Paper.li Lets Social Innovators Become Online Publishers

And the interesting thing is that you don’t even have to manually choose the news stories to feature. Using a variety of different curation calls, Paper.li will draw relevant stories and format them….automatically.

It is up to you to design focused, relevant content streams from which Paper.li will draw. Fail to do this, and you are just creating more digital content “noise”…but get it right and you may be able to connect readers to a relevant cause and amplify social innovation solutions.

Here are a few ways to help you publish the most relevant content.

1. Find a specific niche. Considering the wealth of information bombarding online readers at any moment, look to make the scope of your paper.li publication focused and specific. Whether you are a social innovator focused on impact investing, clean water, poverty, green technology, or social innovation law–it is a good idea to ask what a person would gain from reading your online newspaper.

Here are a few examples of social innovation paper.li publications:

• The SocEnt Daily
• The #microfinance Daily
• The Beyond Profit Daily
• Social Finance Times

2. Look to relevant lists. Twitter lists can make for great content wells from which paper.li can draw. Take a look at any lists you are on and any you follow. There is an option on paper.li to include specific lists.

3. Feature power users. In your specific social innovation topic you may notice that you retweet a certain power user frequently or that certain users consistently include links to timely, relevant, content-rich articles squarely addressing a cause or social innovation solution. You can list single Twitter users as a paper.li content stream.

4. Follow the hash tags. Another way to capture relevant content is to list specific Twitter #tags for paper.li to survey. You can list multiple tags—but take a tour through Twitter and opt for ones that are more specific over general. For example, paper.li will likely glean more relevant content on social entrepreneurship law from #socentlaw than from #law.

5. Decide on Your Covered Topics (Hint: Think KIS). Also in the content realm you can choose from covered topics. These will turn into tabs of your online publication. There are over 15 to choose from. In times of massive choice, it’s often good advice to Keep it Simple (KIS).  KIS can also apply to the distribution frequency–if you notice that publishing too frequently is just creating noise rather than useful, relevant curation—then cut back. Likewise, if your topic requires timely, frequent updates–then look to keep it updated accordingly.

In researching this post, we have designed a paper.li publication, “Innov8Social <<social innovation>>”. You can check out the first publication below and subscribe through the link or by following Innov8Social on Twitter.

 

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