Content curation consists of finding quality content on various web platforms and presenting it to your followers on social media, adding your personal touch. This content can be, for example, a blogarticle on a topic that is close to your heart , a white paper, an expert's web page or any other communication medium (video, newsletter...) .
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What is the difference between business intelligence and content curation?
In content curation, your role is to curate and distribute content by highlighting it, without making it your own, but by integrating your expertise. This technique aims to share content that has been previously "filtered" to appeal to a maximum of your readers. Strategic intelligence or competitive intelligence aims to collect information on the progress of the competition. In the case of competitive intelligence, the content is not necessarily picked up and shared. Instead, it can be used to create other content that will compete with it.
What are the benefits of content curation?
Content curation is used by almost everyone, without realizing it. A simple retweet, with a personal sentence, is content curation. In a business setting, content curation has several advantages.
Become a reference in your sector
With this process, you relay a message that you already like, by making it your own. So, you can easily establish yourself as a thought leader, provided of course that you select only the best content by adding ideas that reflect your values and position. In which case, you would simply be seen as an opportunist. When sharing curated content, your point of view should always be clear and obvious. It will help you build a solid reputation.
Gain credibility
Content curation can significantly increase a company's credibility in its industry. Unlike simply sharing content, you provide customers and prospects with quality and relevant content. As a thought leader, you offer content with real added value, you inspire dreams while providing accurate information. You are creating wealth from a resource that already exists but is not exploited enough.
Maria Popova is a reference in content curation. She is the author of the Brain Pickings website, which has garnered more than 5 million fans and followers on the Internet. But the most surprising thing is how she did it. Indeed, Brain Pickings started in 2006 when Maria sent her friends summaries of interesting and inspiring articles she had read during the week. She developed that concept, and thus became one of the stars of content curation.
Improve organic traffic on Google
This is no breaking news: content is one of SEO’s 3 pillars. But content curation is sometimes viewed negatively because it may be thought to be simply duplicated content. That’s why it’s essential to enrich this content with your own opinion, to add value to it by going through the rewriting stage. It’s not necessary to repeat the entire content, selecting a paragraph or excerpt may be sufficient! So, a well-executed curation strategy can really boost SEO by adding value to your content, and adding your own links as well.
Content curation also involves sharing on social media, which indirectly has a positive impact on SEO.
Attract prospects and build a community
Sharing other people's content is a great way to get their attention and that of people on the Internet, especially if your post has a "little extra" to it. By sharing someone's content and showing your interest, you increase the chances of them following you back and sharing your content with their followers. Of course, all of this must be done with “finesse”! In no way should you beg for content sharing. By building trust with the people whose content you share, you will create a lasting relationship, which will be more valuable than a relationship based on monetizing content sharing.
How to carry out a content curation?
Content curation should not be done lightly. It requires in-depth questioning to attract the right audienceat the right time and avoid bad buzz.
Respond to your audience's demand
An in-depth study of your audience is necessary to establish an effective marketing plan : who are your targets? Who are those who follow you? What do they expect from you and your content? To make sure you are sharing great content, and meeting the audience’s needs, you need to know them well.
One of the most popular ways to do this is by creating personas. This technique is based on creating typical profiles, like real people. These will help you better understand your targets’ needs. Keep in mind that content curation is more than just sharing. So be very selective in the content to be sure that it will meet the audience’s needs, and be of real help to them. Once your content has been shared, you must monitor the different levels of engagement on your posts. This will quickly tell you what content worked well and why. Your followers' reaction (comments) will be the first source of inspiration for future content.
Content selection: where and how to find relevant content?
While the web is full of interesting content, it has just as much fake news or false claims. Before sharing your curated content, rule #1 is of course to check the veracity of the information , and the source's credibility. To find interesting content, you can use content curation tools.
There are dozens of them, here is a non-exhaustive list of very practical tools:
- Flipboard: this is an application (mobile and desktop) that helps you create webzines containing links to your news articles, blog posts or favorite websites.
- Pocket: this tool enables you to keep all the interesting content in one place. You can gather and group articles there using tags and integrated search.
- Elink.io: save links quickly and transform them in a few minutes. The links can be converted into a web page, embedded into a website or sent as a newsletter.
Plan posts in advance
Unless you are sharing "hot" information (breaking news), such as news articles, it’s best to establish and plan a regular posting schedule. The easiest way to schedule selected content posts is to create them in real time, as you find interesting content on the web. Tools, like Hootlet, help you to create and schedule your posts right from the browser.
Bring added value
If some people follow you, it's because your opinion matters to them. Therefore, you must be careful not to disappoint them, even if you can be tempted to simply share content. You do not necessarily need to expand on a piece of content, sometimes a single sentence is enough to share your opinion while quoting the source. If you are lacking inspiration, it's best not to share anything at all, and wait for the right idea.
Use the right media to share your content
Choosing the right platforms to share your content is one of the keys to success. Indeed, some targets will be on Facebook, while others will be more on Instagram or Pinterest. As a business, you must therefore focus on increasing the number of communication media while adapting your messages on each platform. For example, the youngest people tend to be more on TikTok or Snapchat, while the 25-35 age group is rather on Instagram or Facebook. Therefore, you can multiply the platforms as long as the form of the messages is different.
Conclusion
Content curation is a marketing technique that benefits everyone. It benefits the influencers whose content you share, it benefits your users by offering them reliable, relevant information that meets their needs. Of course, it benefits you as well by stimulating your audience’s engagement, and by increasing your sympathy capital. By sharing content and adding your personal touch, you can generate new ideas for your own content strategy. Content curation can be set up quickly, and helps you capitalize on all your actions while improving SEO. Combined with a good branding and/or content marketing strategy, it will participate in your activity’s growth without major financial and human investments.
Further reading
The complete guide on the referencing of e-commerce sites
The 6 key steps to follow to correctly optimize your e-commerce site with a good natural referencing.