Update: December 2021:
I tried unsuccessfully to write a new article with live links to my posts, but Wakelet doesn’t want you to publish many live links in one article.
The site will only let you curate one link at a time into your collections.
Unique.
Wakelet is different from other content curation websites.
Not just content curation.
Wakelet is one of the new content curation sites that has many purposes in addition to being places to store your content.
Guest author Dexter Roona describes the many purposes of the new content curation site, Wakelet.
After he shares, I will also share strategies and advantages of using Wakelet.
So What Is Wakelet?
by Dexter Roona
Wakelet is a free to use content curation site along the same lines as Pocket, Flipboard, and Mix (formerly StumbleUpon).
But for me, Wakelet outshines all its competition.
Who’s behind Wakelet
Wakelet is based in Manchester in the UK and is the vision of CEO Jamil Khalil.
Jamil first came up with the idea for the online platform back in 2011 and in 2013, he left his job to run Wakelet full-time.
Investment has been secured from a number of high-profile investors to continue the growth of Wakelet, including Chillingo founders Chris Byatte and Joe Wee, a platform that specializes in publishing games by independent developers on mobile platforms, including Angry Birds.
Wakelet really is more than a curation site.
I used to think of content curation sites as places where I could just store content that I was interested in.
My main strategy for me was just to add articles and posts that I had written to content curation sites and then never really visiting those sites.
The idea was just to gain a backlink, some extra traffic, and some exposure.
That is a strategy that remains but it has been heavily developed for use with Wakelet.
Wakelet is not one of those places to just share with a Chrome or Firefox extension and then that is it.
It is a site to visit and actually produce fresh new valuable content on.
So let’s look inside Wakelet
Wakelet is currently extremely popular with the education niche.
It is a great place to create a portfolio, compile revision notes, build an online CV and more– so excellent for anyone within education and advanced learning.
It is also a great place just for personal use.
Fan pages and building communities are popular ways to use Wakelet.
You can even use Wakelet as a very simple but effective way to blog.
More on the blogging side a bit later.
How it works
With Wakelet you build collections (Wakes).
Each collection is basically an online folder where you store your related content.
So to really show you how this works and how to set it up a new collection let’s use my Wakelet strategy and build a collection around this post.
Creating a Wakelet Collection
First, if you don’t have an account with Wakelet, you first need to sign up.
Head over to Wakelet and create an account.
On clicking Sign Up you currently have the option of joining via
- Office 365
Or you can sign up with an email and create a password.
You can then set up your profile, add your site links, create an avatar etc.
It is strongly recommended that you complete your profile fully before continuing.
I’m not going to talk you through the set up of your profile but if you do need help then you can refer to my Wakelet Getting Started Guide.
So once you have your profile set up, it is time to make your first Wakelet Collection (Wake).
Go to the homepage and click “Create new Collection / Story.”
Add in a title for your Collection, so for this example, we are creating we will call our collection What is Wakelet?
Also, get into the habit of making your collections rich with information, don’t cut corners.
Add in a good keyword rich description for your new collection that explains exactly what it is about.
It is also a good idea to then also add in a cover image for your collection for that visual, professional look.
And you end up with something like we see in the screen capture below.
My Wakelet Strategy
So my strategy for articles that I create is to research the topic and then to curate my research to my collection that I create for the article along with any notes or images that I am going to use.
This puts everything that I need all in one place ready for me to write the article.
It then also adds value to the original creator of any content that I share to the collection because it links back into them.
What we end up creating is a detailed valuable collection that links to your article and links to any sources that added.
Here is the finished Wakelet Collection for this “What is Wakelet” article.
Curating research is just one way that I like to use Wakelet.
Another creative way that I use Wakelet is to create blog posts or press releases.
Yes, Wakelet can very easily be used as a simple yet very effective blogging platform.
How to blog on Wakelet
Blogging on Wakelet is really easy to do.
Here is how you do it.
- Create a new collection as highlighted above with a Title and Cover Image and a quick intro paragraph in the description.
- Add a text block giving it a headline and write your opening paragraph. You can associate any links to the text that you want if you are linking out. You can also bold text and use italics.
- If you like using images in your articles, then you can add any number of new image posts/blocks and upload. For the purpose of blogging, you are more than likely going to add just one image.
- Then you can add a new text block with a heading for your second paragraph… and so on and so on.
