If you grew up in the era of magazines, you will love Flipboard. Even if you came after that magazine era you still may love it. The first type of magazine or as they called it then “periodical of amusement” may date back to 1672. It was founded by Jean Donneau de Vize and contained court news anecdotes and a short piece of vers. And it became endlessly popular and imitated. The height of magazines was around in the 1980’s – before people started to read them online in the 1990’s and beyond.
I have prepared a short Slideshare on how to set up and use Flipboard. If you’d prefer to jump to that, click here.
Flipboard is an easy, fun and educational way to curate content today - Lisa Sicard, Inspire to ThriveClick To TweetFlipboards Beginnings
The Company Flipboard has been around since July 2010. It is based out of Palo Alto, California. The tool aggregates content from a variety of sources. Source likes websites, blogs, news feeds, photo sharing sites and more. Users can then flip through them just like a magazine.
I was attracted to the content and the images as they were presented. It makes for easy reading on my mobile phone.
In February 2017, Flipboard made a full redesign of their application and implanted new features like smart magazines, which allows users to bundle things together – new sources, hashtags and people.
What Makes Flipboard Different?
- Easy to Use on Mobile – This is what attracted me most to it. I could easily read and share things on Flipboard. The content was great. I could read the latest news, fun travel tips and of course content on social media and the latest technology news.
- Interesting and Unique Content – I found the content here was easier to read than most other social networks – you didn’t have to click on links to know what the stories were about. Each post had text and images to explain what the article would be about.
- Drives traffic to your blog or website – After sharing some of my poststhere, my traffic began to come from there. It is now in my top 5 for traffic sources!
- Blog Feeds May Be Added – This is a very cool feature. You can actually add your blog feed to Flipboard.
What is Flipboard Similar to?
Flipboard is quite similar to Pinterest but with more content. It is much easier to use on mobile I find than with Pinterest. Pinterest is all about images whereas Flipboard is about content and how it’s presented. They are similar in look but not in use.
What Can You Do With Flipboard?
- Read Content – Catch up on your latest interests.
- Save Content – This is helpful when you are short on time but want to read an article. Just click the + button and save it onto one of your magazines. Maybe create one magazine board for “later”. You can even make that magazine “private” if you like on Flipboard.
- Share Content – Share interesting content as you would do on any social network. It’s a great way to curate content and set up different magazines for your different topics and interests.
- Import Your Feed – A great way for others to see your latest blog posts. It’s quite easy. You must know how to find your RSS feed. If not sure you can google it. Then grab your phone and open up Flipboard. Click on the search icon and, in the search field, type in the URL exactly as it appeared in the source code. Swipe over to the “Social” tab and you’ll see your RSS feed listed. Click on it, and then click the check-mark at the top of the screen. Now your feed is on Flipboard.
What Else Can You Do to Make Flipboard The Easy and Fun Way to Curate Content?
- Engage – Oh yes engage with others too. This can increase your shares and likes on the Flipboard network.
- Follow Others – Follow folks who share similar interests so you can view and flip through their shares.
- Move Your Magazines Around – You can now change the order of how your magazines appear on your Flipboard. There is an edit button under each of your magazines. You can click on the edit button to rearrange them, edit the titles, descriptions and even delete some if you like.
- Embed a Magazine – You can embed a Flipboard magazine on your blog. When you click embed this magazine on the share feature you will get a code that you can put into your WordPress site to embed a magazine. This is a great way to feature this tool on your blog and generate more followers!
How You Can Get Started
- Create Your Profile – Be sure to fill everything out. And choose a photo that reflects you. People prefer to connect to real people so make sure it’s a photograph of you. Create an interesting bio for your profile. An extra tip from the Flipboard blog is if you are proud of your bio, share it on Twitter with the #FlipBlogger hashtag! I love that tip! I’ve seen people on Twitter and other social networks share their flips and profiles and have always found it impressive.
- Create Some Magazines – Create topics you will love sharing and showcasing off to your followers. You can always edit the cover along the way and change it whenever you like.
- Follow Topics of Interest – Go through and follow topics that truly interest you. Flipboard can be a lot of fun. And the more you enjoy it, the more you’ll use it.
- Follow People – Find your friends from other social networks and follow them on Flipboard.
- Share Stuff – Go for it!
- Like Stories – You can “heart” stories that you love. You can then see your likes count under your bio along with your share count. Your magazine count is displayed there too. It also shows your follower count and how many people you follow.
The Bottom Line – Have Fun!
Flipboard the fun and easy way to curate contentClick To TweetMost of all, have fun with Flipboard – you will use it more and generate more traffic to your blog once you love using it!
I’d love to know in the comments if you’ve been using Flipboard or if you have heard of it.
Slideshare: How to set up and use Flipboard
Featured image: http://www.headsem.com/en/blog-or-wordpresswebsite-to-flipboard/
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