Content curation

Content curation is about col­lect­ing and pre­sent­ing content on the Internet for others. Therefore, this method plays an important role in the course of a content marketing strategy. With content curation, even small teams can con­stant­ly dis­trib­ute content without always needing to write it them­selves. The added value for the read­er­ship results from the fact that the content is specially selected, the curator puts it into context with ap­pro­pri­ate comments.

Social media has been using content curation for a while now, even before it existed as a concept: the entire internet liking and sharing content is a key element of social media. On Facebook alone, users assign several million “likes” per minute and share several billion posts daily. The online platform Pinterest has made this idea a business model: it is not intended for users to share their own content there, instead, users create specific boards to collect websites, blog articles or pictures they have dis­cov­ered on the internet for them­selves or the community.

Content curation works in the same way: by doing this, marketers them­selves are becoming dis­trib­u­tors. They share articles, in­fo­graph­ics or videos that interest that target the audience on different channels. To return to the idea of the art history curator: those in­ter­est­ed in art attend museums or galleries, they do not show up outside the artists’ front door. In a museum, you will find a selection of the works on a par­tic­u­lar theme or simply the finest the museum has to offer. In addition, visitors receive extra in­for­ma­tion: e.g. reasons for selection, facts about how the works were created and in­for­ma­tion about the artist. This means, according to a marketing strategy, that content should not only be re­dis­trib­uted but also reworked. A possible content creation de­f­i­n­i­tion could be: an author selects content, which he then gives his comments and opinions on, and then presents it to his audience. Just like a curator in a museum.

On the internet, however, it is important to filter content. The over­abun­dance of in­for­ma­tion means that properly curated content is sometimes worth more than an ad­di­tion­al con­tri­bu­tion about the same topic.

Is creating content still important? Content curation is not about giving up creating your own content com­plete­ly, but rather by adapting and expanding your online marketing offer and content marketing strategy. Instead of providing your customers with your own expertise, you can expand your in­for­ma­tion offer with content curation. This is why there are many reasons in favor of carefully conducted curation of content, and very few against it.

Strength­en­ing your channels: many companies use social media to broadcast their content. That also makes sense: if Facebook fans are only getting the newest blog posts, then there is less reason for them to pay attention to this channel: regular visits to the company blog, a sub­scrip­tion to the newslet­ters or RSS feed provides the same thing. However, if you use your social media channels for content curation, then your followers get direct benefits.

• In­creas­ing content: In order to suc­cess­ful­ly market online, you must regularly publish good content. However, es­pe­cial­ly for small and medium sized en­ter­pris­es or self-employed workers, one problem becomes quickly evident: the struggle between quality and quantity.  Those who are panicking because the deadline has nearly passed cannot be expected to pay attention to the quality of their texts, pictures or videos. Content curation solves this dilemma. You buy more time for your own con­tri­bu­tions and can provide your customers and followers with ad­di­tion­al content from other sources si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly.

• Strength­en­ing of channels: Many companies use social media to dis­trib­ute their content. It makes sense: if fans are only getting access to the latest blog posts on Facebook, there is little reason for them to continue following that social media platform: regular visits to company blogs, sub­scrip­tions to newslet­ters or RSS feeds have the same benefits. However, if you use your social media channels for content curation, your followers get added value. Make your Facebook page, Twitter account of Google+ page an important point of entry for anyone looking for theme-specific in­for­ma­tion.

• Pre­sent­ing expertise: With your own in­for­ma­tive article, you can make it clear to the reader that you are well versed in a specific subject area. However, content curators can prove that they have a sense of the material: their carefully selected articles show that they are always up-to-date and that they know what’s important or in­ter­est­ing to their readers. You can also assert an opinion through a comment: a clear and com­pre­hen­si­ble position or opinion proves that you have engaged thor­ough­ly with the topic. 

• Timely responses to trends, de­vel­op­ments, and events: This has to do with the quantity of content, as well as showing your expertise.  In some areas, there is a high turnover of news. If however, you are “asleep” for these new de­vel­op­ments because you are still writing an article about old news, your readers and customers will quickly lose interest and disregard you as a news source. Content curation gives you the op­por­tu­ni­ty to react quickly to trends.

• Increase your cred­i­bil­i­ty: Those who describe and evaluate things from their own per­spec­tive will quickly seem un­be­liev­able or biased. A one-sided view of a complex topic is rarely a good one: valuable dis­cus­sions often only arise when different opinions collide. In this instance, content curators kill two birds with one stone: they prove that they can look beyond their own bound­aries, and stimulate user in­volve­ment through content from different authors at the same time. Many users like to voice their own opinions in the comment section of shared content.

