Content curation is all the rage these days. It is vital in content marketing because it can help you to attain various goals and complete your overall marketing strategy.
But what exactly is curated content?
It’s simply correlated content that is amassed from a myriad of sources and presented in an organized manner. When it’s published, credit is given to the original source.
As a content curator, your job is to find related content in a certain category and present it to your followers in a mash-up style. Content curation makes a blog a one-stop shop for quality content. You build your authority on a subject, create an incredible resource for your readers, form a good relationship with sites whose content you distribute, and avoid creating content from scratch.
Types of Curated Content
Case Studies
People love social proof, period. Before they make a purchase, they will look for product testimonials, reviews, videos, and anything else they can find. Prospects want to know the experiences others have had with a product or service before they make a purchase. What better way to showcase your products and their benefits than using success stories and case studies.
Ask your customers if they want to share their stories and some of the ways they’re successfully using your product. Or better yet, test the most common usage scenarios and publish the results.
If you want to refute or emphasize a point or idea, use case studies.
Roundup Posts
When done well, these keep on giving. A roundup post is comprised of input collected from different people – mostly experts in your niche, and thought leaders recognized and admired by your audience. The information collected is used exclusively in the article. As the author of the post, you look for content and edit the final draft. You can add a brief introduction and analysis. Some roundup posts merge original and curated content.
Webinars and Presentations
Popular marketers and speakers make their webinar archives and presentation slides available online through sites like SlideShare. Use keywords to search for the best presentations on industry-related topics. Afterward, create a curated post comprising the best presentations or webinars on a specific topic. This will draw a lot of attention and will also help you connect with other prominent voices in the industry.
Quotes
People love quotes. They are widely shared on social media and garner a lot of attention. You can create a compilation of quotes from industry experts and present them in a visually captivating way. But do not overdo it. Don’t create a blog post listing 100 quotes because readers will get bored. Add value with visual elements. You will make your curated content more interesting. People are also more interested in quotes from relevant figures so Warren Buffet quotes will get more for instance.
Infographics
Another all-time favorite of readers from all kinds of niches is infographics. Publish a curated post with infographics and see how popular it becomes. You can search for infographics on Google or Pinterest. Choose a few great ones then write a brief introduction about their content. But remember to credit the original source before publishing your post.
Step-By-Step Guides
With so much content available online, you don’t have a reason not to create step-by-step guides. Select a topic your audience is interested in and create a guide on it. Don’t waste your time creating a guide that no one will ever read. A guide enthralls readers, attracts traffic, social shares, and links.
Graphs, Charts, and Statistics
If you write blog posts regularly, you know how hard it can be to find statistics to back up points or ideas. A statistic is a valuable commodity that fascinates readers. Merge top statistics in your niche into one large post. You can also create a list of the most interesting graphs or charts.
Reading Lists
In every industry, there are must-read books and eBooks. Create a reading list for your audience by selecting the best books they have to read to better understand the industry. You will prevent them from reading those that add no value and introduce them to books they will love.
How Curated Content Can Help Your Brand
If you are a marketer or an entrepreneur, you’re probably asking yourself “can curated content help my brand to grow? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Here are some ways content curation can benefit your business.
Boost Traffic
Websites with curated content attract a lot of traffic. Sites like BuzzFeed and BrainPickings draw millions of visitors every month. Content curation helps you to provide a wide range of content formats, types, and topics. You can offer a mix of short and long content to give readers what they want. They will visit your site to find specific content. But always remember to add your own insight to curated posts. Don’t simply throw some subpar pieces together. In this way, you will position yourself as a thought leader.
Help You to Create Content Quickly
One of the most difficult tasks for bloggers is producing great content on a regular basis. This is why you must include curation in your content strategy. It can fill the gap between creating and marketing original content. You only need to find great content and piece it together. While content curation is not an easy task, it sure trumps churning out multiple posts each week.
Create an Identity for Your Brand
By curating certain types of content, you can emphasize and broadcast your brand values. When you define your brand, you reduce prospects’ purchase risk. If a prospective customer is unfamiliar with your brand, they will hesitate to buy from you. But if they know and trust your brand, they will easily make a purchase. Use curated content to clearly define what you do. You will decrease the perceived risk linked to buying your products.
Help You to Build a Community
When you curate a specific type of content, you attract readers that love that type of content. For example, when you curate marketing and entrepreneurial content, you attract marketers and entrepreneurs. When you publish technical guides and programming tutorials, geeks and programmers will become your diehard fans. Readers will start gathering on your blog, making it a platform to invent and discuss fresh ideas.
Why is curated content so popular? Because it solves one of the biggest dilemmas that exist today: discovery. While there is a vast amount of content online, most of it remains unseen. Sure, thousands of articles are shared on social media every day, but some valuable pieces go unnoticed.
Automated discovery tools are the best option for any successful marketer.
On social media, you can use all-in-one tools like JARVEE that not only can help you schedule your posts and automate all your social media tasks on multiple networks, but also helps you find new content to share with your followers.
Another option would be to use content discovery tools, free or paid, but that will need your 100% attention because you will have to manually search and find new content each day.
The bottom line is that content curation helps people to find new content that suits their needs and tastes. So if you want to distinguish yourself as an influencer in your business, you must incorporate it into your content strategy.
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