Content Curation A Beginner’s Guide to Digital Content Curation 2019 blog Banner

Content Curation: What, Why & How to do it!

We all have heard it a thousand times – content is king. It is the engine that drives your business and helps you make sales.

Until and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that content marketing has become a huge thing in the e-commerce industry.

However, the reality is, only valuable, insightful, and relevant content drives the conversions that the marketers need.

And let’s be honest.

It isn’t always feasible to keep the content machine fueled up. Creating content takes time, money, and effort and when you’re a stressed-out business owner or a busy marketer, you obviously don’t have a lot of time to spare.

So, what do you do when the gods of inspiration turn their back on you?

The answer is – content curation.

Marketers curating content for a post

In this post, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of content curation, what it is, and what it brings to the table.

Let’s roll!

What is Content Curation? (Definition)

Content curation is the meat of any marketing strategy. It is exactly as it sounds – creating content for your audience.

Content curation is adding your voice to a handpicked collection of content, from a variety of sources and sharing it on various platforms. These pieces of content can be in any form like blogs, newsletters, or webpages.

In simple words, it’s unearthing and sharing the quality content of others, and providing your audience with super fresh content regularly.

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Now, you might be wondering: “Doesn’t copying content mean getting penalized by google? Isn’t that plagiarism?

The answer is, no.

There’s a broad line between curating content and duplicating content.

For the former, you need to find, filter, and search for content that your audience would love, and present it in a unique, visually appealing way. (Even if you didn’t create that piece of content, you’re giving credits to the people who did and driving them traffic!)

But, knowing what content curation is and actually doing it are two completely different things. So, let’s learn a little more!

Read more: 12 Facts About Content Curation You Might Not Know!

Tackling Content Curation

When it comes to content creation, the phrase “everyone is doing it” is literally true.

According to Curata, the best-in-class marketers use 65% created content and 25% curated content and almost every other business is doing some kind of curation.

No matter the industry you’re in, there is always a way to curate content.

Don’t believe us?

Well, let’s suppose you have got a healthcare brand.

Curating and sharing fitness tips to share on your blog, newsletter or other platforms is an amazing way to grow your customers.

Now, let’s suppose that you’re a business owner.

You can collect and republish all the useful, industry-related resources from across the web.

Curating and sharing content on different marketing channels

This would turn your website into a one-stop-shop for your potential customers and will keep leads from bouncing off your website.

How cool is that?

We’re gonna tell you the truth – from healthcare practitioners to small business owners, people who curate content are really the heroes of the modern internet!

3 Reasons Why Content Curation is Important

1. The Digital Era

Before the digital age, marketing channels were pretty cut and dry.

But in today’s digital world, over 40% of the world’s population is on the internet. There are over one billion websites and applications. Digital marketing as a result is becoming more and more complicated.

We’ll bet that throughout the year, you are adding additional popular platforms to your marketing strategy. You want to hit those marketing goals, and the only way to do that is to turn towards the channels your customers are on.

The problem is that unless you are able to increase your marketing budget, you have to work with the resources you have. That means stretching your marketing operation to the limits with regard to time and resources.

In a study by Linkedin Technology Marketing Community, the two biggest content marketing challenges are:

  • Lack of time and bandwidth to create enough content
  • Producing enough content in variety and volume

Regardless of the size of your marketing department and budgets, every marketer deals with the same set of issues.

So what’s the solution?

It isn’t magic, however to a marketer…it is just as spectacular! It’s content curation.

Read more: Social Curation: What, Why and How?

2. The Internet of Things

We create 2.5 million terabytes on the internet every day.

By 2025, this number might reach 463 exabytes.

If our calculation is right, that’s 463 million terabytes.

This is HUGE, isn’t it?

The volume of things that are published on the internet every day is growing and unless someone is a superhero, consuming all the content is far beyond our abilities.

This is clearly a major, major threat for marketers because their messages and voices might get lost in this noise.

With that being said, this is also an opportunity for marketers to stand out.

When you aggregate quality content in one place for your audience, you can turn this noise into music.

3. The Need for Dynamic Content

When you’re out on your first date or in a relationship that’s a decade old – it’s never a good idea to keep blabbering on and on about yourself all the time.

Content marketing is pretty much the same, except that your prospects are your ‘dates’, and you’ve to make them feel happy and special.

…and that obviously won’t happen if you keep talking about just your brand.

A lady creating dynamic content

Sorry to break it to you, but no matter how much your audience loves you, they really don’t want to read about your brand all the time.

What your audience won’t mind though is dynamic content. It shows that you’re not obsessed with yourself and that you value perspectives beyond your own.

But, therein lies the issue. It isn’t always feasible to produce brand-new, dynamic content pieces on a regular basis.

That’s where content curation can help.

It won’t be wrong to say that content curation is the jelly to content creation’s peanut butter.

Read more: Data Curation: What is it & How to Do It?

What does Content Curation Mean For Marketers?

Content curation is adding your voice to a handpicked collection of content, from a variety of sources around a specific topic, that you publish and share on various platforms. These pieces of content can be in any form like blogs, newsletters, or webpages.

Content marketers, social media marketers, and digital marketers are turning towards content curation to help them engage their customers. In fact, 82% of marketers have already added curated content to their marketing strategy.

The Benefits of Curating Content

Rather than worrying about how you’re going to compete with all the content present across the internet, let’s just embrace it. Here are three benefits that might encourage you to curate content.

