I have been a fan of Flipboard for many years. It is a great resource to follow certain topics like social media, crisis communications, and even social media pedagogy for many professors and professionals. I have used Flipboard to share relevant articles I feel my students, colleagues, and professionals working in social media on Twitter primarily.
However, Flipboard started off as just a mobile app that was created first for the iPad, but now has launched a desktop version for people to use. This personalized magazine has been around for years, but this is a move that is reflective to what we are seeing in the industry and the growing need for interactive, visual, and relevant content to be consumed and discussed online.
I think this is a great move and allows more users to search, read, and share relevant content to their respective communities. However, this is a great new platform and tool for professors to utilize for their social media classes as well.
Here are a few things to consider here when it comes to using Flipboard:
- Centralized location for a class magazine. If you want to have a centralized location for students to get information about latest articles, resources, etc in a visual format, this may be a good tool to implement. You can create a magazine for each class – like what I have done for my social media class this semester.
- Add in the Google Chrome Flipboard Plugin: I live on my Hootlet plugin on Chrome for my articles to share on Twitter, and with just another click for the Flipboard icon, you can share your readings directly to your magazine. You can also do this through Hootsuite as well!
- Adapting to content for media consumption purposes on mobile and desktop. This is where I think a lot of media brands are going with this trend – we are seeing more focus on media consumption online and through our mobile devices than anything else. Look at what Snapchat has done with their discover feature. I think Flipboard wanted to adapt to these trends as well. So, this is another area and platform to look at for this particular area within social media strategy.
- Sharing blogs from class in personalized Flipboard magazine. What better way to create and showcase work from class by sharing it not only on Twitter, but for your own personalized magazine for class. You can add comments, suggestions, and rationale for why you want to share this piece of work. Another way to praise students for their work online.
- Potential strategic uses for professors and students: Considering another visual element to share with students, this new venture for Flipboard offers a lot of strategic possibilities. For example, a personalized magazine can be a way for students to brand themselves not only with their content creations, but also what they are curating as well. Looking at what they are reading and sharing is important. Also, they could use it as an evolving content creation platform of their work, pieces, and content they are inspired by and want to share. It’s a great platform to share original and curated content.
Overall, I think there a lot of possibilities here for professors, professionals, and even students to utilize these new features of Flipboard. If you want to see what I am sharing for my social media class at the University of Louisville (#Freberg15), here is my Flipboard personalized magazine.
Hope you all have a great day!
Best Wishes,
