Content Curation 2023: Why It’s Still a Great Way to Share Good Content
Building a strong online presence starts with good content. If it’s a really great article we don’t really care who writes it—and that’s the beauty of curated content. It’s still relevant, still a great way to build your brand and build relationships. It’s still a way to be recognized as a thought leader because we still love thoughtful content that inspires us.
Content
- What is content curation
- How to make curated content part of your content strategy
- The three pillars of content curation
- Content curation toolsWhat is content curation?
Curated content is that which is carefully selected from various sources and shared with your audience. It can be in the form of blog posts, podcasts, articles, videos, infographics and social media posts. Curated content is a collection of some of the best content available on a particular topic.
By curating content, you can provide your audience with new perspectives, insights and resources. Think about curating content that may be a little off-topic or something you wouldn’t normally be writing about. A caveat: Make sure you’re sourcing your content. Reach out to the authors and you’ll be building relationships and creating link-building opportunities along the way.
Make content curation part of your overall digital content strategy. It can:
- Help you establish yourself as a trusted source of information, consistently delivering quality content customized to audience interests.
- Enable you to stay on top of the latest industry trends.
- Flesh out your content strategy by letting someone else do the heavy lifting!
While content curation can save time and effort, you still need to be developing original articles. And just posting someone else’s content is only part of the process. You need to be weighing in on the content you’re producing. Explain why you chose to feature this article, why it’s relevant for you, or what the key takeaway should be. Don’t be afraid to share your opinions. We tend to love it when people put themselves out there.
Marketers are embracing content curation. According to elink:
- 82% of marketers have added content curation to their marketing strategy to showcase themselves as industry authorities and reinforce their relationships with the audience.
- 76% of marketers share and distribute curated content on social media, the most popular platform content curation.
- Today, only 5% of the marketers worldwide surveyed in their yearly report that they never share other company’s content, while around 33% share industry publications, blogs, or other resources on a regular basis!
- As per Curata data, leading marketers use a mixture of 65 percent original created content and 25 percent curated content.
Three pillars of curated content: Relevance, quality and diversity
These three pillars are essential for curating content that engages your audience growing your brand.
- Relevance is the first pillar of curated content. It’s essential to understand the client you’re trying to reach. If you haven’t created a persona, this is a really good time to do this. You should be able to picture that person as you’re working.
- Quality. The content should be well-written, researched, accurate and well-presented. Include images or graphics to help make your content more accessible.
- Diversity. Mix it up and stretch yourself. Curate content from a variety of sources. This is one of the most basic reasons to curate content in the first place—provide an article that you wouldn’t normally be writing about. Topics that may be a little outside your niche, but are thought-provoking and relevant. Seek out new and diverse sources. Share articles that got your attention and they’ll likely interest your audience.
The cons of content curation
- Content curation requires careful selection and verification of sources to ensure accuracy and credibility. It can be time-consuming to find and curate high-quality content consistently.
- Curated content may limit your originality, but it doesn’t have to. The curated content premise relies on your personalizing the article you’re featuring. Your feedback is what makes this valuable. A recommended balance is 40% curated content and 60% original.
Content creation tools
Content creation tools help find, organize and share content with your audience. Some of the most popular curating tools include:
- Feedly is a content aggregator that allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds from various sources. It’s a great way to stay current with the latest content from your favorite blogs and publications. Look for authors or sources whose work you love–those who have unique perspectives or see things just a little differently than the rest of us.
- Pocket allows you to save articles and web pages for later reading. Save these to one place so you can review them together and decide which articles to feature in your blog.
- Hootsuite is a social media management tool that helps you schedule and publish content to multiple social media channels from a single dashboard. You can respond to posts and manage everything from a single sign-on.
Curated content examples
- Roundup posts are a great digital content strategy for curating content from various sources on a particular topic.
- Focus on a single topic and include the highlights of a few articles in a single post. Continue this for a few weeks and you’ll have a nice discussion of a topic from a range of sources.
- Add quotes from industry leaders, graphics, statistics, etc. and this becomes a lively review.
How to measure the success of curated content
Measuring the success of curated content can be tricky, as it can be challenging to separate the impact of curated content from other factors. However, there are several metrics you can use to evaluate the effectiveness of your curated content, including:
- Engagement is a critical metric for evaluating the effectiveness of curated content. This includes likes, shares, and comments on social media as well as traffic to your website or blog.
- Brand awareness. You can measure brand awareness through metrics such as social media reach, website traffic and media awareness.
- Leads and sales. Curated content can generate leads and sales for your business. Measure by tracking how many leads and sales are generated through your curated content.
What to avoid when curating content
- Sharing too much content is a common mistake. Be selective. Remember those articles that really got your attention? Those are the ones you want to share with your audience. You’re not doing this just to cross a line item off your to-do list.
- Remember quality and relevance. Along with this are not properly sourcing your curated content and not bothering to comment on it—content curation is not a copy and paste exercise.
Conclusion: The power of curated content
Curated content contributes to a strong online presence.
- Choose what you curate carefully and think about the content’s relevance, quality, and diversity.
- A good curated post includes your own commentary, images/graphics and author sourcing. Like any good piece of content, insert yourself into your content.
- Use content curation tools to find and organize the great articles that are worth sharing with your audience.
