Time to Don Your Content Curator Cap

When blogging about content marketing, I’ve advised businesses to provide a diverse mix of original and third party content. By sharing valuable and relevant information from a third party you build trust with your audience — in other words, you don’t always assume the spotlight and you don’t present yourself as a know-it-all.

If you’re not providing third-party content — think again. Yes, you need to create original content. But you also need to curate content. Because of the sheer volume of content being generated every day, content curation has become all the rage. Essentially, content curation involves sorting through vast amounts of content, determining which relevant bits are best, making sense of the content and then sharing it with your audience. If you’re simply posting a link on your blog, Facebook page or LinkedIn profile — you’re not curating.

Here’s how content curation works.

1. Start with a goal. What information gaps do you need to fill for your audience? What information is relevant and engaging to them? Choose a topic or two to begin with.
2. Invest some time finding bloggers, RSS feeds and sites that routinely pump out credible content. Google alerts can be a great resource for finding diverse content around selected keyword topics.
3. Now start seeking and sorting. Each day, review your RSS feeds in search of “the” article — one that hits the information sweet spot for your audience. If you don’t find one on Monday, be patient and look again tomorrow. It’s critical, as a curator, that you stick to your theme (selected topic/topics) and provide worthy content. If you simply start posting irrelevant articles on your Facebook page, your blog or in your RSS feed you’ll undermine your status as a trusted resource. Your audience isn’t looking for hit-and-miss junk — they’re looking to you for valuable, intriguing content.
4. Once you’ve found a worthy piece of content, read it and make sense of it. Remember, as much as people have become hooked on “information,” they’re also pressed for time. Provide them with some context — a brief summary of the article (bullet points are always a good thing), your take on the piece, or simple annotations. Be certain to provide a link to the entire video, article or blog you are passing along — giving them the option to read, view or listen to the piece in its entirety.
5. Now share it. Again, keep your audience in mind. Are they “too busy” to visit your blog? Then provide them with an RSS feed that allows them to pick and choose what they read. Do they prefer Facebook? Then indulge them. Use diverse platforms that appeal to diverse people.
6. Be consistent. Once you become a resource you need to remain a resource. Set a goal: I’m going to post XX articles each month/week/day. Be realistic — don’t set a goal you can’t maintain. And don’t be too pushy — daily insights from you may be “too much.” Be considerate of people’s time and their email inboxes. No one appreciates a deluge.