“Curation” is most often associated with Art World professionals. Art curators skillfully choose and organize art around a central theme or idea. This creates an impactful experience for the viewer.
Content curators do the same thing.
When you curate content effectively, you are bringing together a carefully selected experience to enhance the value to your readers that has them returning again and again.
Here’s a look at why content curation matters and how to get started.
What is the goal of content curation?
Good content curation creates a valuable user experience. You are cutting through the noise to bring high-quality content directly to your readers without hassle. You provide context, unique insights, and new perspectives on your area of expertise that they can’t get anywhere else.
This is the goal of content curation — establish yourself as the most authoritative voice in the room. Your credibility will solidify as you continue to amplify your voice and your brand authority grows.
5 benefits of content curation in an age of information overload
Here are five ways content curation benefits you and your readers.
Reduce information overload
People are tired of content. In a 2022 survey conducted by OpenText, 8 out of 10 respondents reported experiencing information overload. The factors that contributed to overload included
- Too many accounts to manage
- Not enough digital tool support
- 24/7 access to information
- Too many apps to check
Curated content can reduce this overwhelm by presenting only what’s relevant and useful. Content that’s curated, organized, and all in one place will mitigate the need to search and scroll endlessly to find information.
If you’re a blog owner, curating content is like being a trusted guide. You carefully select, organize, and present information to your readers to enrich their experience. By establishing yourself as a trustworthy source of information, readers will start to see you as a brand they can trust. When trust is built, conversions soon follow.
Research done by The Institute of Customer Service in 2022 found that 81% of users consider trust a very important factor when deciding to use an organization. 95% are likely to remain customers of a brand they trust.
The formula here’s simple:
Brand trust = conversions = happy customers who keep coming back.
Add (specific) value
Adding value in content curation means adding personal thoughts, opinions, and context your readers won’t find anywhere else.
Your job is to engage readers through introductions that differentiate the content from its original source.
This is the value you are adding. This is what makes your content specifically yours. Be authentic with your thoughts and share based on what you know your audience wants from you.
It can be helpful to use advanced, time-saving tools for this step. If used well, AI tools can significantly personalize content curation. For instance, creating a custom AI voice enables the delivery of audio versions of written content in a style and tone that reflects your brand’s identity.
This approach makes your curated content more accessible and tailors it to your audience’s preferences.
Develop your professional network
Collaboration is always a good growth strategy. Curating content builds relationships with other professionals in your industry. This results in reciprocal sharing and exposure to larger audiences.
Similarly, when you share content from other thought leaders, you are fostering community and engagement. As you continue to nurture your relationships, new opportunities will arise to share your knowledge.
Guest blogging, podcast invites, and webinars are all common results of good collaboration. The more you share your knowledge, the more established you’ll become as a thought leader in your niche.
Save resources
The content hamster wheel is hard to keep up with. In research compiled by Search Engine Journal this year:
- 35% of marketers consider generating content ideas one of their greatest challenges.
- 45% struggle with attracting quality leads through content.
- 38% struggled with creating more content faster.
This is where content curation can help your content strategy.
Publishing quality content you don’t have to create from scratch saves precious marketing resources like:
Time: curating the right content and adding insights will take time, but not nearly as much time as ideating and creating from scratch.
Money: you’ll save the revenue you’d be spending on a content team or freelancers to create in-house content.
Ideation: cut down on the amount of ideation you have to do to fill your content calendar with value.
Staffing: work with freelancers or fewer in-house staff by using content curation tools and creating a system for curated content publication. (We’ll talk more about what tools to use in the sections below.)
Provide diverse content formats
The most recent state of marketing report by Hubspot shows that short-form video and images are the top two formats that offer marketers the highest ROI.
Consumers love bite-size pieces of information they can share and digest.
For example, Bucket List Tours, a WWII tour agency, skillfully incorporates imagery into its content. Instead of relying solely on text, the agency uses a diverse array of carefully chosen visuals to complement its narratives, as seen in articles like “The Liberation of Paris.”
These images enhance the storytelling experience and offer readers a break from text-heavy content.
Publishing a range of content formats will keep your feed fresh and attract potential customers from more demographics.
You can fill gaps in your content creation with different format varieties that offer different perspectives and deeper scope. This will attract voracious readers who are eager to soak up information in their area of interest.
