7 Subjects of Academic Terminology

7 Subjects of Academic Terminology 7 Subjects of Academic Terminology 7 Subjects of Academic Terminology By Mark Nichol Go to the head of the class by observing these rules, recommendations, and conventions about scholastic terminology: 1. Courses Specific course names are capitalized but not enclosed in quotation marks: â€Å"Every section of Introduction to Psychology is closed.† A numbered course, even a conjectural one, is also capitalized: â€Å"The senator obviously failed Economics 101 [or â€Å"Econ 101†].† Generic references, however, should be lowercased: â€Å"She was late to her engineering class.† 2. Degrees A reference to an academic degree is best spelled out, and should be lowercased: â€Å"She earned a bachelor’s degree in English.† â€Å"A master’s degree usually requires completion of a master’s thesis.† â€Å"All earned their doctoral degrees [or â€Å"doctorates†] at prestigious universities.† This form simplifies matters, because use of initials is complicated by a couple of factors: First, not all universities style degrees with the abbreviations BA, MA, or PhD; some reverse the letter order in the first two cases. (PhD, for â€Å"doctor of philosophy,† is already reversed, so it’s inconsistent, but let’s just let that long-standing convention go.) Furthermore, distinct abbreviations exist for a bachelor’s degree in divinity (BD), fine arts (BFA), music (BM), and science (BS). The same holds true for some master’s degrees. For simplicity, use the generic phrase â€Å"bachelor’s degree† or â€Å"master’s degree. Also, people are divided on whether to include periods after each initial; if you must use abbreviations, omitting periods is the simplest solution (especially if you use plural forms). Note that unless the name of the major is a proper noun, such as the name of a language, it should be lowercased: â€Å"Every applicant has a master’s degree in business administration.† (Anyone who has attained this degree may also be referred to as a master of business administration, but that unusual usage seems pretentious.) 3. Divisions The lowercase form of an academic discipline is distinct from that employed for a specific reference to an academic department, such as â€Å"She has taught in the Department of Business Administration [or â€Å"the Business Administration Department†] for seventeen years.† But initial caps are not called for if the reference is casual, as in â€Å"She has taught business administration for seventeen years.† Names of schools or colleges within a university are capitalized: â€Å"the School of Business,† â€Å"the College of Fine Arts.† 4. Grades Letter grades should not be emphasized with quotation marks or with italics (unless distinguishing them as terms, as here). The forms for various usages follow: A, B+, Cs, D-plus, F-minuses. (Some publications use an en dash for a minus sign.) Although the plural form of the optimum letter grade could conceivably be misconstrued as the word as, be consistent in omitting apostrophes as well. 5. Honors When a person is generically referred to as having received an academic fellowship, lowercase fellow; when the fellowship is specifically named, capitalize the word: â€Å"For you to qualify to be a Stegner Fellow, we do not require any degrees or tests for admission.† Other specific references should be capitalized, as in â€Å"He is a former National Merit Scholarship Merit Scholar.† â€Å"Cum laude,† â€Å"magna cum laude,† and â€Å"summa cum laude† are lowercased and need not be italicized, because they are Latin terms widely adopted into English. Honors and superlative forms are not capitalized, either. 6. Levels Class levels are always lowercased: freshman, sophomore, and so on, as well as in phrases like â€Å"postgraduate studies,† â€Å"postdoctorate research,† and â€Å"premedical [or â€Å"premed†] studies.† Numbered class-level grades can be spelled out or rendered in numeral form according to a publication’s style, but it’s best to be consistent. For example, if your publication adheres to The Associated Press Stylebook, instead of spelling out grades up to nine and then using numbers for ten and above, use numerals for â€Å"1st grade† through â€Å"12th grade.† Hyphenate â€Å"fourth grade† and the like only when the term modifies a noun: â€Å"fourth-grade student.† No hyphen is necessary for â€Å"fourth graders† and similar constructions, either. Indicate grade ranges, as any number range, by linking the low and high numbers with an en dash, not a hyphen (unless en dash style for a Web site is a hyphen, as here). Variations from â€Å"students in grades 6-8† are â€Å"students in sixth through eighth grades† and, less gracefully, â€Å"sixth- to eighth-grade students.† Some publications spell out isolated grades but use numbers in ranges. For schools with prekindergartners and/or kindergartners, the number-range style is â€Å"P-5† or â€Å"PK-5† (and, occasionally and clumsily, â€Å"preK-5†), or â€Å"K-5. When spelling early grades out, do not capitalize kindergarten or prekindergarten; also, it’s kindergartner, not kindergartener. 7. Titles A first reference to an academician should capitalize the title before the person’s name: â€Å"Associate Professor Jane Doe is teaching the course next semester.