According to Wikipedia, content curation is “the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest.” Why is this important for your business? Well, content curation can establish you as an industry thought leader, provide additional fodder for social media posts, and can support your lead-generation and nurturing efforts.
Content curation differs from content aggregation in that it adds a human element. Content aggregation relies on algorithms, while curation features handpicked content, often with the curator’s thoughts added to the web link. A person will always be better at finding content that may resonate with their audience than a computer would be. Content curation allows you to connect with your audience, offering your own opinion on a news piece or blog, while soliciting their feedback.
Getting started with content curation is relatively simple. We here at GTech prefer to use Feedly for our content feeds, but there are other tools out there such as Buffer, Alltop, etc. Within Feedly, you can set up subscriptions to industry blogs, as well as Google Alerts for related keywords and search terms. Once you have your feeds set up, it’s time to start reading. You may be tempted to skim an article, or just post it based on the headline, but don’t. Headlines can be misleading, or the quality of the article may be poor. This, then, would reflect poorly on your business and your brand positioning. Set up a spreadsheet with links of your favorites, and a column of what you’d like to say with each link. Alternatively, use a social-posting tool such as Hootsuite to schedule your posts.
In addition to posting on social media, blog posts can be dedicated to a weekly “link roundup” of interesting stories, with your own commentary sprinkled in. Blogs allow for more long-form commentary than, say, tweets, as there are no character limits. These links can also form part of a periodic email message that you send out to subscribers. This email can then tie into your lead-generation and lead-nurturing efforts.
If you need help getting set up with content curation, or if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Our marketing team would love to talk to you about how content curation can help you grow your business!
GTECH Designs is a Baltimore-based web marketing firm that is committed to helping impact-makers spend more time doing good. For more information, contact us at 410-775-4011, email us at [email protected], or visit our website at www.gtechdesigns.com.