Scribit read our minds. Content and social media managers can relate to the frustration of social sharing, which is on the rise with the heavier emphasis on “social web.” However, the problem with sharing is that you’re essentially playing the role of marketer for another web destination point.
Share all you want, but how much of that is directed to your page versus someone else’s page? Marketers who have their act together know that social sharing should still work in your favor somehow; it should still direct people to your page, even if the final destination is an outside source (where visitors can link out once they’ve read a portion of the content on your page). Nonetheless, the feat involves more time and tinkering around with your website.
Scribit’s found a way to automate curated content from the web and share it socially and simply. As they describe it, your website shouldn’t be a “digital drive through” where users use you to get to another source, but rather a “digital buffet” where users come to you for everything on the web.
Acting as a remote content curation, Scribit searches for the best industry related content on the web and then publishes it directly to your site and social pages. To determine the benefit for small business owners, consider the pricing, benefit and drawback involved:
Scribit offers an extremely affordable starting price at $50/month. Though is it worth it to pay for something you can essentially (and simply) do yourself? The answer to that depends on your business goals. If your business depends on content curation (and using that as a means to establish yourself as an authority and/or generate ad revenue), then you should certainly give Scribit a serious try – especially if you’re limited on time and manpower.
Searching for content takes a lot of time especially in a saturated content community – and then double that allotted time if you’re covering more than just one market or industry base. It can easily take one full day to search or browse through content, read it to filter relevant material, republish it to your website and then share it across social pages.
How much is one full day worth to you? How much more could you be doing or making if you had that day free? I bet the answer is more than just $50. If you hired an outsider, chances are you’d be paying them more than just fifty bucks a month. Interns are another option, but in this economy they’re tough to come by and even then you’re factoring in whether they’re competent and don’t require training and supervision. If you’ve reached the successful small business mark, I recommend bumping up to the “small business” pricing option at $250, plus delegating a content manager to oversee this function.
There’s one big gaping hole in Scribit’s perfect plan and that’s the limited number of industries and publishers accessible for curation purposes. You’re set if you’re looking for basics in entertainment, science/tech, health, insurance/finance, marketing and social media. If your industry reaches beyond those confines, you’ll have to continue taking the DIY approach for now until Scribit beefs up its options.