What you have with a Wakelet Blog is a very simple page builder type experience within a single Collection.
As mentioned: You can add image blocks and text blocks. You can also add video blocks and you can even add Tweets and pdf files into the collection and then you can rearrange them if required so that they seamlessly flow down the page as a blog/ press release.
This is exactly how the WordPress Gutenburg visual editor will work when it becomes the default WordPress editor very soon.
Here is a finished example of a Wakelet Blog that I created How important are social media Followers – Wakelet.
So as you can now see Wakelet is a very versatile curation site for bloggers.
Curating research and blogging are just two quick ways that I use Wakelet but here are a few more ideas for using Wakelet:
Your online CV
Imagine going for a new job interview and being able to produce a professional online CV to your prospective employer.
Full of your accreditation, work experience etc.
- You can create personal collections to showcase your interests.
- Detail your qualifications.
- Curate your experience in image and text form.
- Store research and notes.
Education
Wakelet is big news in the classroom for both teachers and pupils.
- Teachers can create team collections that are private and can be viewed only by those added to the collection.
- The same can be done within the classroom with pupils.
- You could make a homework topic and share it in a group. Or, you can create team projects for students to work on.
Business
All of the above can also be applied to the business world.
- Create private collections for a specific project and then associate those working on the project just by adding their email.
- Curate research and notes for meetings or presentations.
Takeaways
As you can now see, Wakelet is much, much more than a content curation site.
It is by far one of my favorite sites to currently use.
It can be used in many ways and I have really just scraped the surface of what is possible with Wakelet.
As a blogger, the ability to research and curate my research and keep it within a single collection is very valuable.
There is no more looking for the pages you use for research.
Your research collection then becomes a very valuable share in its own right pointing back to you and all the sources that you added if you set it to be visible publicly.
Moving forward I believe that working in this way will help to prove authority and boost your online reputation and that could prove very useful for bloggers and influencers.
The ability to create blogs is also great, especially if you don’t have a blog site of your own.
It is a very simple page builder experience and about as easy as it gets when creating a blog.
It is also a useful option to be able to create curated blog posts to promote newly published articles.
That’s all for now!
Are you a Wakelet member?
Do you use any other curation sites?
How do you use them?
Let me know in the comments section below.
Make sure that you subscribe to the comments so that you are notified when I reply.
Regards Dexter
About Dexter
Social Media and SEO WordPress Blogger.
I love all elements of social media and SEO and my InfoBunny site is really just about providing help for those looking to build their reputation and authority and get results. Twitter, Facebook, Wakelet.
Host blogger’s comments about Wakelet:
Dexter’s post inspired me to try Wakelet. Boy, am I glad I did.
Additional Wakelet Strategies:
- Graphics are eye-catching. Be sure to add a graphic to your collection. Your blog posts will already have graphics but your collections won’t. It gets better: If you click “Choose an image,” you’ll be taken straight to Unsplash where you can choose a free professional-stock graphic.
- Generating blog traffic is easy if you are included in Wakelet’s “Top Picks.” Important: Your collections default to Private. No one will see them but you. This, of course, makes generating website traffic impossible. Be sure to change the privacy setting to Public before you hit Publish.
- Wakelet has a Domain Authority ranking of 62. Linking to my blog from Wakelet will boost my SEO. Since I monetize my Domain Authority ranking, Using Wakelet will enable me to get more organic traffic as well as more income.
Additional Reasons to Use Wakelet:
- You can use the Wakelet app for convenience on your mobile phone.
- You can contact Wakelet support if you need assistance.
- Wakelet is quick and easy to use. I set it up in less than 15 minutes.
Dexter shared his Wakelet link with you. My collection is just getting started, but if you’d like to see, here is my Wakelet portfolio.
Readers, please share so people discover the many uses of Wakelet and possibilities for blog traffic.
Related
Steemit is a content curation site that pays you a share of its revenue.
Flipboard is a content curation site in a magazine-style format. Flipboard has the potential to bring you huge blog traffic.
Pinterest is a content curation site in a bulletin-board style format. Pinterest also has the potential to bring you massive blog traffic.
As Dexter explained in his introduction, Mix is a new content curation site. Users “mix” their content into collections.
Scoop.it is a content curation site where people “scoop” content. If you think of journalists who “scoop” hot content, you see the site is aptly named.
More social bookmarking sites are listed here.
