Today I’m going to give you a little tutorial on Feedly, and why it’s my favorite tool for content curation.
If you’re a blogger, you know how important it is to read other blogs right? Not just for the sake of commenting and community, but to get new ideas, share great content, and build your authority with your followers. I’ve touched on this in earlier posts, but some of the most time consuming aspects of blogging have to do with finding other content worthy of sharing with your readers! Enter Feedly.
1. Get an account!
2. Go to the left and click Add Content.
When the search field comes up, type in a website you love. Let’s add Fabulous Blogging! 🙂 You’ll see a page come up with my latest posts and at the top of the screen will be a green +FEEDLY button. Click it!
3. Organize your feeds.
You won’t have all these categories yet, but you can add them as you go. When you add Fabulous Blogging, create a category called Blogging or something similar. Every time you add a blog that is tech related, you can add it to that collection.
Using Feedly to keep track of blogs
The single greatest thing that Feedly does is show you what you’ve read and what you haven’t. Now when you first sign up, it’ll show that you have a ton of unread posts, even if it that isn’t true. It’s just because your account is new. So go to your first collection of blogs and click on it. For me, it’s the blogging category.
Using the gear at the top right, you can have your blogs in your category display one of the following ways…
You’ll notice that in the magazine layout, there are recommended blogs to the right? This is a handy little tool to find other blogs that are similar to the ones you are following!
Now I prefer mine as title only. It’s the fastest way to read through a ton of posts quickly. I run down the list and find a title that looks interesting to me. When I click on it, it’ll open either a summary or the full post. This is a good time to explain that you have no control over how the blog looks – this is something the blogger decides.
I used to think only summaries were a good idea since it forces someone to click. However for feed readers, I find I’m annoyed by this feature and since I don’t want to annoy my readers, I’ve changed my blogs to full post. To change your settings, go into your dashboard, click on SETTINGS > READING and adjust the box that says “For each article in a feed, show full text.”
Once you’ve read the post, Feedly has a great toolbar of options for easy sharing. If you have a pro account {$40 a year I believe}, you can have access to all these tools. But even with the free account, you can use many of the buttons.
- Save for later: This keeps it in a separate area in Feedly for later reading
- Evernote: For you Evernote users, this will move the post over there.
- Readability, OneNote, Instpaper: All save for later type reading apps
- Pocket: One of my favorites! I love the Pocket app since I can read the articles all in one spot and even when I’m offline.
- +Tag: I use the tag in Feedly feature all the time. I have several tags, {share on FB, share on Pinterest, Google plus, twitter, etc.}. Sometimes I want to use something to share down the line. I tag it accordingly and then look through my pile when I need something share.
- Email, Google +, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn: These are all your typical sharing buttons if you want to share it right away.
- Hootsuite: This is a Pro feature and since I use Hootsuite, I’m constantly using this button. Unlike the Twitter button (which gives it a Feedly shortlink), the Hootsuite button will schedule it right into my dashboard using the Owl link. I can share it to all my streams with one click.
- Buffer: Buffer is similar to Hootsuite and it doesn’t require a Pro account to use {though Buffer is a free service, it’s very minimal in its functionality unless you get the PRO version of Buffer – case in point – you’ll pay somewhere!}.
- Custom Sharing: This is a pro feature and allows you customize the toolbar as you wish.
When you’re done scanning, reading, and bookmarking your posts, you can hit the checkmark at the top or the “mark all as read” at the bottom and then Feedly will no longer display these posts as to be read. At any time if you want to click over to an actual post, just click on the title again after it’s opened up.
Fun things with Feedly
One of the most beneficial uses of Feedly is it’s ability to keep track of your favorite new pins on Pinterest. It’s sort of a hack, but I explain how to do it here.
You can preview the post on the actual site without navigating off of Feedly.
Just click the PREVIEW button when the post is opened.
Dress up Feedly.
You can use the themes option at the bottom to make your Feedly more personalized.
The organize button allows you to edit, add, and delete easily.
Clicking on this button will open up all your collections in boxes. Just hit the pencil button to change where it’s categorized or the title of the blog. The x will delete it.
Import OPML.
If you know someone with a Feedly account already and want to save yourself a ton of work, you can ask them for their OPML. Then you can import the file and you’ll have all your blogs up and ready to be customized. This is a great feature for small tribes and Facebook groups. Have one person create a collection of all the blogs and then share it with the group as an OPML file.
The Home screen gives you a snapshot.
It’ll show you the latest posts from all your collections.
The app is awesome!
A very smooth swipe and read interface with all the same sharing buttons right at the top.
If you aren’t sure how to find blogs to add to your Feedly, I have another post about finding great content to share. You’ll want to follow all the blogs you can find in your niche, especially ones that are bigger and more well-known than you. Don’t be afraid of your competition!
