Eight Ways To Auto-Magically Add Value To Content Without Writing
Little-known tools and apps that can help you increase the value of any published content
There are many ways of adding value to content.
Even after it has been published.
Adding Value Manually
To add value to content is the work of the content curator.
A good content curator has at his disposal 30 or more ways to add value to content beyond the value of the content itself.
For example, a curator adds value to an existing content by:
a) Providing Context and Viewpoint
Sharing interesting information is not good enough. To create value a content curator provides context to provide specific relevance, meaning and interpretation (with which eyes are we looking at this? From the perspective of *who* are we looking at this? With which specific interest/goal?) to whatever resource is being shared. Whenever possible he also adds his personal viewpoint and interpretation.
b) Illustrating
Value can be added by illustrating with highly relevant images the content published. The more these images help understand the subject at hand, rather than simply adding a touch of color or decoration to it, the more value is perceived. Diagrams, charts, tables and infographics as well as technical illustrations and maps go a long way in this direction. Less so, images that are found on free or paid stock image libraries.
c) Integrating Links & References
Another way to add tangible value to written text, is to enrich it with relevant links whenever we use technical or non common terms, proprietary names or names of individuals. Such links should direct the reader not just to more content from your brand but rather to the highest quality content on that topic/subject available online, so that the reader can dig deeper into the subject and find more high quality info on it.
These are just three ways.
There are tens of more ways that value can be added to any content by using a curation approach. But what interests me here, is to highlight something smaller, but still useful and relevant.
Adding Value Automatically
There are tools and technologies that with little or no intervention at all, can help any content publisher to increase the perceived value of just about any content.
Let me highlight a few of these here for you.
1) Summarizing Tools
This class of tools help you create a synopsis, an abstract, or any other form of text summary that distills the key concepts in your article / guide and condenses them into a few critical sentences.
- TLDR (WordPress plugin) creates short summaries for your articles (100% free)
- Vatis (web app) transcribes and summarizes audio and video content
via AI (free trial) - SmashNotes (web app) summarizes podcast episodes by allowing you to convert key points into questions and answers (free for now)
- Summarize (web utility) summarizes any text (advanced) (100% free)
- Resoomer (web utility) summarizes any text (100% free)
2) Transcription Tools (from audio and video)
Tools that can transcribe your audio or video content in a textual version can add significant additional value to your clips or podcast episodes. Furthermore adding a text transcript to any video or audio published online significantly increases its chances of being indexed better and of being found through major search engines.
- Descript (web app) auto-transcribes audio and video via AI
(3 hrs free) - Otter.ai (web app) auto-transcribes audio recordings and audio notes (free 600 mins.)
- Headliner (web app) auto-transcribes audio and video (free for up to 10 videos per month)
- Rev (online service) to manually transcribe video and audio ($1.25/min)
3) Text-to-Voice Tools
Adding complementary content formats proves also to be an effective way to add value to any content by expanding the ways it can be accessed and appreciated. Making text-based content accessible also as a podcast or audio downloadable file is such an example.
- Lovo (web app) converts written content into realistic human audio for voice-overs and audio versions (free version)
- Kukarella (web app) transcribes audio to text and converts text to speech across all languages (free version offers 2K characters conversions / mo + 55 languages) ($4.99/mo allows up to 100K conversions/mo)
- Notevibes (web app) (free for conversions up to 5k characters + 6 languages supported + MP3 download)
- Text2voice.org (web app) (free for conversions up to 2k characters + 20 languages supported + MP3 download)
- Amazon Polly (web app) for professional and large scale implementations
4) Text-to-Video tools
The ability to convert a podcast or an article to a video is undoubtedly an element to consider when looking for ways to add extra value to it.
- Lumen5 (web app) converts text, articles, blog posts into video clips (free version — 5 videos/mo)
- Headliner.app (web app) converts podcast episodes into videos (100% free version-10 videos/mo)
- Typito (web app) Canva for video on social media, makes it easy to create videos from simple texts (starts at $29/mo)
5) Preserve and Archive tools
These are tools that will automatically archive, safeguard and preserve your content, so that even if your server goes down or your content is censored locally, it can still be retrieved and enjoyed by everyone.
- Internet Archive (Chrome extension) archives any submitted URL to the official Internet Archive while providing a shareable URL (100% free)
- WARCreate (Chrome extension) creates a Web ARChive (WARC) file from any webpage — compatible with Internet Archive file standards (100% free)
- ArchiveToday (web service) archives any submitted URL (100% free)
- Perma.cc (web service) maintained by Harvard Law School Library (100% free for academic institutions and organizations)
- Amberlink (WordPress and Drupal plugin) automatically preserves a snapshot of every page linked to on a website, giving visitors a fallback option if links become inaccessible. (100% free)
6) Provide Reading Time Info
One key information element readers appreciate before diving into reading an article is knowing how long it is and how much time it will approximately take for them to read it. For this reason it appears to be a good idea to either create a custom script on your site to do this, or to use a plugin or to manually check with one of these tools and then add this information to your published content. (The average adult reading speed is between 200 and 300 words per minute (same reading rate you want to achieve by the 6th grade). For success in college you should be able to read 350 to 450 words per minute if you want to have any extra time. Source: Wikipedia)
- Reading Time (WordPress plugin) (100% free)
- Read Meter (WordPress plugin) displays estimated reading time along with a progress bar on published WP articles (100% free)
- Read-o-Meter (web app) calculates reading time for any text (100% free)
- Convert Words to Time (web app) converts number of words into reading minutes (100% free)
7) Provide a Clickable TOC
When you have a long article, adding a detailed table of contents at the beginning, can provide significant additional value for the reader. Better yet if the table of contents is made clickable so that any chapter or section can be reached with just one click. Many of the new word processing, editing and publishing apps now integrate the ability to add a clickable Table of Contents (ToC) at the beginning of an article or a guide. This is of great benefit to both readers and to Google, who clearly rewards with higher visibility in its search results long-form content that has an integrated index.
- Google Documents (integrated TOC function) (100% free)
- Adobe Acrobat for PDF files (integrated TOC function) (paid)
- Easy Table of Contents (WordPress plugin) to auto-create a table of contents for articles published in WordPress
- Fixed TOC (WordPress plugin) (100% free)
- Ziotag (web app) to index and provide direct access to specific parts of a video (100% free for video TOC creation)
8) Stimulate Feedback from Readers
Providing ways for your content readers to give comments, feedback, suggestions as much as to signal and report errors, overlooks, dead links and other issues with your content can add value to your content as it makes the reader feel he can participate in a true dialogue with the author.
- Disqus.com (web app) adds a professional commenting system to any web site (free version)
- Crisp (web app) integrates a free live chat option on any website (100% free)
- Typeform (web app) to create beautiful survey forms (free version)
Conclusions
The eight technologies above offer simple ways to increase the perceived value of any online content, without requiring big investments in time or resources.
These technologies are not meant to be a replacement for generating even bigger value through:
a) the provision of context, commentary, references,
b) your ability to filter, verify, highlight
c) the addition of your unique perspective and point of view.
These remain the top key approaches to add significant value to any published content.
The objective in systematically trying to add value, is to share content that can stand above the average, by benefiting the reader beyond informing him.
The natural consequences of doing so, positively affect reputation, credibility and authority of those publishing such content.
Adding value requires a systematic effort, one where the author / curator is less preoccupied with the quantity and more with the sharing of valuable, transferable insight.
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Comments, criticism and suggestions are highly welcome.