• Extending thematic areas: Nobody can know every­thing- and they should not have to. On the internet – as a place of knowledge and exchange – community col­lab­o­ra­tion has always been more important than the knowledge of the in­di­vid­ual. Create com­pelling content about your specialty and expand your theme by curating your col­leagues’ content.

• Ad­dress­ing in­flu­encers: When you share content, it is im­per­a­tive to specify the source. Demand good tone and copyright. Informing authors about the dis­tri­b­u­tion of their work also strength­ens their own network and portfolio. Since you should only use reputable sources anyway, in­flu­encers will be made aware of you through tags and mentions. This kind of content dis­tri­b­u­tion is also prof­itable for them because the range of their con­tri­bu­tions also increases the range of their read­er­ship. In the best case scenario, they will return the favor to you and share your posts.

• Improving SEO:Content curation can be good for search engine rankings. Google evaluates the spread of high-quality links and high-frequency content pro­duc­tion pos­i­tive­ly, which often results in a better search engine ranking. On the other hand, search engine rankings punish du­pli­cat­ed content. Therefore, you shouldn’t focus only on shared content but also make comments and have a unique per­spec­tive.

• Increased effort: Nobody should stop producing their own content. If you are dis­or­ga­nized, it can be easy to find yourself with no time left to create your own content once you are finished curating the content of others. But remember that when you create content, you usually search for relevant media anyway. By con­tin­u­ing to post high-quality content that has been found during your research, the amount of content you are creating should remain man­age­able.

• Strength­en­ing your com­pe­ti­tion: Many en­tre­pre­neurs and marketers are concerned that when they share external content, they are promoting their com­pe­ti­tion. There is no guarantee that your com­peti­tors will rec­i­p­ro­cate and dis­trib­ute your content in return. In general, however, it is sensible to make the target group the focus of your efforts – and this applies to all aspects of marketing.  In terms of readers and customers, dis­trib­ut­ing valuable content is always a good thing. That is why channels using content curation will be more suc­cess­ful in the long run than those com­peti­tors without a coaching strategy.

• Traffic redi­rec­tion: Content curation involves linking to external content, meaning you will be redi­rect­ing traffic to a different website than your own. That is never the purpose of online marketing: the goal is to attract as many people as possible to your own website.  However, follower sat­is­fac­tion is also an important factor.

In principle, content curation is child’s play: everyone has pressed the Share button or retweeted something on Twitter before. That is not enough for pro­fes­sion­al online marketing: to help readers benefit from your efforts as a curator, you should follow some guide­lines when sharing content.

You want to establish yourself as an expert on content curation. Relevant in­for­ma­tion will make you the number one stop for those in­ter­est­ed. In order to achieve this, you must convince your followers of the following:

• A theme or topic area should be tailored to specific target groups and not be deviated from. The most important principle: what interests the reader? It can be easy to get carried away quickly and put your own interests above those of the readers. However, the interest of the target group should be the decisive element for each con­tri­bu­tion. In this way, you attract committed members to the dis­cus­sion, which ensures lively com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the channels.

• Share content because it is com­pelling, con­tro­ver­sial or unusual. Just like when writing texts, you should share content because it is good, not because it’s time to post something.  Followers lose interest quickly if you inundate them with in­signif­i­cant posts.

• Stay up to date! Content curators act like a news agency. The goal should be to share content with everyone else. If you are regularly behind the times with news, readers will switch to another source.

Become a dis­cov­er­er: the quoted sources within a curative strategy play a decisive role. A Wikipedia article on the topic may offer abun­dant­ly relevant in­for­ma­tion- but most readers already know this famous online lexicon, so a link does not give them any added value.  Blogs by unknown or un­trust­wor­thy authors are just as in­ap­pro­pri­ate. The goal is to find high-quality content creators and introduce them to their own audience. Share something everyone will like, and which will benefit the author – perfect!

A variety of sources is also important. Always sharing content from the same authors and media outlets will quickly come back and bite you. Readers then lose interest in the dis­trib­u­tor and prefer to go directly to the creator. That’s why you need to be careful to cover a wide range of good sources.