† But subsequent references to the person need not repeat her job title: â€Å"Doe taught it last year, but it was not offered in the fall.† As with any other job title, an academic title is usually lowercased in isolation (â€Å"The professor looked askance at the late arrival.†) or in apposition (â€Å"Jane Doe, associate professor of business administration, is teaching the course next semester.†) The exceptions are for what are called named, or endowed, professorships or chairs: â€Å"She was named the John Doe Professor of Life Sciences†; â€Å"He is Mary Smith Chair of Social Sciences at Jones University.† It is widely considered bad form to use the abbreviation Dr. to identify someone who has earned a doctorate; this title is best reserved for medical doctors. Note that the general preference for minimization of capitalization can be relaxed in special circumstances such as lists or other display text, such as a roster of honorees or a caption below a photograph. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:100 Words for Facial ExpressionsBody Parts as Tools of MeasurementSit vs. Set

How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand

How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see. How to Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your Brand Think about the content you share for a second. Is it all your own content? If so, that needs to change. As much as your audience may love you, they want to see a variety of content. This is what we call content curation. Its simply sharing the content from others similar to you on social media.  Sharing others’  content is one of the best ways to show that you’re not all about you, and that you value a variety of perspectives beyond your own. If you are already curating content, are you doing it correctly? Is it the right content for your audience? Lets take a look! By the end of this post, youll be a pro at content curation. Table of Contents Whats the Definition of Content Curation? What Are the Benefits? See Some Examples of Well-Curated Content What Content Should Your Company Curate? Choosing Tools and Developing a Workflow The Best Curation Frequency and MixHow To Curate Content the Best Way to Grow Your BrandWhat Is  Social Media Content Curation? Marketers borrowed the word curate from museums. Curators are the ones who strategically choose  collections of art that appeal to a specific audience to feature in their museums. When you apply that concept  to social media curation, the definition looks like this: Content curation involves: Planning topics your audience loves. Searching for content from others that ties into those topics and your audiences interests. Sharing only the best information you find on your social networks for your audience to. To help you get started, here are a a few freebies to download: Content Curation Template: Keep track of your favorite content curation sources with this Excel template. Content Curation Frequency Infographic: Know the best frequency and mix for sharing content. Social Media Marketing Calendar: Plan every post, all in one place. Five Key Benefits to Curating Content There are many reasons a team will turn to using curated content for social media. Your Marketing Team Can't Produce Enough Social Media Content  On Their Own Social media requires a steady stream of professional, reputable content. Twitter alone should have about 15 unique posts a day (typically). By utilizing great curated content, you're able to fill those gaps more easily. How to Curate Content For Social Media To Help Boost Your ReachIt's Efficient and Cost-Effective Since you're not being slowed down by creating every piece of content yourself, curation is a great way to still have a content marketing strategy in place without investing a huge amount of money and time. Position Your Brand as a Thought Leader Once you get to know your audience and curate only the best, most share-worthy content tailored to them, you'll be recognized as a trustworthy and dependable specialist in your area. In other words, they'll trust that you know what you're talking about. Maintain Conversations With Your Audience Especially in the early stages of your content initiative, it's important that you figure out exactly who your audience is and what kind of content they like to devour and share. The only way to do this is by experimenting with several different content types, and the last thing you should be doing is creating all  of that content. By curating and tracking performance, you quickly pick up on what your audience  finds valuable, in what format they like to consume, from which sources, at what time of day, etc. For audiences that are more mobile and social, content curation is a great way to start and maintain a conversation every day. It also allows you to be present with your audience without making it all about you. Experiment with content types and topics to find  out what your readers  want. #contentcurationIt's a Great Way to Connect With Influencers Behind the scenes, the relationships you build with other influencers in the space by showcasing their work is a happy byproduct of content curation. Remember that analogy I made about the kid who stole homework and claimed it as his own? That's all wrong. It's more like the kid collected and compiled the best work from multiple kids' homework, printed out copies for everyone, and shared it as a study aid. #ContentCuration is like finding  the best work from everywhere and  sharing it with everyone.As a curator, when you share someone else's content, you are giving it more exposure and doing so in a favorable light. You are saying, "Hey, check this out. The message in this is totally on point." And the original content creators will remember this! When done right with proper attribution, curation creates symbiotic relationships. 