Sharing Compelling Curated Content

As a business owner who is producing online marketing content to share with your target audience, curated content is an important tool to include in your content marketing strategy and knowing how to present that curated content in the most effective manner is critical to your professional success. Of course, just remember to let your readers know exactly where all of your content originated.

The advantages of using curated content

Curated content, as has been discussed on many different occasions, is extremely valuable for your business if it is used appropriately and effectively. One of the (possibly obvious) advantages to using curated content is that you are adding value to what you are able to offer your target audience members. You may be an amazingly accomplished writer; however, you are only one person and offering different perspectives and different topics can’t help but be beneficial to your readers.

Now, to take it one step further, you will most likely find it extremely effective not only to use curated content (the words on the page) but to enhance that curated content, you should also consider adding a graphic element. One of the main reasons for that is that many people are visual people and you will get very far with them if you present content that has a graphic element to it.

The elements of a curated post

First of  all, just like original content, curated content must have all of the required components in it. 

• A fresh, new title: Even though you are going to be using someone else’s content (with attribution, of course), the title of that post should be original. Remember, the title of any post is extremely important because it is the first milestone that you must overcome with the reader. If your reader is interested in advancing past the title, they may wish to read the entire article. However, if the title does not grab the reader, they may not read beyond that point.

• An attractive, compelling graphic image: This is another element that should be original. If you use the image that was a part of the original content, you may run into copyright infringement issues. You definitely do not want to deal with that. If that happens, you may have to pay for it and it should be pretty easy to avoid that situation. 

• Use the body that the other person wrote: This is the part of the post that is curated; however, it is extremely important that you include a link back to the original author. The other element (or a part of this element) is your commentary on what that person has written. That is always a necessary part of curated content. 

• Use a clever quotation at the end of the body: A clever quote can make your reader think about what you are sharing for a really long time, even long after that person has walked away from the content. Of course, you must make sure that you choose the quote extremely carefully. It must be relevant to what you are sharing and it must truly fit like a glove with the content.

• Include a call-to-action: Your call-to-action is critical to your relationship with your readers. In fact, it is the only way in which you can start to develop a relationship with the person. Otherwise, how will that person possibly be able to get in touch with you. Your goal is to interact and to start to build a relationship together. It is important for you to understand that it is a really good idea to create several different calls-to-action so that you can use them with different types of content. When it comes to calls-to-action, there is no such thing as “one size fits all.” 

Conclusion

It is highly recommended that the content that you share with your readers is a combination of original and curated content. Remember, curated content is carefully chosen, improved upon, and made more valuable for the readers. You should never think of curated content and something unethical. Of course, that is as long as you give the proper credit to the author and make it clear whose work it is. You should consider the content that you share with your readers as extremely valuable. You are providing your readers with a wonderful variety of interesting topics and points of view.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a complimentary assessment of your online presence, let’s have coffee.

Let's have coffee