In the simplest terms, content curation is sharing other people’s content with your audience. Do not be confused- it is not copying other people. You are giving those people credit, but you are sharing it with your audience. And guess what? You already do it. How many times have you shared a funny post or meme on Facebook? Do you retweet on Twitter? Do you pin other people’s pins to your boards on Pinterest? All of that is content curation. In none of these cases are you stealing anything- the post, tweet, and pin all link back to the creator. However, your audience is now seeing it.
Are you wondering how this can help your business grow? Here is an example: Let’s say you run a health & beauty blog and you have a company Facebook page. One day, you find an article about the dangers of a certain makeup brand so you share this on your company Facebook page so that your audience can read it as well. You have just curated that article.
This one act has done a few things:
1) It shared someone else’s article helping them gain more viewership.
2) It educates your audience.
3) Your audience starts to see you as someone who cares about them and believes you know what you are talking about so
4) you gain a more loyal customer base. Sure, it is someone else’s content, but it benefits you as well.
How to Curate Content Effectively
Do not curate all or even most of your content. The basic rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule – create at least 80% of your content and curate no more than 20%.
It should be relevant and valuable. If your business is not about stopping dogfights, do not curate content about dogfights on your company page. Save that for your personal feed. It is a sad topic, but that is not what your customer is coming to you for. Keep any curated content relevant and valuable to your audience.
You do not have to curate an entire article or post. You can instead curate pieces and make it personal. If, for example, you run across an article that has one quote or paragraph that you like, do not share the whole thing. Instead, share that one part, give credit for it to the creator, and then share your thoughts or feelings about it. Explain why you felt that sharing this was important or what made it catch your eye.
7 of the Top Content Curation Tools
1. Pinterest
You may not yet know that Pinterest is much more than a DIY board. It is much more like a search engine. Tons of people use Pinterest so using it to create or curate content is a great way to get eyes on you and your brand. Create boards that reflect your niche and then search for pins that would fit these boards. You can use a social media planner such as Tailwind to schedule your pins and have them re-pinned throughout the day. This may sound time-consuming but after the initial set up, it saves tons of time. The team will then just need to look in on Pinterest for new relevant boards from time to time.
2. Listly
Everybody loves a good list. They are educational, entertaining, quick reads. Listly is a content curation software that you can use to create lists to share. Perhaps you put together a “Top 10 Quotes of 2019” or “The Best Books to Read This Year.” Listly allows you to draw all this info from around the web and develop it into a list that can be shared. You can allow others to add to your list so teams can work on lists together instead of one person having to do it all.
3. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is excellent for cutting down the time it takes to research a topic. All you must do is type the topic into the search and BuzzSumo will put the most shared content about that topic in front of you. If you were putting together those lists mentioned above, BuzzSumo would help you complete those lists in short order.
4. PublishThis
PublishThis is a kind of “one stop shop”. You can use this tool for creating emails, posting on social media, and curating lists and other content. It could save a team even more time by having everything in one place.
Feedly
Feedly can be used to keep up with content you wish to share over time. When you find the content you like, you add it to boards that you can organize. Then, when you need content, it is already available. This can save a team a lot of time if all members add content as they find it.
Post Planner
This content curation tool does most of the work for you. Post Planner learns things about your business- like your industry- and curates relevant content for you to share.
UpContent
UpContent is another way to cut through the Internet “noise.” Once you create a topic, UpContent will find relevant content for you to choose from that you can then schedule on social media.
All these content curation tools can be useful to a content team. Some are free while others require pay depending on what functions the team needs. If the team has a strategy in place, it is easy to put these tools to work.
