What Is Content Curation And Why Should Brands Start Doing It?

Have you ever reposted a quote you saw on your feed? Or used a line from a recent read to represent your mood for the day? What about quoting from a movie you watched recently? We’re all guilty of sharing someone else’s lines or a portion of some post when updating our own social media status at least once. Heck, it’s pretty much the essence of social media!

This is a habit practiced by many to express their thoughts, to say what’s on their mind but couldn’t put into words, or to simply stay relevant in social media. This act is so commonly done not everyone realizes its true impact. Why so? Because experts call this practice content curation.

What Is Content Curation?

While content marketing is about getting material out to strengthen your brand, curation is about finding something that stands out online instead of creating something new. This strategy could help you lessen the amount of time you spend creating posts from scratch. Constantly coming up with new things to write about, while still keeping up with the demands of a business, takes a lot of creative juice… and sometimes one might not have enough time to do so.

But Why Do Brands Need To Start Curating?

• It lessens the work. When you’re too occupied with SEO marketing strategies for your business, you might not have the time to make enough fresh content to do the subject justice.
• It adds fresh variation. When you talk about a subject, that’s one thing. But to quote from someone else… then yet some other person… now you have a very valid point substantiated by others. Now you really look like an expert!
• It shows that you’re involved. If you post the latest trends in the industry from time to time, it could show your engagement is at a deeper level. It gives you and your business a sense of relevancy to the latest news within the industry.
• It paves way to better connections. Curating the content of bigger names could help you connect with the leaders in your industry, which means bigger opportunity for more connections. It could also trigger conversation with your social media audience in general.

How To Effectively Curate

First, you’ll need to figure out the topics you want to search for, and once you find the right material, decide what you want to share. Start asking questions like: Is it relevant to my brand? Is the source trustworthy? Will it offer fresh and unique ideas to the readers? Is it entertaining or engaging?

Keep these question in mind when finding the right content to share in your social account or blog post. Also, think about the so-called ‘Social Media Rule of Thirds’ – One third of what you share should be brand promotion, one third should be curated content, and the remaining one third should be about the conversations that are happening on social.

What Is Content Curation And Why Brands Should Start Doing It

Consider These Best Practices and Start Curating Like a Pro

• Read. Watch. Listen. Out of the many things you can find online, make sure to check and validate them before sharing.
• Relevancy. Even if it’s most talked about on social, if it’s irrelevant to your brand, skip it. Look through the next material.
• Trustworthiness. Only use materials that are from trusted sources. There’s no way around it.
• Personalize. Though the content isn’t yours, add a personal touch to it. Tell the audience how it might interest them.
• Prioritize. The most important of all, ensure that the material is either interesting, entertaining, or useful to your audience. It won’t work if it doesn’t catch your audiences’ attention.
• Credit. Put credit to where credit is due. Don’t forget to mention the source and tag them in the post whenever possible.

Check out this list of tools before you curate you next post.

Curating content is a fresh way to bring in ideas similar to your brand’s philosophy. It might seem like taking the time to go find curatable content wouldn’t be worth the effort, but as you can see, the amount of benefits both you and your audience receives clearly makes it worth it.

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