Social streams can help publishers integrate contents from social networks to their website and live blogs, while also optimizing the work of editorial teams
When publishers think about building a strong editorial brand, they know social media is a vital part of the package, one that feeds and complements content strategy. In the last few years, all sorts of media companies, from traditional to native digital outlets, have had to rethink the way they present content within their websites and digital properties.
That is because social networks have become ubiquitous. Until recent years, most social platforms had their own separate user ecosystems. Nowadays, a lot of the content from different networks can be aggregated and mixed in interfaces that go beyond the isolated feeds from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Cross-platform compatibility is no longer a major issue for content management software – and for publishers.
Content aggregation from multiple networks is clearly seen through the growth of the Social Stream, a powerful tool to improve audience experience and content planning.
In this post, we will walk you through the concept, benefits, and features of social streams, since they can help editorial teams in the planning, curation, and distribution of content.
What is the social stream? And how does it work?
A social stream is basically a software that allows you to bundle multiple social networks’ feeds or curate a unique feed with different social profiles into a single network stream – within your website or a live blog, for instance.
Social streams determine the way social content flow is structured on the webpage. They are set up through monitoring and curation software or plugins, which offer publishers tools to plan and publish social media content according to their editorial guidelines.
The idea is to display multiple social media accounts in one hub. Some companies might choose to present their own social profiles, while others might use social streams as a way to complement reported content with user-generated content and posts from experts about a given topic.
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Why incorporating social streams to your content strategy
Amidst the ever-changing social media landscape (hello, Tik Tok?), content teams often struggle to keep up with the increasing amount of content formats while maintaining good standards in content curation and distribution. The result? Workflow sometimes might get slow and inefficient.
Nevertheless, you should never underestimate the potential each social network has in engaging the audience and bringing different perspectives about your content. A social stream can help you build a rich content mosaic that will drive both engagement and work efficiency.
Here are some practical benefits of social streams:
Improving user experience
Beyond the content itself, contemporary audiences want a great content experience, and social streams can help you give them that. They allow publishers to display social content in a responsive, beautifully designed way.
Imagine a newspaper that has a robust following base across different networks. It can offer the audience a collection of photos and conversations curated from their social accounts on Instagram and Twitter, for example. Or, let’s say a sports vehicle covers a soccer championship. It can track the best user-generated content about the event to keep the audience updated through social streams.
Automating content curation
Social streams also automate a lot of the process of compiling and posting content by tracking hashtags and keywords in real-time, while also simplifying the process of setting up publications (there is no coding required in social streams).
These days, you wouldn’t want your team to spend a lot of time picking and publishing social media posts, so social streams are a great way to free journalists and content producers from repetitive work.
Increasing traffic and engagement
Using socials streams can also help your company boost the credibility of its website. Why? By aggregating and displaying social posts in real-time, whether from your accounts or others, you show your brand is true “always-on” and that it values interactions with fans and customers.
It makes you more likely to be seen as an authority and improve engagement metrics such as shares, reposts, and comments. You can also drive more traffic to your social accounts and website, improving SEO altogether.
Choosing the best social stream tool
Now that you know what social streams can do for your business, let’s get to the fun part: discovering social stream features and choosing the best platform for your team.
There is a variety of software and plugins in the market, and although most of them will have a common set of features, it’s important to choose one that is compatible with the scope and scale of your content operation.
Arena’s social stream and content curation are one of the most complete in the industry, used by major publishers in 120 countries.
Check out some of the main features:
- Auto-posting: Enable automatic posting on your website and have your live blogs run automatically with user-generated-content.
- Real-time stream and results: Allow content to flow to your stream and track results from social media in real-time.
- Content personalization: Post social content as it is or edit it to add your flavor. Easily monitor user-generated content and accounts to decide what to publish or turn on automatic posting.
- Hashtag and Keywords: Track hashtags or keywords on social media and have a unified social stream about specific topics or events.
- Integrations: Create social streams for networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and personalized RSS feeds.
- Templates: Create and save social stream templates that can be reused multiple times.
- Plan your publishing calendar: Bookmark specific content and add it to your library for later publishing.
- Embed content: Embed a social wall with stream results directly into your website, constantly feeding your audience with fresh content.
- Custom design: Design your stream according to your brand’s style guide or use default settings.
- Moderate your streams: Use filters and widgets to control your feeds. Delete or add specific content based on your editorial criteria.
Getting started
Still curious about how social streams can feed your content strategy? We suggest you try Arena’s social stream solution. Click here to have access to a free trial version of Arena’s Social Stream.