While Twitter, and more recently Foursquare, have been the darlings of the social media world in recent memory, an outstanding and arguably more practical service has been quietly kicking butt. That service is Posterous.
What is Posterous?
At its simplest, Posterous is another blogging platform. But unlike most blogging platforms, the primary method of posting is done via email, not in a custom backend platform (note: Posterous has recently improved their post editing tools). But Posterous is so much more. Let’s look at some of the best features and how you can get some value out of using it.
Autopost
Arguably the coolest feature of Posterous is autopost. A majority of people (and businesses) have multiple social networking presences, be it a Twitter account, Facebook page, blog(s), Flickr account, etc. With Posterous, you can set up your posts to be shared across a number of social sites. For example, you just took some nice photos of a company event, and you want to put them on Facebook, Flickr and your company blog. Send an email with the photos (and some verbage, of course) to a corresponding email address, and Posterous updates Facebook, Flickr, your blog, as well as your Posterous page with your photos. Instantly. Add Twitter to the list, and you can keep your followers up to date as well.
Groups
As a company, you likely have multiple folks who have something to say. You can set up your Posterous page as a group, and have multiple users contribute content. Add their email addresses as contributors, and they’re set. You’ve now just set up a great platform for sharing your company voice.
Bookmarklet
Not necessarily a unique feature to Posterous, but certainly one that will do some heaving lifting for your social sharing duties. The bookmarklet can capture just about any content from the web that you want to share. A video presentation? Check. An interactive Flash game? Check. A quote from an article? Check. You name it, and Posterous can probably grab it. Quick note: to share a certain piece of text, highlight what you want BEFORE clicking the bookmarklet.
Check These Out
Want to see Posterous in action? Check out some of these that I’ve hand-picked to share with you.
- Lakeshore Branding
- Ted
- Guy Kawasaki (yes, that’s Posterous working within his site)
- Posterous
Have a cool Posterous site to share? Don’t think this is for you? Let us know in the comments.