1. It saves time

It takes a lot of time to produce quality videos, white papers, infographics, long-form articles, etc. You and your team have to spend countless hours researching, writing, creating visuals, and editing to make fresh, engaging content.

However, studies have shown that for every hour invested in content curation, small to medium-sized businesses see 3.7x more volume and 1.6x more traffic. By supplementing your in-house content with content curation pieces, you will not only be able to increase the amount of content you share but also end up with higher engagement levels!

Read more: What is Video Curation & How To Curate Video Content?

2. Helps you in becoming a Thought-Leader

Your audience may be interested in topics that you either don’t have the expertise in or the resources to cover. Curation is a great way to pull quality in-depth content from experts and organizations that have covered topics you are unable to.

By bundling the best resources intelligently, you will be able to provide your customers with valuable information that would have otherwise taken them hours to research! It’s a great way to keep your customers coming back to you and become brand advocates.

 

3. Helps in growing your network

Curation is a fantastic way to expand your reach by including content from other companies, experts, and influencers. You’ll want to make sure you properly give credit and notify your sources of their inclusion in your content.

Content curation helping in networking

It is a useful catalyst to create new partnerships, have your content shared with a larger audience, and lastly, an excellent way to build up your professional network.

Types of Digital Content We Can Curate

Although there are a number of ways you can curate content through your marketing channels, some of the most popular methods marketers use include curated newsletters, web content, and social media.

1. Curate Email Newsletters

One of the most popular ways to curate information is through newsletters. You can collect and share the most relevant industry news, weekly roundups, case studies, listicles, and more.

By choosing from a range of topics and sources, you have the ability to create engaging emails consistently. You are also able to share a wide variety of topics within your industry to engage your customers.

Read more: 30 Awesome Curated Newsletter Ideas

 

2. Curate Web Content & Blog Posts

You can increase the frequency of the content you post on your website through curation. Figure out what topics will resonate with your audience and create content around key resources, informative videos, webinars, reading lists, etc.

If your marketing goals are to drive traffic to your site, you should find ways to curate your brand’s content. You can either curate only your brand’s content, or you can include your brand’s content intertwined with other sources.

Some ideas include curating content around your most popular posts of the month, the best posts about a particular topic, collections of product offerings, and interesting articles about your company.

 

3. Curate Social Media Posts

An excellent way to engage your audience on social media is to share various types of content. By adding curated posts to your social media calendar, you’ll be able to tag brands, experts, and influencers.

It’s a great way to get noticed and have your content shared by some powerful social voices. Depending on how good of a job you do with your curation piece, you have the potential of getting in front of their audiences.

How to Curate Content?

1. Define a Topic

The first step brands and marketers have to take is to choose a topic their customers would find interesting. This can range from industry news, cool tools, customer reviews, top 10 lists, interviews, presentations, product recommendations, and more.

The bottom line is that you are going to want to collect and curate information that is both meaningful and incredibly useful to your customers.

For example, if I were going to target the audience (you) reading this blog post, I could curate content around Top Content Curation Tools for Marketers. I know that my audience has an interest in content curation and can assume by the end of this guide, they will likely start researching content curation tools.

By providing my top picks (after endless hours of research), I’m helping my audience save time and potentially view me as a thought-leader.

2. Collect Content

Every marketing team has its set of expertise and areas of strength with the types of engaging content they produce. One of the main advantages of curating digital content is that you have various mediums of content to choose from: videos, articles, podcasts, webinars, social media posts, infographics, etc.

By tapping into these online channels, you can select the very best content and put them together in a smart and engaging way to share with your audience.

By utilizing the best content out there, you will help your customers find answers to their questions, create new thought processes, incorporate efficient tools, and much more.

Ultimately, your audience will appreciate your efforts and reward you with higher engagement levels. It’s a win-win!

3. Review the Content

People often skip this stage while curating content. Many people collect links and PDFs, find what suits the best, chunk it up together and give it a go. If you think this is content curation, then you better think about it twice.

Reviewing your collected content is important because it allows you to see it from a distance. It gives a better idea regarding what fits and what doesn’t. So now, you can get ahead on your journey with limited stock.

4. Organise the best parts

Yes, folks! Presentation of the content matters a lot. From the selected few resources, now pick out the best part and try to organize your content. It should not have digressions in its flow. How to make it possible? Develop a good understanding of the content, the flow will automatically come.

5. Add Your Voice

As you curate content, it’s important that you add your voice. Tell your customers why they should pay attention and care about the curated content you are sharing; this will help your audience get the most out of your curated content and view you as a thought-leader.

One way to think about this is to imagine being a professor. Your lectures consist of curating and delivering information on a specific topic from a variety of sources.

You aren’t going to read books out loud; you will be inspiring your students through your delivery, opinions, and thoughts. Make sure you focus on the way you deliver your curated content to your customers.

6. Publish & share your curated content with your customers!

The final step is to publish & share your curated content, but not too much to look more real! remember that your audience knows you, so let the magic of web-o-sphere turn your curated content into must read/watch. Try to share your content on various social media and other online web-based platforms.

So, let your curated content move & groove around a little!

Conclusion

By now you should have a good understanding of what content curation is, reasons why you should employ a curating content strategy, and how you can start curating content today. The best way to get started is by looking at your current marketing strategy and identifying key areas where you can start curating content.

Do you have any additional content curation strategies that you have found to be successful?

elink.io is an all-in-one content curation tool that allows you to curate and publish content as a newsletter, web page, or website embed. It’s every content marketer’s dream tool.

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