Meghana Manjunath Needle in a haystack.
Sometimes looking for a piece of relevant content in the online world can remind us of this old adage. We’re sure you’ve probably experienced this at some point. Well, today we’re going to look at the best solution to that problem. Content curation. This is a great way to find and share interesting and relevant content with your followers. Curating content can help you connect with your audience better as you share information that benefits them. This, in turn, keeps them hooked and enables you to build an engaged audience.
Imagine you’re meeting someone for the first time, and all you do is speak about yourself. Do you think that will be a fruitful interaction for the other person? No! Now, apply the same principle to your social media or any other website that you use to host your content. When you share relatable content, even if it isn’t created exclusively by you, that fosters a connection between you and your audience.
Without further ado, let’s jump right into the world of content curation and see what it entails.
What Is Content Curation?
Before we stroll down this path, let’s get the definition of content curation out of the way. Simply put, content curation is the art of discovering, gathering, selecting, structuring, and sharing content from the vast reaches of the internet. Content curation is ideally designed to provide sources of important and relevant information to an audience. It’s a crucial skill to develop for someone who works in the field of content, such as a content creator.
Presentation is vital when it comes to content curation. Relevance is another critical factor. Imagine if we were to send you a list that reads “5 articles to read,” chances are you’d never even click on it. Now, If that list were to say, “5 articles to read if koalas are your favorite animals,” we’re sure the clickability of that list would be a lot higher.
Lists like these are only one aspect of curating content. There are a lot of layers to this. We’re here to help you peel each one back and understand the core principle that is ‘value.’ Every piece of content essentially aims to provide value to its target audience.
Content curation is a tool that, if wielded correctly, can boost your followers and engagement.
We’ll cover more about the importance of content curation ahead.
Why Is Content Curation Important?
Where have you heard the word ‘curator’ before? Most likely, in connection to a museum or an art gallery. Have you ever wondered what they do? Well, their job is to refine a collection by filtering out pieces that have less impact. And they are hired by the most prominent museums and art galleries in the world to ensure that the collections on display highlight the cream of the crop.
Content curation works in a similar way in the digital world. With the help of content curation, you can essentially filter out most of the noise, discover great content and share them with your followers.
Another reason for the importance of content curation is that you can collect ‘gems’ that may otherwise be lost in the recesses of the world wide web. You get to shine a spotlight on the best pieces of content by sharing them with your grateful followers.
You could even establish yourself as a thought leader on certain topics. After all, it takes keen skills to sift through numerous pieces of content floating about and pick the right ones to bring to your audience!
If you’ve gotten to this point and are wondering why you’ve been spending so much time creating original content from scratch instead of simply curating content, stop! Content curation is not a replacement for content creation. Rather it can be a helpful supplement to your content creation strategy. And if they both seem similar or interchangeable, then read on!
Content Curation vs. Content Creation
Ideate, design, write, create, edit, post, share.
If you’re a content creator, then we’re sure that’s a familiar process. Creation implies the making of something, often from scratch. That’s precisely what content creation is all about. And it may well be the reason your audience follows you. But content creation also tends to take up a lot of time, energy, and resources to pull off.
With rapidly changing social media algorithms that focus solely on engagement, you would soon find it difficult to sustain content creation alone. This is where content curation can be the hero you need. Content curation takes up significantly less time and energy than content creation. Yet, if done right, it can boost your engagement and help it stay high!
Content curation lets you share valuable content with your audience, which is on par with the kind you create. For example, if you’re a sports buff who missed an important match and don’t have the time to watch the repeat. What’s your next best option? That’s right! Highlight reels. This way, you catch the most important parts of the match. And you don’t have to sit through hours of uninteresting footage. Similarly, with content curation, you provide your followers with relevant and engaging content even when you haven’t been able to create any.
Still not convinced? That’s alright, we came prepared!
Benefits of Content Curation
Content curation is a great way to support the content you create. But there’s a host of other benefits in it as well, such as:
Cost-EFFECTIVE
That’s right! Content curation is a great way to push relevant and effective content out and save big bucks while doing it.
Save Up on Time
And you can put that time into content creation. Win-win!
Work the Network
Curating content can help you build a better network. And who knows, you could find your next collaborator!
Mix it Up!
It won’t hurt to mix up the kind of content you post. It can also help to further the reach of your content.
Potential Thought Leader
It may not happen overnight, but you can establish yourself as a thought leader for your audience. Just consistently share relevant or niche content, both created and curated.
Test the Waters
Content curation is a great way to gain insight into your followers’ interests and what works well. This will, in turn, help you win at the creation game too!
Well, we’re sure that list got you on board with content curation for sure! We are here to help you on this journey. Keep going for the best practices to help you excel at content curation.
Best Practices
We want to make a tiny clarification before letting you in on more about content curation. All this talk may have got you wondering why bother with creation at all when curation clearly offers so many benefits at a fraction of the cost and effort?
The truth is, tempting as it may be, having a healthy mix of both created and curated content is the best way to keep your followers happy. There’s no set formula, but a study by Curata found leading marketers use a mixture of 25% curated content with 65% created content for their content strategy. While it may take some work to figure out what ratio works better for you, that’s a good place to start.
Here are the best practices for content curation:
Variety and Spice
Include a variety of content types, so there’s something for everyone. This is especially important if you only create content of a single type.
Get it Right
Don’t forget to do your due diligence. Make sure the content you share is valuable and correct.
Add a Finishing Touch
Cake is better with icing, and curated content is better with your take added to it. This makes the content more personable, even if you didn’t create it.
Track Those Digits
Keep a record of the engagement rates on your content, both created and curated. This will help you improve your strategy.
Always Give Credit
Make sure to keep track of your sources and properly credit them when you share their content.
You’ll only get better with time and practice. This holds true for content curation as well.
Content Curation Tools
The most crucial aspect of content curation is discovering amazing, relevant content and then sharing it. While you have your social channels, hosts, and websites to share the content, the former requires some virtual digging.
Here are some tools to help you ace content curation:
Good Ol’ Google
With Google Discover, you get a personalized feed along with your favorite search engine. This is a handy way to ‘discover’ and even follow topics. Enjoy a neverending supply of content to curate!
Twitter Chatter
Twitter can be notoriously messy with its unique outlook, but it’s also one of the best platforms for content discovery! Use the Twitter Lists to make sense of the chaos and organize the accounts you follow by category.
Create a digital magazine, sign up for newsletters and keep track of the news and stories that matter to you. What’s more, Flipboard can also be a new outlet for your content curation!
List with Listly
This is great for making and sharing lists! And listicles are some of the most popular ways to curate content ever! Listly is the perfect tool for you to start content curation!
Pin it with Pinterest
Whether you’re into vision boards or mood boards, Pinterest is the best place on the internet to ‘pin’ content pieces, create collections, and curate content.
These are just a few of the content curation tools out there. But they’ll make for a fantastic start to your journey!
Content curation is an effective way to draw followers and boost engagement. Content creation and curation are two sides of the same coin. It’s important to include both in your content strategy.
We hope this article was informative and helpful without being a yawn. Feel free to curate and share it. And If you’ve stuck around to the very end, please drop us a comment!