5 Tips to get started
Now that you understand the importance of content curation, let’s explore some suggestions for getting started.
Curate insights for your audience
Specificity is your friend in content curation.
Information on every imaginable topic is abundant and overwhelming. You want to niche down so that the content you curate is for your audience specifically.
Take the healthcare industry as an example.
Recent developments in medications for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and weight management include innovations like oral Semaglutide, an FDA-approved drug that’s shown promise for individuals struggling with weight loss plateaus. It’s a GLP-1 receptor agonist that regulates appetite and supports blood sugar levels, offering a new avenue for those seeking treatment.
Without proper content curation, such valuable information is easily lost in the noise of countless data points flooding user feeds.
On the flip side, curating news and trends in the financial, healthcare, and entertainment sectors influences more than consumers. Decision-makers use these insights to strategize budget allocation. This can be used to your advantage if you angle your curation to echo the need for your particular product or service.
Curate according to your channels
Different distribution channels require tailored content strategies.
For example, a social media strategy that includes channels like Instagram and TikTok must use short-form videos to optimize for a younger, visually oriented audience.
By contrast, a platform like LinkedIn should be curated toward industry news, trends, and stats for a more professionally-minded audience.
Keep these guidelines in mind when choosing content that aligns with each channel’s purpose and audience:
- What demographic primarily uses this platform?
- What format of content performs best on this channel?
- What do users on this platform most like to see?
- What do your analytics show gets the most engagement?
- Is the content you’re curating aligning with the purpose of each channel (video, text, etc.)?
Cite your sources
If you take nothing else away from this article, remember this — cite original sources.
All of your content efforts are meant to build trust and credibility. One instance of sharing content without proper citation will destroy years of trust-building effort with your readers.
Correctly citing sources will look a little different depending on your platform.
If you share content on social media platforms like X or Instagram, tag the appropriate creators.
When sharing social media content from various creators, tag the sources in captions.
Blog post citations can be simple hyperlinks, but you don’t want the source of your content to be hidden. You can create a section at the beginning or end of each blog post dedicated to your sources to give them due credit.
However, take care that the sources you cite are original sources. Just because you found the information in one post doesn’t mean that’s the original source of the data. Do your due diligence to track down where the information came from and credit that source.
Doing this also helps prevent using outdated information. It’s worth going upstream to fact-check. You may find that what you thought was a current source actually came from an article written in 2005.
Consider copyrights
Sharing content is perfectly legal, but stealing content isn’t. The difference can be confusing.
Fair use under copyright law in America allows limited use of copyrighted material. You may use fair-use content without permission for purposes such as criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. However, fair use has its limits, especially in promotional or commercial use cases.
If you use copyrighted material for promotional or commercial gain without significant transformation or added value, it may not qualify as fair use. For example, if you use substantial portions of copyrighted content in advertisements without permission, it’s generally not considered fair use.
The effect of the use on the market value of the copyrighted work is also important. If the use of copyrighted material for promotional purposes negatively impacts the potential market value of the original work, it may not qualify as fair use.
When in doubt, always go the extra mile to make sure you are in the clear before sharing something. Seek appropriate permissions or licenses when using copyrighted material for commercial purposes.
Choose your tools
The right content curation tools make the job a thousand times easier. Here are a few we recommend to get started.
Scoop.it
Scoop.it is a powerhouse content curation tool used by 8+ million curators to research and publish the best content across all industries. You can research, curate, share, and distribute within minutes, taking the guesswork out of content curation.
Walls.io
Walls.io allows you to curate content from across social platforms into one concise “wall of fame.” You can utilize this software for events, ad campaigns, internal comms, websites, and more.
Pinterest is all about visual discovery. It makes organization seamless and easy as you sift through the best content on the web to curate your unique voice.
Feedly
Feedly’s Marketing Intelligence tool gives you a 360 view of your competition and industry trends. Round up the latest intel and share it in a snap.
Wrapping up
People are hungry for answers but often become overwhelmed by information overload. Content curation matters because it eliminates the noise. It makes room for valuable, organized, and thoughtful content around a specific topic.
To be a good curator, you’ll need to add specific value to your readers, cite your sources, and use tools wisely.
If you’re ready to grow your audience through content curation, try Scoop.it for free.
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