Consuming the same content from the same brand gets old fast. To keep your audience engaged, it’s important to provide content in a variety of forms and topics.
But creating that much top-quality content in-house can be a real challenge.That’s where content curation comes in.
Not only does content curation make your job as a marketer easier, it also gives your audience access to a variety of valuable content, from expert opinions to current events. This can keep your content from getting stale and repetitive, while minimizing the time and resources your team has to spend on content creation.
What is content curation?
Curated content is content that you handpick from the web and share on a digital platform. Instead of creating your own content from scratch, you find content made by other brands and share it through social media, newsletters, or your company website.
When you share content from outside sources, it gives your audience a sense that you’re up to date on industry trends and you respect a diversity of opinions. It also leaves the impression that you care more about the customer experience than about self-promotion.
But content curation can mean multiple things for marketers. Not only is content curation a key marketing strategy, it’s also a great resource when building a marketing campaign. In addition to brands curating content as part of their own marketing strategy, there are also plenty of websites dedicated to curating content for marketers to easily find and share.
Here are five examples of great curated content for you to reference when building your own content marketing campaign.
These examples of content curation were developed by companies in an effort to encourage the visibility and reliability of their brands. Whether they’re using curated content to appeal to potential customers or to widen their online audience, these companies have cracked the code to successful content curation.
1. Inc.
Inc. started as a print magazine, but over the years has built an impressive online presence. These days, it’s one of the shining examples of curated content blogs, putting out business-related content not only from in-house writers but also other sources.
Inc. notably publishes content from Quora, selecting answers to questions that would interest Inc.’s entrepreneur-minded audience. Consider, for example, its article, "This Is the Biggest Obstacle That Stands in the Way of Most People's Success."
As a result, Inc. is able to provide more content to readers than they could with an in-house team alone.
2. SanDisk
SanDisk is a brand of memory cards, flash drives, and other digital file storage products—not a particularly visual product line.
The brand, however, has utilized social media content curation to its best advantage and built a rich Instagram account by reposting pictures that customers stored using its merchandise. By reposting photos by customers, SanDisk can post a variety of pictures on its Instagram account, such as wildlife and portraits, rather than product shots of the same memory drives over and over again.
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A post shared by SanDisk (@sandisk) on Feb 24, 2020 at 3:35pm PST
Using content curation, the brand can showcase evidence for the reliability of its product without investing time and money into hiring its own photographers. Plus, whenever SanDisk reposts a fan’s work, it credits the photographer and links to their social accounts. This builds brand-consumer relationships and allows for networking with key people in the industry.
This strategy can work for brands in all kinds of industries. The key is to reward participation, be consistent, and make sure your content is all about the consumer.
3. BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is one of the largest digital media companies in the world, delivering entertainment to hundreds of millions of people globally. It’s also a fantastic example of a brand providing fun and interactive content from a variety of sources.
The website is a place people go to relax, laugh, and connect with friends using content like:
- World news
- Movie and TV discussions
- Funny videos
- Recipes
- Playful quizzes
- Celebrity gossip
While BuzzFeed’s team produces original content, it also frequently curates content from around the internet. For instance, its post about conspiracy theories gathers responses to a popular Reddit thread asking, “What conspiracy theories do you think are too logical to ignore?”
The result is an easily digestible post that’s almost entirely made up of Redditor responses. BuzzFeed doesn’t try to take credit for this content—it makes it clear where the info came from, with a link to the original AskReddit post.
4. Launch Ticker
Launch Ticker provides regular emails on the latest trends in tech, and it’s a prime example of monetizing content curation. In Launch Ticker's words, it provides “need-to-know news in less than 10 minutes a day.”
Launch Ticker condenses all the news it shares into 300 characters or less, so users can quickly read the highlights of any important news instead of combing through countless articles. For marketers, this means a high-level view of shareable industry news, and quick inspiration for content.
Launch Ticker offers a free version, but you can upgrade your plan so that you get even more content in your inbox as well.
5. Moz
Moz provides analytical software for marketers and its blog has become a trusted source for great content on marketing and the tech industry.
When it comes to content curation website examples, Moz is the cream of the crop. In addition to in-house writers, Moz regularly hosts outside marketing professionals as guest presenters. Moz also has a popular video series called White Board Fridays, where employees and guest speakers teach viewers about marketing.
One neat feature of Moz’s strategy is that all writers have a profile where contributors can market themselves and score “points” for creating awesome content for Moz. This way, Moz makes content curation fun and rewarding for contributors, while consistently offering trustworthy, quality content for marketers to reference and share.
Content Curation Best Practices
There’s a lot to learn from these examples, but here are a few key best practices you can apply to your own marketing efforts.
- Link to original sources. Any time you share an article or video, make sure to include a link to the original content. This helps avoid plagiarism claims and builds connections with both your audience and industry leaders.
- Add your own take. Simply hitting the reshare button isn’t always enough to capture users’ attention. Briefly add your own thoughts and opinions on the matter to make the content your own.
- Keep copyrights in mind. Before you share an image, make sure you’re legally allowed to. When in doubt, don’t curate it.
- Find content sources ahead of time. Hunting for content can be time-consuming and tedious. Set yourself up for success by signing up for newsletters and bookmarking industry forums rather than searching for new content every day.
- Impress the original author. Praise the creator’s work and link to their social media. When you make the author happy, they’re more likely to follow your brand and share your content in return.
As with all marketing techniques, it takes time to get good at content curation. But once you make a habit of incorporating it into your marketing strategy, you’ll get into a rhythm. Eventually, curating content will be second nature to you.
The Takeaway
Content curation is about feeding your audience a balanced diet of marketing materials. Instead of trying to generate all of your own content, curate a variety of popular blogs, articles, and images from trusted sources. Your audience will feel like you’re not constantly trying to promote your own brand and that you’re genuinely interested in adding value to their lives.
Curating content allows you to prove that you’re an industry expert who is up to date all the latest news and trends. Plus, curating content makes your life easier since you can create less content from scratch. Curate a high-quality blend of content for your readers and the result will be a happier, more engaged audience.
This article was written by Compose.ly writer Salvatore Lamborn.