By Janette Speyer –

Have you used Flipboard for blogging? Are you an influencer? Then, this article is for you.

As many of you already know, I have been using this app for quite some time. — Mostly for curating articles and for branding client products.

I am perpetually looking for new ways to make marketing more interesting.  So, I am trying the app as a blogging tool. I must clarify one thing first. Flipboard is not designed as WordPress or Medium application. It is more of a curation tool.  But, by using your imagination, it can become a blog, the way it is.

I have been blogging about digital marketing since 2003.  As social media gained popularity, I started using it to tell my story.  The problem is that nothing is in sequence. I am faced with the challenge of expressing myself post by post. All my information is scattered around the Internet.

Besides chatting about digital marketing, my other passions include food and traveling. But because these topics are completely irrelevant to my blog, I have been looking for an alternative solution to share my travel and “cuisine” stories. I found that solution in Flipboard by folding my information into an enhanced journal that would include my blogs, articles, photos, and comments.

Sending out single posts on social media does not cut the mustard for me. It feels like the story is truncated by a single experience. Hence my discovery of using Flipboard as a blog.

In this article, I will show you the different blogging approaches.

• The Flipboard Traditional Blog
  

  Articles from an existing blog are added to a Flipboard for an easier read. A great method to share and to subdivide categories into magazines. For example, if you deliver a lifestyle blog you could create different magazines.  Each representing a topic like beauty, health, family stories, or a giveaway. It’s up to you how you structure your Flipboard account.

  Here is an example of a magazine in which I added all posts from my online blog. The objective is to send traffic to my WordPress website from Flipboard. This method has helped me gain visibility for my Web Success Team Blog:

The Web Success Team Blog.

• The Flipboard Enhanced Blog

  This supped up version would include the traditional Flipboard blog heightened by the Flipboard tools. In this example, I started by curating information to plan a trip to Portugal. Once in the country, I realized that posting a single post was not enough to capture the experience. I enhanced the magazine by adding my pictures from iPhoto with comments describing locations. I also related my impressions by using the compose tool. The takeaway was that I traded a long blog post for snackable content. It’s all delivered in one place and easy to read. If there is something you are not interested in then you can “flip” to the next section.
  Here’s my travel blog post – Dreaming Of Portugal:

Dreaming Of Portugal.

• The Flipboard Supercharged Blog

  In this example, the whole blogging effort happens on the app. This is an ideal format for personal branding and for public speakers utilizing Youtube videos, podcasts in SoundCloud, your social media channels, and anything else you can think of and repurpose. Of course, you can still follow the examples of the two styles mentioned above to add more content.

  I have started a new magazine. A work in progress like all blogs. Again, it relates to my trip to Portugal. I am now blogging about something very specific: Port wine pairings. Here I will not only curate other blogger’s content but I will also add my own in the form of a blog that will read like a magazine:

Port Wine Pairings.

• Involving the Community and Sharing the Experience

  Now imagine inviting other bloggers to contribute their stories to your magazines. If you have a business this method has tremendous potential.

  I work with influencers that have networks. Once they write branded content, it’s shared on social media. All these blogs added to a Flipboard have great PR value. This portable magazine can be now be shared via the press and on social channels.

  Here is an example of a contributor magazine with a network of bloggers:

Wanderlust, By Always Wanderlust.

We are just scratching the surface with Flipboard. This app has many untapped applications. Have you used Flipboard for blogging? I would welcome your comments!

You can follow me at @JanetteSpeyer

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