Content Curation is one of the most important and most popular strategies in Content Marketing and Social Media. In this post you will get to know how Content Curation works and how you can support your company’s brand development with it.
Content Curation is the preparation and publication of external content on your own online channels. Properly applied, it can not only help you in SEO, but also offers your customers and followers orientation in the daily flood of information online. Content Curation also strengthens your customer loyalty by building competence and confidence.
The term “Curation” is based on the Latin word “curare,” which translates to “maintain, take care of”. Content Curation generally refers to the maintenance of content from other sources on one’s own pages. It can be news, expert interviews, surveys, statistics, blog posts, quotes, entertaining videos and more.
„Content Curation is the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest."(Aleyda Solis at SMX 2014 in Munich)
Figure 1: Aleyda Solis
Content Curation is not about blindly picking and copying information. Its purpose is rather to filter relevant high quality information for your customers and followers from the data jungle and to evaluate it with your own comments or to expand it through your own knowledge. Content Curation is not only helpful for SEO, but also for building a lasting relationship with your customers by developing competences and trust. Another positive effect is the brand building. Through Content Curation and the related content a certain image can be created which strengthens the own brand.
Content Curation in social media has been understood in the first minute. In the social web content gets shared all the time. In other fields it is assumed that sharing external content could help the competitors. Nevertheless, the real art of Content Curation consists in knowing where interesting content can be found and how to present it. Providing own innovative and unique content is very important nowadays. It can be very useful to support and strengthen the own content with external sources, because it shows that trends and discussions are pursued and experts on the respective field are acknowledged.
A sports shoe manufacturer for example can promote not only its own products, but approach the subject „running“ in general. Besides, he can point to studies and describe the ongoing developments of material research.
Example:
The app „Niuws“ is completely built up on Content Curation. Besides, the suppliers focus on the collection of business content by experts/curators and are then shared with the users. The user can subscribe to so-called subject boxes according to article recommendations which are given to the reader and the contributions are briefly commented.
Figure 2: The app Niuws is completely built on Content Curation
If Content Curation should be used as a strategy in a company, first, it needs to be considered which kind of curation should be pursued. There are five different approaches:
First, it’s important to identify the own target group to which the content is aimed for in order to develop a communication strategy. Which of the five approaches fits best of all to it?
After you’ve decided on a kind of curation, it is the curator’s job to find relevant content. A valuable instrument to communicate content is still an own blog.
Besides, there are numerous Content Curation tools as for example Scoop.it, Curata or Storify. They offer assistance, while they bundle up, e.g., contributions on pre-chosen subjects.
Figure 3: Storify is a helpful tool for the curation of content.
Then you can proofread the texts, check their relevance and select suitable material for your readership. Before publishing on own website or own social media channels you should process the contributions appropriate for your target group, e. g. , by comments or adding own material.
Important note: Think of the copyright, originator and source before publishing!
Content Curation has many advantages for online marketing. For a long time now the matter is not only how many likes a page has and to get new followers. Of course you would also like to keep and create value for them. For that you should provide interesting, informative and/or entertaining content, because when the user can’t find the relevant information on your website, he will look somewhere else.
Besides, sharing is not only dependent on the quality, but also on the presentation of different content. For example, content of the following kinds can be porcessed and shared:
Expert interviews: If you have the chance to conduct an interview with experts on certain subjects, you should use this possibility. Interesting and high-quality content is explained by the experts, so that the reader can understand the subject more easily. An example for an expert interview can be found in the OnPage Magazine. Johannes Mehlem from the Google Search Quality team gives practical tips for web master.
Case studies: Case Studies share own experiences about a subject with others. The analysis of a certain case processes with the help of an example.
Infographics: Info graphics get shared with pleasure because of different information sources that are nicely put together in a graphic.
eBook:An eBook is a good way to gather information from different experts and sources on a certain subject.
Videos and Pictures:Content does not have to be a text, also pictures and videos are likely to be shared in social media like Instagram or Pinterest.
Surveys and Statistics: If you have the possibility to access many data, then this could be brought together in a study. Studies and surveys are not only shared with pleasure, but can be also processed by others in their own study.
Not only the dialogue with the customers and fans is promoted by Content Curation. With respecting originals by telling sources and the related links a network is created. The originators take notice of you, comment for their part and link back. This provides a bigger relevance and visibility online.
Content Curation is a part of the communication strategy. By valuing and commenting foreign contents you promote the dialogue with customers and followers. On the opposite Content Curation will only affect this if the strategy gets applied wrongly. When using foreign content you should not forget your self-provided content. Because when only thoughts and ideas of others get promoted, doubt could come up about own innovation strength and creativity. Content Curation should underline rather the own opinion or own knowledge, not substitute.
If no unique content can be provided on some days, Content Curation helps without a high time exposure. It brings traffic on the sites which is not only positive for the users but also for search engines. Besides, the care of foreign content can lead to find out what the users are interested in and which subjects and keywords need to be consider furthermore. All in all quality and relevance of own site can be raised with Content Curation.
Correctly used Content Curation helps you to set up an expert’s status to sharpen the brand image, to strengthen customer loyality and to raise relevance and visibilty online.
Published on 11/30/2015 by Eva Wagner.
Eva is an experienced content marketer. Until May 2018 she was a member of online marketing team at Ryte. Using her creativity and the knowledge of current topics, she was responsible for the German Ryte Magazine and the Ryte Wiki. She also organized Ryte’s presence at major trade fairs such as the dmexco in Cologne.
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