Have you ever tried to write a blog offering internet marketing tips when your head feels like a balloon, your ears feel like you have earmuffs on, and you’re so stuffed up you’re having to breathe through your mouth and make sure you know where the closest box of tissue is? That’s exactly how I feel today and writing is not coming easy. Which got me thinking about content curation - a phrase you might have heard or read about recently, and something we’ve been learning a lot about ourselves and will be adding into our internet marketing strategy. Starting today.
What is content curation?
Content curation is quickly becoming another aspect of a good content marketing strategy. Social Media Today defines it as “the art of finding, selecting, and sharing the best, most relevant content related to a particular theme or topic.” In other words, you’re repurposing existing content other people have written.
Think of it this way: if you like a piece of artwork, you buy it and hang it on your wall, but you don't claim to be the artist. It's the same with content curation. You find a piece of content that you admire, put it on your blog with a couple of original paragraphs, and give credit to the orginal source.
I’ve noticed the title “Content Curator” popping up in bylines a lot lately, which tells me it takes a certain amount of skill. While technically, anyone can be a content curator by just sharing things on the internet, to be good at it and make it valuable for your company, you should be doing it for a reason.
Why use content curation?
The reason content curation should be part of your internet marketing strategy is because it works and will:
- Establish thought leadership
- Increase brand visibility
- Help with Search Engine Optimization
We are all suffering from information overload these days, as well as finding the time to continually create original content.
Consider this quote from Eric Schmidt, CEO at Google:
“Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”
That’s a GINORMOUS amount of content, and hard to even wrap our heads around. But that’s what we’re dealing with in today’s internet marketing world.
You might be asking where you find all this content? Consider these stats:
- YouTube users upload 72 hours of video per minute.
- Tumblr users share 2.3 million new posts every hour.
- Twitter users send 140 million tweets every day.
- Facebook users share 25 billion pieces of content every month.
It’s time to get started
If you haven’t figured it out already, by sharing quotes from industry leaders, stats and the infographic you’ll see below, content curation is exactly what I’m doing today. But here’s the thing to remember: it’s not an excuse to get you out of writing original content, even when you feel like your head is going to explode, like I do today. Chris Brogan of Human Business Works recommends to:
“Put together some kind of list that spreads out your original posts with other people’s aggregated work (properly attributed).”
Here’s a quick look at what he suggests:
- Monday: “Meaningful Original Post” - by you.
- Tuesday: “7 Things Someone Else Wrote.” - by someone else, with a paragraph or two from you, then a link to the original article.
- Wednesday: “The Best Something Someone Else Wrote.” - by someone else, with a paragraph or two from you, plus a link to the article.
- Thursday: “I’m really cooking now.” - by you.
- Friday: “Someone else’s great stuff.” - by them.
- Sat/Sun: “Weekend Roundup- of Other People’s Posts,” - curated by you.
Of course your internet marketing strategy might look a little different, but you get the idea.
Start by checking out the Content Life Cycle infographic designed by Digital C4 below:
Content curation is a great way to complement your online strategy. If you’d like to continue to receive internet marketing tips, subscribe to our blog. If your internet marketing strategy could use a boost, give us a call – we’d love to chat!
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