Posterous is one of those web apps that comes along and brightens up the world. It is a gift that keeps on giving. And here’s why: it’s flexible, and it’s really easy to use.
The core USP that underpins Posterous is the ability to post content quickly from a range of sources. To create posts you can use the bookmarklet, email, or the Posterous web editor. It's about the fastest way of publishing content to the web and I for one love it.
So how can you use Posterous to get the best out of it? I have a few ideas...
A personal blog
I’ve fallen in and out of love with blogging on many occasions but it has never been so easy to maintain a personal blog. While Posterous doesn’t yet cater for indie publishers, it is the perfect tool for lapsed or wannabe bloggers.
A collaborative blog
Posterous caters for multiple authors, who can all contribute posts and comments, and will receive notifications once new content is published. If blogging feels like too much effort then why not invite like-minded friends or colleagues to get in on the act?
A private blog
I’ve been working on a new startup recently and we thought it would be a good idea to start a private group blog. We use Posterous to share ideas relating to the launch plans, PR and marketing strategies, event planning, networking, branding, and design / user testing. Posterous helps compile and collate our ideas, as well as bookmarking interesting things we see elsewhere.
A rich bookmarking tool
Online bookmarking tools like Delicious are great discovery engines but I was never quite bitten by the bookmarking bug. Storing headlines and links doesn’t quite do it for me, even when supplemented with notes and tags. Posterous allows you to easily upload, store, tag and view videos, images, text, files and audio. As such I personally use it as a kind of interactive scrapbook, where I compile random Youtube videos, Flickr images, and links to websites that I want to keep a note of. Rich bookmarking has come of age.
An image host for your existing blog / website
Flickr is a beautiful creature but I’ve found Posterous to be a little bit quicker to use for those times when you just want to upload an image and grab the link. All you need to do is email image attachments and Posterous will publish them. It will also send you an email to with a link to that specific post, allowing you to grab the image URL to use on your blog (using Posterous as the image host). Better still, Posterous will send your image uploads directly to your Flickr account if you want it to.
A conduit to publishing content all over the web
Following on from the last point, Posterous allows you to automatically distribute them to other sites (e.g. Wordpress, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc). As such it can be used as a hub to push out your content onto multiple sites.
A PR / cuttings file
I don’t think it’s particularly cool to replicate and republish third party blog articles in full on the web, but a private Posterous blog could be a good way of creating an interactive PR folder. It will help you to easily store articles, clippings and links.
A project / client management tool
Basecamp is one of the best low-cost tools for coordinating projects with clients but it has a few limitations. A private Posterous blog may help extend Basecamp. Invite clients to brainstorming and bookmarking sessions, or to share files and other project assets.
A research tool
Researching a project? Posterous can be useful whether you’re doing this individually or as part of a team. You can share and store documents, spreadsheets, pictures, braindumps and rich bookmarks.
A videoblog or podcasting channel
Posterous can host video, so you can create a series of generic or subject-specific videos. It will push out your videos to YouTube and other platforms if you tell it to. And it will also embed videos from third party video sites, should you wish to aggregate them from elsewhere. Audioheads can also use Posterous as a podcasting platform, which can be subscribed to via iTunes.
To immediately start your Posterous blog simply email post@posterous.com. Use the subject line as your headline. If you attach an image or other file it should make sense of it. You will receive an email after your post is published, after which you can log in and customise your new blog. Easy!Chris Lake is Director of Product Development at Econsultancy, an entrepreneur and a long-term internet fiend. Follow him on Twitter, Google+ or connect via Linkedin.
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Social Media / SCRM Consultant at Capgemini
6:29PM on 22nd October 2009
Great to see something written about Posterous. I think it's an excellent application. One other use of it from a business perspective, and it might be more to do with psychology than anything else, in addition to the obvious convenience of it.
I've been trying it out by sending emails via Posterous containing service alerts for customers - http://cpwcustomercarealerts.posterous.com/. We send similar messages out via Twitter as well. What struck me about the ease with which it can be done via Posterous, is that because it is an email that is essentially being sent out, people who don't get Twitter or see its value can still capitalise on the advantages of Twitter and the following a company might have by sending the message via Posterous. All you need to do is make sure your Posterous account is feeding into your Twitter account. Furthermore, the person who sends out the initial email informing us internally about the service alert, could in theory simply add the Posterous email address to the group email address. In short, taking advantage of Twitter without ever having to 'get it'.
