As a small staff association professional, you’re likely constantly bombarded with information that should be relayed to your members. They are probably inundated with information too. In our 24-hour news cycle of a world, it can be nearly impossible to stay on top of things. But it’s extremely important for associations to be reliable content curators for their members, weeding out what’s not important and what is so your members have the most up-to-date information possible. I do the same thing for associations.

So, what are my favorite tools for content curation?

1. Google Reader. I could not survive without this. It feeds a constant stream of information to one convenient location, and I can sort by topic and tag things. I can also star blog posts and news articles for later. In addition, I have Google Alerts filtered to my Reader as well.

2. Alltop. Alltop is a great site which organizes blogs by category. For example, the association management page has a great feed of awesome blogs all on one page. You can filter by topic and create your own personalized page with different topics combined.

3. Delicious. My personal favorite social bookmarking site, you can search blog posts and news articles that others have bookmarked. Pages are organized by tag and you can search multiple tags at a time to find the combination you’re looking for.

What are your favorite content curation tools?

It may have been five days since I last used Delicious, but it’s been months since I’ve really used it.

I love social media, but I’ve let my Delicious account go stagnant. Sure, I sporadically bookmark blog posts I think are great, but the last time I bookmarked something was five days ago. Before that, it was June 24. Throughout the past few months, my bookmarks have been stagnant at best.

I actually think Delicious is a fantastic social network and that it’s one of the easiest for lots of people to use. I follow Steve Drake, KiKi L’Italien, Peggy Hoffman, Maddie Grant and Jeff Cobb. But I don’t really follow them. They’re in my Delicious network, but I can’t tell you the last time I actually went to Delicious.com (rather than using my handy Firefox bookmarking tool) to browse links.

I first discussed Delicious back in November as part of the Beyond the Big Three series. I still think it’s as great now as I did back then. But somewhere along the line, I got distracted and my Delicious use became infrequent at best.

This is my public acknowledgement that I haven’t been taking full advantage of Delicious. I got caught up in Twitter and Google Reader, but Delicious gives me even more access to links I might not otherwise see. I love the cross-referencing capabilities Delicious has due to its tagging features. I love its easy search features that are never down (unlike Twitter’s). I love that you can write a note explaining why you bookmarked a particular piece of content.

I truly think Delicious can be a great way for organizations to get started with social media. After all, everyone adds content to their “Favorites” or “Bookmarks.” Delicious just expands on that a bit and adds more social features.

So why haven’t I been using it? Regardless, those days are over, and I plan to take full advantage of the amazing features Delicious has to offer.

If you’re an active Delicious user, let me know. What are the features you like best? And if, like me, you’ve lapsed in your use, tell me why.

This is the second in an ongoing series called “Beyond The Big Three,” which will highlight social networking sites other than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There are tons of other social media outposts on the Web, and they’re great places for associations to curate content. The first installment on Flickr can be found here. Stay tuned.

You know when you find a cool blog post, video or Web site and add it to your Web browser’s “Favorites” folder to reference later? What if there was not only a better way to organize your Favorites, but a Web site that let you access them from any computer or Internet browser?

Such a site does exist! Maybe you’re already familiar with Delicious, but in my opinion, it’s one of the most underrated social networking sites. It’s a great way to jump into social networking without devoting your entire marketing or PR strategy to the social web.

Upon creation of a Delicious account, you can sign in and bookmark any Web sites from any computer or browser, and you’ll be able to access them from anywhere. Additionally, you can tag your bookmarks – some of my favorites for the MemberClicks account include “socialmedia,” “associationmanagement” and “strategy.” (Tags must be one word only.)

You can search your bookmarks by multiple tags, which makes cross-referencing bookmarks a snap. Want to find all your bookmarks that include “socialmedia” and “strategy?” Easy! Want “socialmedia” and “associationmanagement?” No problem!

Delicious also allows for interaction between users. Your bookmarks can be public or private, but this is after all a social media site, so going private is a little counterproductive. (After all, this isn’t your private diary we’re talking about. They’re just Web sites you liked!)

Therefore, when your bookmarks are public, others can find them based on the tags you give them. You can also add other users to your network and search their bookmarks. Delicious even shows how many times a link has been added and ranks bookmarks based on popularity – when you go to the homepage, you have the option of viewing the newest bookmarks, or the most popular ones.

Delicious recently added a “Share” feature, so you can e-mail your bookmarks to contacts whom don’t use the tool.

There are lots of add-ons for Delicious. For example, I use the Firefox add-on so when I right-click on a Web site, there’s an automatic option to bookmark it in Delicious. Very handy.

I highly recommend Delicious for sharing useful information with your association’s staff and members. The URLs are easy to remember (ours is delicious.com/memberclicks) and it allows you to aggregate relevant and important content to refer back to whenever you (or your members) like.

Are you already using Delicious, or does your organization? Don’t forget to add us to your network so we can share links!