Creating original content for your target audience is the best thing you can do. But sharing quality content from credible sources on your blog is an equally effective technique. How do you curate content that will drive traffic, boost engagement, and help your brand stand out from the crowd is the key question.
An estimated 57% of marketers are of the view that content curation is one of the best ways to generate content continuously. Not to mention, it is the best way to keep your editorial calendar filled with some amazing pieces.
If you are new to content curation, this article will cover all the details you need to know. Before we move ahead and discuss how do you curate content, read this post on what is curated content to get yourself acquainted with the term and its benefits.
How Do You Curate Content?
Content curation can be used for both social media and content marketing. You can share other people’s content on your social media accounts like BuzzFeed:
And you can republish someone else’s content on your blog with or without your comments such as Fast Company:
So, how do you curate content?
It has to be a systematic process to curate content. In fact, content curation should be a part of your content marketing strategy. You shouldn’t rely too much on other people’s content, and this means you just can’t curate content randomly. It can backfire.
Here are the steps to curating content for best results:
- Understand your audience
- Identify top sources
- Add your comments
- Set frequency
- Analyze.
1. Understand Your Audience
Audience research is the first step towards developing an effective content curation strategy. If you are using buyer personas, you’ll know the preferences and interests of your audience.
For example, if your ideal customers read content from a specific news site (e.g., The New York Times International), you must curate content from it. You can’t just republish and share any trending content. It must resonate with your audience’s needs and interests.
So, the first step is understanding the needs of your audience in terms of content niches and topics that they crave for. If you don’t have this added in personas yet – add it.
2. Identify Top Sources
Once you know the type of content your audience loves to read, you need to identify sources. Here is the question that you need to answer: What are the top websites and blogs that your audience visits on a daily basis?
Prepare a list of all such websites. And start curating content that your audience loves to read on these sites.
Forbes is a perfect example. You’ll find original content on Forbes along with curated content from some top sources:
Why did Forbes allow the republication of the same article?
Because it doesn’t want to lose readers.
Here is an example from Inc that curate content from several other sources:
When you have a list of the top sources where your ideal customers hang out, you can make content curation effective. It saves you from guesswork.
3. Add Your Comments
There are two ways to curate content:
- Republish or share original content exactly on your blog or social media accounts. This is what most marketers do
- Add your commentary when republishing or sharing content from another source.
You need to add your point of view with the curated content to add value. While simply curating a piece sounds great but adding a short comment or explanation makes it even better.
Here is an example:
Adding commentary makes curation more meaningful. And it is a way to deliver more than just someone else’s content. Your comments make it unique and readers find much more than what they expect.
Here is the thing: When you consistently curate content and add your comments with each piece, you’ll be driving much more traffic to your blog. And it is a great tactic to become an authority in your niche.
Another benefit of adding your personal view to the curated content is that you critically review it. And this ensures you only share the best pieces with your audience.
It helps with fact-checking so you curate the best content.
4. Frequency
How often do you curate content?
It depends.
If you publish a new blog post every day, curating 1-2 pieces a week sounds acceptable. If you publish fewer blog posts per week, curating a single article is enough.
You need to make sure that the number of original articles on your blog must be higher than curated pieces. Don’t use curated content to replace the original content.
Original content adheres to your brand philosophy, guidelines, culture, and is specifically created to develop and promote a unique brand image.
When you rely too much on curated content, it hurts your brand image.
Avoid overdoing content curation.
5. Analyze
Once you start publishing curated content, analysis is a must.
There are two key things that you need to analyze:
- How well curated content performs as compared to the original content in terms of views and engagement
- What type of curated content performs best in terms of topics and sources.
This will give you an idea of if it is working and how well it works.
You can tweak your content curation strategy based on analysis. If it works, great. Keep doing it. If it doesn’t, don’t do it.
Use the Right Tools to Curate Content
Doing content curation is all about finding content worth sharing with your audience. Thanks to content marketing and curation tools that will make your job easier. Tools like Curata, Quuu, Scoop.it, and others can help you take the curation game to the next level.
Content curation is an effective content marketing tactic that helps you save cost, boost engagement, and reach a different target group using someone else’s content. If you aren’t using it, give it a try and see how it works for your business.
I’m sure you’ll love it.
Featured Image: Pexels
