We’re pulling back the curtain and sharing the details of what goes into curating a popular Flipboard magazine portfolio. And to keep things relevant and timely, we’ll use our latest What Where Weekly Storyboard as a guide.
If you’re new to Storyboard curation, think of it as sharing diverse content related to a cohesive theme. Our What Where Weekly Storyboards, for example, showcase the top lifestyle and creative culture reads of the week, chosen by your likes, reflips, and shares. The result is an engaging collection of diverse reads with broad appeal. Storyboards give you a chance to highlight the stories that are truly connecting with readers.
Every week is different.
If you sensed that we flipped fewer stories into magazines like Style Moment or What Where New York recently, you’re not imagining things. AI-generated content has been everywhere lately, and we politely pass on stories about “The Top 15 Mysterious Viral TikTok Trends You Didn’t Know You Needed.” No thanks, we’re good!
We’re not bashing AI, but the recent surge in uninspired content was over the top, and we found ourselves tossing aside the majority of stories we came across. Hopefully, we’re just in a summer lull, and our mindful content creation professionals will be back in action soon. 🤞
2024 Summer Olympics
It’s been all about the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics lately. We usually steer clear of heavily-covered events, but the beauty of the Paris Games captivated everyone, including us. The opening ceremony was breathtaking, and we were inspired to bring that energy and excitement into our magazines. The Summer Olympics story we chose to curate has stunning photography, which made our decision a breeze. And, yes, the title certainly grabbed our attention. They had us at “Moments”!
Food & Cooking
We have so many food publishers in our lineup, we’ve actually lost count.
Our latest Weekly contained a first for us with a whole section dedicated to food. Usually, these stories get mixed in with other topics in The Wrap section of our Weekly, but since it was a relatively light content week for us, we decided to get a feel for what it would be like to change things up a bit.
Also, the post about Fried Peaches & Ice Cream along with the one for a refreshing Agua De Jamaica Iced Tea recipe both had really high engagement across Flipboard, so we figured that it was worth exploring to see if that engagement might carry over into the Storyboard in some way. We’ll keep an eye on our Flipboard analytics for any related insights.
Pro tip: Don’t curate food content when you’re hungry! #IYKYK
Los Angeles Tops New York City
Careful! I know…
It was a slow week for NYC content, so it made sense for us to try something different here too. We decided to mix things up and highlight Los Angeles in place of New York City. We were torn between content from our What Where Chicago and What Where Los Angeles mags; both have been doing very well lately. Our Chicago coverage is getting a lot more engagement than we imagined it would, but since we just recently launched the Chicago mag, we chose L.A. to put the spotlight on Los Angeles.
Photography
Another first here! A few picks from our Captured Moment magazine filled out the first dedicated Photography section in our Weekly. Our usual Design section missed the mark this week, falling short due to the lack of quality content.
The Wrap
This Weekly section’s title says it all. Keeping with our engagement-based selection approach, The Wrap is where we make sure to highlight the best of the rest. We drop 6 top items from any of our magazines into this section each week. This might be our favorite content grouping in our Weekly storyboards because we love the varied content that bubbles up as a result of our selection criteria.
Content curation is a dynamic practice.
We were reminded of this reality during our latest What Where Weekly curation session. Quality content is key for efficient curation, and with the recent deluge of AI-generated content, we needed to adapt and adopt a modified content highlight strategy. We were able to deliver a Weekly that achieved our editorial standards, though it took a lot more time and effort to bring it all together.
For content to be relevant, cohesive, and engaging, curators must be open to occasionally changing things up. It’s all about vibing with the energy of our audiences and working with the content ebbs and flows that we’re sure to experience. Unless, of course, you’re a curator who’s down with the rise in AI-generated content. These must be happy times for you, with those AI algos churning out top 10 lists faster than a Noah Lyles 100-meter Olympic Gold Medal run!