An important aspect to remember is that anyone who decides to par­tic­i­pate in content curation must do it con­sis­tent­ly. An outlet that shares in­for­ma­tion in­fre­quent­ly, ir­reg­u­lar­ly, or that is out of date, will not generate new readers. Readers want com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion. Therefore, a curator must con­tin­u­al­ly expand the in­for­ma­tion they have on offer and also prepare sources for reader-friendly or com­ment­ing.

Edit rather than cite

Curation also means prepa­ra­tion, not just collation. There are two reasons for this: on the one hand, readers get more than just a simple link on the screen. In principle, anyone can do this with the help of an engine. The curators’ com­men­taries, counter-rep­re­sen­ta­tions, and opinions create added value. On the other hand, adding your own content is important for the ranking on Google and other search engines. Try to separate the valuable con­tri­bu­tions from the un­nec­es­sary con­tri­bu­tions: double content does not provide anyone anything. It is important to always mark content as “unique”.

The 5 types of content curation.

There are many ways to process and edit external content. The easiest way is to share and comment on an in­for­ma­tion unit (website, blog post, in­fo­graph­ic, video). However, it is also possible to create your own longer con­tri­bu­tions where several shared contents play a role. Content curation is commonly divided into 5 different types of curating:

• Ag­gre­ga­tion: Here you summarize the most important content on a topic in a con­tri­bu­tion. Top 10 lists are perfect examples of ag­gre­ga­tions.

• Dis­til­la­tion: In the dis­til­la­tion process, you reduce split content to its core state­ments. The goal is to prepare content so that readers will un­der­stand it easily.

• Elevation: Curators like to represent trends this way. It consists of a steady stream of curated content, with a regularly updated link list.

• Mashup: Mashup blurs the lines between content curation and content creation. Many different per­spec­tives and con­tri­bu­tions are used to create new content. This creates a mix of text, quo­ta­tions, and para­phras­es.

• Chronol­o­gy: This describes the chrono­log­i­cal treatment of a topic. The goal is to reflect the course of opinions, de­vel­op­ments, and ideas. A separate text is also created here, which is strongly based on quo­ta­tions and ref­er­ences.

Like most online marketing strate­gies, the best idea is to try and use all of these methods to keep your readers informed and en­ter­tained.

Citation versus pla­gia­rism.

With all the pos­si­bil­i­ties that content curation can offer, there can still be an af­ter­taste: black sheep feel validated when they steal content and ideas, pla­gia­riz­ing their way through the internet. A real curator is different. For ethical and data pro­tec­tion reasons, stealing content is not advisable. But marketing is also about securing sources: reaching out to authors, pho­tog­ra­phers, graphic designers, and video bloggers is highly rec­om­mend­ed. The online community values trans­paren­cy. Readers are happy about clear sources because it gives them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to find exciting new input.

Added to this is the fact that other content creators can cite important networks. It is best to contact authors whom you wish to quote and ask for per­mis­sion. This is not always possible (due to time con­straints), and also not always necessary - citation is also allowed without per­mis­sion – provided the source is clearly named, the citations are not too long and the content is not re­pro­duced in an incorrect context. However, hardly any author says no to building a rep­u­ta­tion and backlinks. Social media makes it easy to notify original authors about sharing their content, on Facebook or Twitter, you can link people on the day and inform them at the same time. Chances are good that the relevant authors act as dis­sem­i­na­tors and in return dis­trib­ute, like or comment on other curated con­tri­bu­tions. In the best case scenario, they them­selves become followers and begin to share unique content with you, ensuring high-quality backlinks.

In principle, content curation can take place wherever content creation is carried out. Just like your own content, the topic must be relevant to your channel. While it is perfect for Twitter to send a link paired with a few words, this is in­suf­fi­cient for a blog post.

• Social Media: Social Media makes it easy to spread content. In­ter­est­ing links are provided quickly with a comment and the built-in com­men­tary enhances user en­gage­ment.

• Corporate Blog: Your own blog is the perfect medium to run content curation, either in the form of lists or detailed con­tri­bu­tions. Mashup or chronol­o­gy is very suitable for blogs.

• Content curation tools: In the meantime, there are many powerful tools that support curating using al­go­rithms. These often also offer their own pre­sen­ta­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties, through which users can access content.

• Newslet­ter: New content can also be spread via the company newsroom. Several links to unique content, provided with con­clu­sive comments, can inform your readers about pre­vi­ous­ly defined topics. However, even if this is a semi-public con­tri­bu­tion, you must comply with the rules of content curation.