Content Curation, No Longer A Buzzword

Content curation has gone from buzzword to mainstream tactic that content marketers have implemented regularly in their marketing strategies. 92% of content is created in-house by marketing teams these days, and while original content is preferred, it can prove tedious as well. Using curation as a vehicle to deliver great content to your audience can save time and energy in those pinch moments, along with positioning you as a go-to resource for quality content.

Content curation is defined as the balance of finding interesting content, providing context to your audience and creating a dialog and repository for the content, positioning yourself and your brand as a trusted curator. You’re making it simple for your audience to find good, relevant content. And think outside the blog post, curated newsletters sent monthly as a wrap up to a month, or short – “This is what you need to know this week” can do the trick as well. Business Insider does a good job at a daily “10 Things You Need to Know Now” post that gives the reader a quick view through curated articles.

Successful curation does take a little finesse. There are 5 hard and fast rules to follow when curating for any medium

1. Show Clear attribution

Make sure it is obvious to your reader that you are citing this article from another source. This not only provides credibly to you, the curator, but also gives props to the original writer. Drop them a line and let them know you curated their post. They will likely be more inclined to share your content as well with their audience, generating more visits and pageviews for everyone.

2. Provide Thoughtful annotation

If you’ve ever shared a news post on facebook, you probably provided some commentary on why you’re sharing it. This is no different when you’re curating for your business. What do you want them to take away from this article? Why is this article relevant? Provide those insights in your annotation of the article. Also note, it’s good practice to ensure that your annotation is a few paragraphs long. Particularly if you follow tip # 3 below.

3. Pull a quote

To provide additional credibility that you’re curating from a relevant source, including a short pull quote sentence from the original article is a nice compliment. The annotation around the pull quote should be longer than the quote itself to show that you’re also providing additional value in your curation efforts, which ultimately positions you as a topic expert in your industry.

4. Craft Catchy titles

When curating a number of articles, it makes sense to use the original name of the source when citing the article. But when curating one article and providing commentary, it’s recommended to change the title of your post so you aren’t directly competing with the original source for search ranking. This also positions your post as a complement to the original article, providing additional value to the reader as well. (Insider tip, it’s always nice to comment on the original article as well with a link to your post. It alerts the author that you appreciated the content and have shared it with your audience.)

5. Have a CTA

If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember to include a call to action (CTA) in your curated content. This CTA is outside of the clear attribution and link to the original content. The CTA should be based around your marketing goals, driving readers to read further into your content, download an ebook or sign-up for a newsletter. Even if it’s to ask them to tweet it to their followers, allow them to click on your content, letting you know they were engaged.

Curated content can be successful at many points within the buyers journey. Although, mostly successful closer to the top of funnel, drawing in those prospects at a high level to start engaging with your brand. To learn more about aligning content to the buyer’s journey, I would encourage you to check out this informative infographic, The Roadmap to Revenue and Its Tollgates.