, you have a learning journey here in this resourced, mapped out in 15 minutes a day over the next month or so.
Recently, Kerri Karvestski presented a webinar on charity:how to on 30 social media tools for nonprofits, organized by platform and functionality of the tool.
What’s the best resource collection of social media tools that you’ve seen lately?
