Is original content production the most important technique, or can brands benefit from curation as well? How?
Content curation can help businesses (1) build up a high-quality content pipeline and (2) establish a network among thought leaders in their industry. Content marketing is equal parts distribution and editorial. Curation through content syndication can help you hit both with one swing. Not to mention, syndication opportunities are typically reciprocal. When syndicating your content externally (for others to curate), ask for links to drive traffic back to your website. The concept is not new; rather, it has been a massive traffic driving strategy in the media/publishing industry (where I previously worked). We syndicated our content with larger media channels and were able to drive multiple millions of (free) pageviews a year (thanks to the level of scale at which we were producing stories). Happy to discuss further for anyone interested in the topic.
Content curation is a great way to show a wider breadth of your company's interests and values, as well as your ability to find and discover great ideas. It's particularly compelling if it's coming from one of your executives whom you hope to develop as a thought leader ("What our CEO is reading now") or is rolled up into a "reading list" that you add to the end of weekly e-mail newsletters to customers or users. In addition, curation can be handled in a relatively lightweight while still keeping quality high, and this may be an easy solution for a company that is having a tough time getting the budget or resources for a bigger content marketing strategy.
I think it's BEST to create original content, but you can also benefit from supplementing those original ideas with curation. And, if you're not up for creating original content for whatever reason (don't have confidence, don't have time, not sure what stories to tell), start with curation and take it from there.
Here's a post I wrote recently for Mashable on this topic -- We've positioned it for job seekers, but it could apply to companies or any individuals, too.
http://mashable.com/2013/11/23/sharing-other-peoples-content/
Cheers!
@alexisgrant
http://socialexis.com
Content curation is a specialty of mine. The fact is original content is not nearly as good as curated content for many reasons. I would still add some original content but the mix can be tailored to your audience and position you to say more while spending and doing less. It is all about the management. Most people misunderstand content curation and the pros and cons and see it as a weak tactic when in reality it can be brilliant. Contact me to find out more.
Content curation is a great idea because it provides a great source for "easy" content. Lots of businesses have trouble coming up with blog post ideas and finding time to write the post ideas they do come up with. If you fit curation into your posting schedule, then that takes some of the pressure off of the idea generation and writing cycle. This could be something you do once a week or once a month, and the real key is to figure out if it's content that your target audience would want to read and share. In the end, they won't care if it's curated or not; they just care about great content that teaches them something they don't already know or helps them to keep up with their industry.
Curated content is content created by others that you select to share with your own audience. This curated content definition is not complicated. But to get the most value out of content curation, you will have to step it up a notch. But if your social media content calendar has some gaps, curated content is an easy fix. Sharing valuable content from others is a low-budget way to maintain a regular posting schedule. Your followers follow you for a reason. You are not the sole authority in your industry, and you should not pretend to be. When you carefully select content to share with your followers, you provide them with additional value by giving them access to multiple perspectives. This is a killer report from the BuzzSumo. By sharing only, the best content out there so your followers know that when they come across a resource on your feed, it is worth reading. As we will explain below, you can also add your own insights when sharing curated content.
It is also the first step of effective content curation. To share valuable content, you must know who you are targeting. This will help you think about your audience as real people and allow you to consider thoughtfully what kinds of curated content might be most helpful to them. Your role as the curator is to choose only the most valuable content to share on your channels.
Keep an eye on the engagement levels for your curated posts. You will learn what kind of content really resonates with your followers. They want to know what you think about the resource you shared. Just one or two short sentences explaining why you think the content is valuable is great. Content curation is not content scraping. When you share content from others, make sure you link to the original source and tag their social accounts. The Hootsuite dashboard helps you find relevant content to share and schedule your curated content posts to fill gaps in your content calendar. You will then have an automatically updated feed of content to choose from when you want to create a curated content post. BuzzSumo also helps you identify influential people in your industry so you can check out their latest content and see whether it could be valuable to your followers. It is possible you will spot content you want to share with your followers by just scrolling through your Twitter feed. Create a list of people who post valuable content relevant to your audience so you can scroll through it whenever you are looking for content to curate. Every time you come across an interesting article, video, blog post, or other content, you can add it to your pocket account. Then, when you are ready to create some curated content posts, you have got a collection of material already to share, and accessible anywhere. Instapaper is another great resource for saving content as you browse the web. It means you will never forget why you saved an article, or exactly why you thought it was worth sharing. Making some notes when you save the content can make it much easier to create your curated post later.
Set up Google Alerts for keywords relevant to our industry. You now have a ready source of up-to-date content to comb through whenever you want to create some curated content posts. If you are using the Hootsuite RSS Syndicator, you can also add Google Alerts to your Hootsuite dashboard.
Talk Walker is a social listening tool. Talk Walker Alerts offers a few additional benefits. First, Talk Walker also includes social results, whereas Google only provides web results. So, for example, you could set your filter to send alerts only for blog posts.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
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