Using Content Curation to Improve Your Brand

Some people are in favor of content curation and some are not. There are many different opinions and there are those people who feel that content curation allows the business owner to share current information  and to be an advocate for the brand and to become privy to the business’s goals.

Managing your content curation efforts

Undoubtedly, content curation will require some effort on your part. You should think about it in terms of offering up the most effective, interesting, high-quality content that you possibly can. The motivation behind it is that you want to retain as many visitors/target audience members as you can. Of course, it goes without saying that those visitors are people with whom you share a mutually beneficial relationship. There are many different approaches that you can take to ensure that your content curation efforts are everything that they should be.

Providing an effective call-to-action

In many cases with many professional people, call-to-action is a weak point. In a lot of cases, the person doesn’t really understand why a call-to-action is so critical to the success of the business. First of all, a call-to-action is a very important element in any given content because it is the means for the content owner to communicate what he or she needs from the reader. Second of all, the call-to-action allows the reader to communicate on a deeper level with the business owner and thus begin to develop a relationship on the next level. There are a few essential elements that must be part of the call-to-action in order for it to really be effective. Every call-to-action should have the following:

• A solid objective

• An ability to keep the context top of mind

• Use clear, concise language

• Not use “Click Here” if at all possible. That doesn’t mean that you should not apply that concept. It just means that you should phrase it in another way yet still entice your reader to click.

• Periodically, you should examine your calls-to-action to determine if they are still effective. If you decide that they are no longer effective, you will need to improve upon  what you have.

Make full use of analytics

There are definitely ways to measure content curation. When gathering the data, there are several different essential elements that you should consider.

• Engaging your audience with a graphic/visual element.

• Ensure that your content curation efforts are tight and efficient.

• Track not only your content curation efforts but also track how other people are viewing your efforts. If you track your efforts on a regular basis, you will have an excellent handle on what you are doing and how other people view what you are doing. If you are paying such close attention to what you are doing, you will never have the unpleasant experience of being surprised.

There are certain goals that you should have in mind as a content curator, including:

• Attempt to be as unique as you can possibly be. That also means that you should use resources that are off the beaten path and interesting to your audience members.

• When it comes to the comments that other people leave, you should figure out if those comments are actually appropriate for your content.

• Make sure that you add value to your content. It is not enough to merely offer the content. You need to get involved on a more personal level. Your audience will definitely appreciate it.

• Ensure that your content is clear and concise and that you don’t run on for a long time. People just don’t have the time or the patience for long-winded content.

Establishing credibility

Content curation can help you to establish credibility. In a business context, that is extremely important as well as it being important on a personal level. When you curate content, you are not repurposing it. You are providing additional resources and your personal spin on it. Content curation is bound to be interesting to other people for that reason.

Establishing a pattern of being organized

It is essential for your to organize your content very carefully so that you can leverage it the most effectively that you possibly can. Because of the fact that there is so much content, content curation and your organizational skills naturally go together. If you are not sure how to become more organized than you are right now, there are some simple principles that you can follow.

• Tag
• Group
• Recommend
• Create topic pages and topic maps

Conclusion

Content curation is a very effective approach and can help you tremendously to improve your brand and bring greater success to your efforts and to your business. Content curation is the process of discovering, choosing, and sharing the most effective, most relevant, and best-quality content on a given topic. It is bound to be appealing to your online connections. At the end of the entire process, you need to evaluate whether your brand is communicating properly and whether the message of what you represent is being clearly communicated.