7  Examples of Quality Curated Content So, what does quality social media content curation look like? Get an idea with these seven  examples. Every one of these posts does the following things: Shares something from a reputable source. Adds its own perspective with custom post copy. Adds value for each brand's audience. #1.   Convince and Convert #2. RealTruck.com #3.   Passion Planner #4. Cambria Quartz #5. Buzzfeed #6. Lemonly #7. Sanford Health Assembling Your Content Curation Toolbox Now that we've covered how awesome and beneficial content curation is, it's time to implement it into your own strategy. First off, you'll need to locate and find curation worth sharing. It's one thing to share content, but it's another thing to share good content. So where do you find this magical content? RSS readers. Gather the RSS feeds of content you know your audience will consistently enjoy. Categorize them tightly into narrowly focused topical groupings so you can better plan on the topics you’ll share when the planning stage comes. A tool like Feedly works well for this. BuzzSumo: This powerful platform is excellent for surfacing highly shared and trending content. Google Alerts. Sign up for Google Alerts on topics your readers care about.  Be cautious about two things: 1) make your search as narrow as possible, or you’ll regret the flood of information, and 2) read the content you find since it’s a bit of a wild card what Google will dig up for you. You can send these alerts directly to your email. Focused social network lists. Create Twitter lists  of people who  belong in particular niches. Having all of the users in your general news feed isn’t helpful if you're trying to curate according to topic when it comes time to plan. Just as you want to categorize your RSS feeds, you ought to do the same with your social feeds. Forums and groups. Places like Inbound.org and other similar industry or niche related forums are perfect places to find currently hot content. Look to curate  content that is getting a lot of discussion on it. Pieces that die in silence without much reaction can be seen as being down-voted by the crowd. That kind of content is  probably not something your audience is going to want to read and talk about, either. Sign up for emails. Find great email newsletters that consistently share content you might not otherwise find. They’re doing curation of their own, and there’s nothing stopping you from making use of their finds. Just be sure to check them out to be sure it’s something your audience would want. Don’t assume  just because someone else gave it a seal of approval. If you're looking for more options, check out this list of tools  from Curata. With tools like Feedly and Storify, you can create different categories of content and save time!  In the social media world we have  no time to spare, so curation tools are here to help. Know What And How To Curate You can’t share junk. No one wants their social feed filled with garbage, so simply publishing posts for the sake of needing to do it is a bad idea. Find the best content, the content you enjoyed, the content your audience members are sharing and talking about, the content that is actually helpful. Curate and share only the best content your audience is  talking about that is actually helpful.That means you have to actually read the stuff. You have to be willing to go past the headline and make sure the content you’re going to share is well-written, well-thought, and (here’s a pet peeve of mine) accessible if your audience member doesn’t have a subscription to a website. Nothing is more irksome than following a link to a piece of content I can’t read unless I subscribe. Unless you know your audience is mostly subscribed to a site, share that content by linking, summarizing, commenting on, and quoting it in your own standalone blog post. If a tool makes it easy to fill your content curation schedule with recommended content without you having to read it, be careful. You're trusting them to curate for you and your audience is expecting you to be the tour guide in the library, not someone else. Curation keeps your social schedule fresh and promotional social messages  to a minimum.Start By Finding Your Content Core As a content curator, it's your goal to share content that your audience will enjoy and benefit from.  