Content OverlOAD

2014 was the year of customer centricity.  The year of omnichannel.  The year of mobile marketing.  The year of marketing automation. The year of app marketing.  The year of video marketing.  The year of big data.  The year of ENGAGED CONTENT!  For me, 2014 has been the year of content overload. Now that everyone is a publisher of content I am struggling to manage my own content intake. Not only do I enjoy staying on top of the latest marketing trends, I also love to dabble in emerging trends. It is natural to read as much as you can to absorb what it hot and what is not in the business world.

For the first time, I have found myself completely unable to stay on top of all the content.  Like most marketers, I am on Twitter, I am Linkedin to a number of topical groups, of course I am signed-up to receive emails from industry mags. and I receive a number of blog feeds a day.  How do you manage all of this so you can filter through the content you want/need to read most?  Here are some resources that might help you manage the content you want to read:


Evernote - Save and organize your content and reference it later on any device.

Feedly - find content in different categories and save it in categories that make sense for you.

Pinterest - Not only can you save gift and menu ideas on Pinterest, you can create boards for business ideas and can categorize them by project.

Siftlinks is a service that monitors your friend stream on Twitter, pulls out the links and creates an RSS feed for you to peruse at your leisure.

Google Alerts allow you to define the content you want and how often  you want it. Define key terms as narrow as possible in order to get the most relevant content.  

Circa makes your content bite-sized and easier to skim.


Other helpful tips:

1. Set aside a time to "research" each day but don't let it overwhelm your workday.
   
   
2. You can't read everything. As a Disney princess once said "Let it Go."
   
   
3. If you are part of a marketing team, assign keywords to each member of the group and let them share the highlights. Don't try to go it alone.
   
   
4. More and more content is in the form of infographics and easy to digest images.  Your brain can absorb these quicker.  It is amazing what you will recall when you have seen it in image form.  Just stare at it for 5 seconds and move on.
   
   
5. Build your own trusted influnecers list (see products like Traackr).
   
   
6. Change it up every now and then.  Go to live events to learn, attend webinars, join a hangout, invite an influencer in your area to lunch.  Don't limit yourself to reading everything online.
   
   

I have accepted the fact that I will miss some valuable content but it could be worse, back when I started this thing called marketing I did not have all of these content resources and learning new things was often by chance or trial and error.  These days I may be oncontent overload but I am not navigating it alone.

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