Like many social media sites, everyone is working to be the first one to submit something new. While all of that duplicate content starts to pile in, there will only be one winner who ends up with the story that everyone across the social network sees. However, taking focus off of the story itself and creating a different type of content around this breaking news item, can be much more viral and a lot easier to get to the front page of Digg for instance. Being able to spin breaking news is key.

For this example I will use an event that got a ton of coverage, the 2008 summer Olympics. Take a look at this page of Digg search results. Using all of the buzz the Olympics were generating, a lot of these people created content tottaly unrelated to the events themselves. Instead you see images and articles making fun of George Bush, top 10 lists for everything under the sun, and of course the most embarrassing moments.

Here are some ideas you can apply to other current events. Ask yourself these questions and within your answer you will find ideas for content that works well across social media networks.

1. Competition - Did Apple just release a new product? What does this mean for the industry and their competition? Did Microsoft have a response?

2. Best of the Worst - Top 10 worst players in the NFL, most embarrassing moments of the 2008 MLB highlight reals… Creating content that showcases the best of the worst always does well.

3. Dead People - Were they famous? What amazing things did they do with their life? Was this an avoidable tragedy or was there foul play involved?

4. Shock and Awe - Effects of nuclear weapons testing. Is the internet doomed by [insert new service here]. Will there be an aftershock to the earthquake that just struck California?

Creating social media content whether its for a blog, or for marketing requires that you think outside the box. Your chances of being first to cover a breaking news story are slim so why not increase your odds and create content thats possibly more interesting than the original news item or current event. There will always be relevant news to your niche so find a way to spin it. Hopefully this will allow you to see current events in a different light because when it comes to SMM, they can be your best friend.