With the many tips and articles pertaining to content trends to look for in 2019, it can be a little overwhelming when it comes to building a content marketing strategy. While these tips are all valuable and even profitable if implemented, content curation needs to be at the forefront of any new content marketing approach in order to ensure a successful year. To get started on this topic, let’s first ensure we are on the same page. The following is a definition of curated content as stated by the Content Marketing Institute:
“To meet your audience’s information needs, content curation is the assembly, selection, categorization, commentary, and presentation of the most relevant quality information. You add your human editorial perspective while integrating your 360-degree brand.”
To put it another way, again from Content Marketing Institute:
“Content curation taps into the power of existing owned, social, and third-party media to enhance and extend your content marketing resources.”
Benefits of Content Curation
Curated content isn’t free but it is more affordable than new content. When you curate content, it also allows you to get the most out of any content you already have in your possession. Don’t misunderstand, to curate content is not some cheap alternative to procuring new content. Instead it does the following with content you already have:
- Extends the life: Through curation, you can reuse content for various purposes across your organization.
- Fill your schedule: With curated content, you can ensure you always have content available, from a wide variety of sources, to fill out your editorial calendar.
- Enable regular distribution: You also can guarantee ongoing amplified distribution of your content through curation.
- Smart marketing move: According to a Jebbit marketing specialist, all marketers should curate around 25% of their content on a regular basis. The remaining portion should be fresh content, which is where the professional writers at WriterAccess can come into play.
Actionable Tips to Curate Your Content
Now that you know the importance of and benefit of content curation, consider the following tips for accomplishing the task:
- Spotlight The News: Providing curated links via a newsletter or other source is a great way to provide your audience with a helpful service. The news articles don’t have to pertain to your niche specialty as long as you make sure to identify them as simple, helpful pieces of news, not advice for your specialty. Make sure you add valuable commentary and organize the information so your audience can skim through and only read what they are interested in learning more about.
- Create a Cyclical Curation to Fill Your Editorial Calendar: You want to create content anticipation among your audience. To do this, make sure you provide regular content and let your audience know when it’s coming. Spin Sucks uses a cyclical schedule that their audience looks forward to consuming. They have two weekly columns and discussions. To identify the best content for curation, ask your communities on social media what content they feel is worthwhile. Build it up by adding links and mentions to other communities. Be sure to create a recognizable graphic and title for the curated content, so your audience will recognize it when released.
- Add Your Own Spin to Curated Content: Put your own spin, even on non original, curated content. To do this, simply add your own perspective or links to applicable studies that go along with the content you are highlighting.
- Revitalize Existing Content: You likely have an abundance of content assets from videos, to newsletter content and blog posts. Ideally, you want to take this content and amplify it so that it can resonate that much more. In other words, it’s not rehashing old content, it’s taking content that was already doing well and adding even more value, which will introduce it to a new audience and expand its reach. To do this following the tips listed below:
- Reuse one component of a piece in a new format, such as social media posts, data visualization chart, infographic or checklist.
- Monitor performance of content an all platforms by watching search traffic to identify high-performing content. Track the most popular assets you have created.
- Cross link to existing content. If you spotlight new content, consider linking to an original post.
- Choose Only The Best: Another important element to remember regarding content curation is to only build and share authoritative, valuable sources. Consider if the content you are sharing adds value. Answer the question, “would this content be valuable to my readers?” If you can, as mentioned above, add your own content that will communicate a link’s value. Perhaps provide your opinion or ask a question to get communication going on the topic.
Check out these great examples of content curation in action!
Content curation is a valuable to tool you can utilize as part of your overall content marketing strategy. The tips listed above will give you a good idea of what it means to curate content and how it can benefit you as a marketer.
Brandie P‘s career as a freelance writer spans several years and encompasses an abundance of niche specialties. Before beginning her writing career, she was an office manager and worked in the medical field. Her experience in these two fields have come in handy when writing topics pertaining to these fields.