My biggest problem is that I'm so used to doing it via Twitter, I forget to use Posterous!
3:01AM on 23rd October 2009
It's an excellent application for me,thanks
5:24PM on 23rd October 2009
If you combine your #2 with your #6, you'll see it as a huge boon for disaster communications and public health emergencies:
http://occamsrazr.com/2009/09/18/swine-flu-newsrooms-spreading-to-you/
2:53PM on 28th October 2009
We have a Posterous blog and love it and have replaced our use of TwitPic for posting photos to Twitter.
10:09AM on 2nd November 2009
I've been a posterous advocate for sometime finding it hugely useful personally and proffessionally.
It formed the corner stone of a global social media strategy and has speeded up blogging no end.
A word of caution however, ease of use means you're much more likely to post something you haven't really thought much about. It's so easy to post stuff that you can end up with a massive pile of rubbish obscuring your gems (if you have any).
Also if you're swiching between logins, emails, twiiter accounts, blogs it can get a little confusesd and you may end up posting to the wrong place which can be scary to say the least.
To summarize I'd say that all though posterous is quick you need to have a "double check" system to make sure the picture with the donkey goes to the right place.
Other than that I can't recommend it enough.
Tom
7:14PM on 6th November 2009
Really, it is a good article..You are great...
2:22PM on 28th November 2009
It's an excellent application.. Posterous caters for multiple authors, who can all contribute posts and comments, and will receive notifications once new content is published.
10:00PM on 20th March 2010
the facebook app link doesnt work well..for some reason it wasnt working for me...as well, posterous does not do a good job explaining the flow of everything.
they give you a generic post@posterous...but if you have multiple blogs with them, it is unclear...do you use the specific email post, the generic email post.....if connecting ONE of 3 blogs to facebook, how do you set that ONE blog up correctly and which email do you use? Does the blog have to be primary??
I've gone through soo many choices to do something I thought would be very easy and it frustrated me soo much that I am looking for alternatives now. If youre going to use the KISS princple, then you need to explain clearly. C+ thus far.
Director & Founder at eEnablement - Online Interim Management & Consultancy
11:15AM on 14th July 2010
Am just discovering Posterous and Tumblr platforms and reading this and other e-consultancy articles. Would Posterous work as an altetrnative to the traditional "brochureware" website to promote my business (I provide online interim services to client organisations) - in particular are you able to use an existing logo in the design for your Posterous site?
Tony.
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
12:06PM on 14th July 2010
Hi Tony,
Yes, you can customise your Posterous theme to include your logos etc.
It depends on your aims but I'd consider moving away from the brochureware model to a site focused around regular blogging. Thought leadership works really well in raising awareness, so maybe you can create some how-to / practical blog posts? Be an expert in your space. Own the subject.
If you create lots of content you create food for Twitter, Facebook and Google. Figure out in advance what you want to rank for on Google, and that will help you write appropriately.
There are plenty of tips on blogging, copywriting and SEO on this blog (and there is our research too).
Good luck.
c.
Director & Founder at eEnablement - Online Interim Management & Consultancy
1:21PM on 14th July 2010
Cheers Chris - this is exactly my thinking both for my own business but also for some other clients who have approached me "wanting a website" for their business. Also looking at it as a solution for publishing content/blogging as part of a wider e-commerce site for another retail client.
Tony.
Director of Product Development at Econsultancy
3:33PM on 14th July 2010
Quite right Tony, in my opinion. I say the same thing to every small business I speak with. Content really is king online, and if you help people with practical tips / ideas / insight then they're more likely to remember you.
We've kinda made a business off the back of thought leadership, and I have seen it work for so many people, especially on the B2B space. In your particular space there are lots of issues surrounding the challenges of interim management, and way beyond the confines of skillsets etc. And if you practice what you preach then you'll be better placed to help clients, who can copy your model to a greater or lesser degree.
I think content is king. I know content is marketing.
c.