Creating high-quality original content daily to share with your audience is an impossible task. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 55% of enterprise marketers have small teams for developing their own content, meaning they have to spend resources carefully. This is why content curation is a favourite practice of many marketers.
Curation and creation – the two work together in harmony. The same CMI study showed that 85% of the B2B content marketers give credit to content curation for their organizations’ success. But there is a science to getting this harmonious outcome.
Curation can cause some marketers to get lazy. Sharing any old content does not have the same impact on engagement and brand reputation as sharing content from a thought-out curation strategy.
In this article, we will share helpful insights on how to get the most out of your content curation by allowing it to harmoniously complement your original content.
First, let's quickly cover what is content curation.
Content curation is when you research, discover, collect and share digital content. This content is created by someone other than you or your brand and you share it because it will be of value to your audience.
How does content curation differ from content creation?
Content creation is when you create original content in digital media to share with your audience.
When it comes to content curation vs content creation, it is not a competition. You need to strike the right balance.
The two complement each other and to perform well on social platforms the best strategy is to incorporate both types of content.
You should try to stick to the 60/40 rule. Share 60% curated content and 40% original content.
Constantly pushing sales pitches on social media is a big no. It's one of the most common ways that corporations fail with their social media marketing.
Sharing only original content and promotions will often get you nominal engagement. You will not be able to hold your audience's attention (which has only gotten harder because of the COVID-19 pandemic) and therefore lose potential sales.
Sharing curated content from trusted sources and experts in your industry gives your audience a fresh look at new topics and keeps them engaged.
Content curation is faster than content curation but that doesn't mean your team can get lazy and not put any work in. You need to find the right content to share. This takes time to research and also requires fact-checking your sources.
Two keep things to keep in mind when in the discovery phase of content curation are:
Try to leverage content your audience will not have discovered yet.
You don't want to spam up your audience's newsfeeds and timelines with content that they have already seen. Take into account who your followers already follow and what content you are seeing shared a lot on social media.
By doing this, your social profile, email mailing list or website will quickly become the go-to place for audiences who want to read or watch great content.
To be a true success at content curation, your marketing team needs to be trend finders and analysts. A top tool for doing this is the Twitter feed – RSS.
This Twitter feed will send you an alert when articles are published, even if they haven't been promoted yet. This gives you the advantage over your competitors to share content while it is fresh as well as building relationships with the content owners by promoting them.
The saying goes “a jack of all trades is a master of none.” No matter how big your brand gets and how many new spaces you break into, it will be impossible for you to present yourself as an expert in everything relating to your industry.
By curating and sharing content from experts in your industry that specialise in areas you don't, you help your followers learn new things. You show them that you are also still learning and engaged with your industry. Even if you are not the person creating the content if someone needs to learn something about your industry they can come to you to be sent in the right direction.
Content curation and content creation go hand in hand. However, content curation is not the simple task that many marketers assume. It requires time and research to ensure you are sharing valuable content. You should try to stick to a 60/40 split with content curation and content creation to generate the greatest impact and present your brand as a thought leader.
See inspirations here:
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