The purpose of the content core exercise  is to understand the difference between what you do, and what you need to talk about. Visually, the content core looks something like this: At the center of your content is what you do. At , we make editorial calendar software, so this is a combination of social media and content marketing topics. For our customers, we solve problems such as: Providing a single interface for planning and executing content marketing efforts. Displaying an upcoming publishing schedule on a visualized monthly calendar. Allowing users to reschedule content via simple drag-and-drop. Facilitating team communication and an effective workflow. Providing a tool that helps them save time and grow their blog traffic. These are topics we should definitely write about and be searching for to help our audience understand a correlation between our tool and their needs. As we move away (ever so slightly) from our content core and focus on what our target audience really wants to hear about, we improve the  effectiveness  of our content marketing and better focus in on our target audience’s needs. Keep this in mind when you are searching content  through various sources. There are plenty  of tools out there that will help you with curation, you just have to figure out what your audience wants to read about then decide which sources will work best for you. Here are some examples of strong sources: Reputable publications in your industry. Blogs from other companies you partner with. Your clients, if you're an agency or consultant. Content Marketing Institute also put together a killer list of curation sources. Are you curating content from the best possible sources?Identify What Types Of Content Your Audience Likes To See Does your audience prefer videos or blog posts? How about quizzes or polls? Identify what resonates with your audience and try to curate your content types around that. But how do I know what my audience likes? Look back no more than six months into your social news feed history. Look for trends in what you’re audience responded to. If you see a 35% increase in engagement when you post videos, focus on curating video content posts. Look to your audience, they’ll tell you what they want to see.

Incentive systems Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Incentive systems - Essay Example An incentive system entails the use of different tools and modalities by human resource throughout the entire level of the organization. Their sole use is the promotion of improvement of results in relation to preset annual objectives associated with the organization. Incentives may be fashioned in four distinct modes, which are material, status, purposive or solidarity. As such, it is consequently self evident that it is in the best interest of organizations to design and implement incentives systems to operate within their structure. There exist several objectives which incentive systems can be designed to achieve. However, this paper will only outline three objectives, which can be considered basic, in relation to the organization. Evaluation Above all else, the primary purpose that incentives are tasked with is rewarding efficiency of an employee. As such, this objective should take the top priority when designing an incentive system. It has been noted that in situations whereby the efficiency of employees is not recognized and subsequently rewarded, the morale of these employees frequently experiences a reduction (KRESSLER 2003, p. 21). This overall effect is to the detriment of the organization as a whole. Rewarding efficiency is an important mechanism of maintaining and subsequently raising the levels of motivation of the workers. Organizations strive to employ skilled labor so as to boost the quality and quantity of their output. However, these employees have thousands of opportunities, aside from their position at the firm, that are available for them. Thus, recognizing their performance is highly instrumental in maintaining their service in the organization. This should be regarded with utmost importance as it has been note that the performance o an organization is directly correlated with the quality of performance of its human resource. Aside from building business in the present situation, treating the human resource as assets to the organization f urther ensures that the organization will also be viable, with respect to the market, in the future. Recognizing and rewarding efficiency enables the management and employees to work in tandem, resulting into the development of a talented and dedicate workforce, which is focused in achieving organization goals. Aside from raising the motivation levels, rewarding employee efficiency leads to a direct reduction in the rate of attrition. The top management is tasked with, among other responsibilities, planning how to achieve preset goals. However, it is the work force that executes these plans. In the absence of a talented, motivated and dedicated workforce. There are two means that can be employed in rewarding the efficiency of an employee, these are monetary and non-monetary. Monetary rewards can range from a raise in wages to monetary allowances amongst other forms. While non-monetary rewards can range from trophies, certificates to letters of appreciation. When these two mechanisms are combined, in an effort to reward employees, there would be an improved drive to quality performance by employees. The second basic objective of incentive systems entails the reduction of production cost. This is in regards to the cost of producing a single unit of output. The primary goal of all businesses is to minimize total costs and maximize on profits. This enables the firm to be able to maintain its relevance in the industry of operation. It is for this