Using Content Curation to Impact Your Online Marketing Efforts

You understand the importance of content in your business (particularly when it comes to your marketing materials). One of the biggest challenges may be to come up with concepts for your blogs, newsletters, white papers, eBooks, etc.

The effectiveness of different types of content

Undoubtedly, your original content has a great deal of merit. It is all yours and you have control over what you say and how you say it. Depending on what volume of blogs you post each week, you may have a difficult time coming up with concepts for your content sometimes. Now may be the time to consider sharing a combination of original and curated content with your readers.

You may feel as though your content is better than anyone else’s content for your business. That is totally understandable. However, it may often be a very tall order to come up with new ideas and then execute those ideas each week. That is when content curation comes into play. You need to understand that from an ethical perspective, content curation is perfectly appropriate and acceptable. In no way, shape, or form is using curated content indulging in plagiarism. Of course, that is as long as you give the proper credit to the original author. There are several really good reasons to post a combination of original and curated content. 

• Free-flowing content: If you use curated content, it will enable you to contribute a lot more valuable information than you would if you only posted original content. It also demonstrates how diverse and interesting you are as well as the idea that you are interested in giving as much value to your readers as you possibly can. 

• Bringing tremendous value to your readers: The fact is that if you share your content and curated content (with your commentary on other people’s content), you will be giving so much to your readers. You will be exposing them to all kinds of interesting, educational information. Another positive point here is that you are doing your readers a tremendous service by sifting through the vast amount of information on the Internet and choosing the pearls that mean the most. You are not only giving gems to your readers but you are also saving them a great deal of time and effort by finding the content for them.

• A benefit to the original author: Not only does curated content benefit you and your business as well as your readers but it is also a wonderful thing for the original author of the content because you are giving that person great exposure and boosting his or her reputation as well. You are also allowing your readers to get to know that person and allowing your readers and the author to build relationships together. 

If you search online for curated content (of course, with your target audience’s wants and needs in mind), you will find an extremely large amount of information. The next step is to weed out the undesirable content and to choose the content that you deem valuable for your readers. There are several features that you should identify when choosing which curated content to use. The following are different types of content that will work for you.

• Use curated news: The way in which news is shared nowadays is very different from how it was shared in the past. The most effective (and easiest) thing to do now is to take news (from another source) and embed it right in your content. That will enrich the content that you have written and it will add another perspective right there. Remember how important it is to include a backlink  to the original source of the news that you have curated.

• Use curated blog content: When it comes to the blog content that you share, consistency is key. Your readers will get used to seeing content from you on a specific day at a specific time. That is how you will successfully build a relationship with them. They will read what you have posted, like what they are reading, want to read more, and start to interact with you. That is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

• Build a publication using curated content: Your creativity really knows no bounds when it comes to creating your own publication using curated content. You can be as creative as you wish and you have a wealth of information from which to draw. You can really make a significant contribution with this one.

• Populate the sections of your newsletter with curated content: Newsletters can be an effective communication tool. It is another way to provide a valuable service to your target audience and to show them what you can do for them. It lends itself very well to allowing you to build a sustainable relationship that will endure for a long time.

• Share curated content on your social media channels: Just as you can do with your blog, you can also use curated content on your social media channels. In fact, that approach is tailor-made  for social media. People love to share content via social media and before you know it, your content (as well as the curated content) may go viral!

Conclusion

Curated content is a wonderful idea and it allows you to truly enhance the experience that you are giving to your readers. You are giving them what they need and you are showing them how valuable the relationship that you share with them is. You are also providing your readers with extremely interesting, creative, compelling content that they may not be able to read otherwise. Content curation should be worked into your content marketing strategy and you should leverage it and reap the benefits that it offers.

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