Content Curation Explained Part 1: How To Be a Content Curator

Photo Credit: library.brown.edu

You may have heard the term “content curation” tossed around lately. It’s a new-ish name for an idea that’s not new at all.

Here’s the jist of content curation:

Content curation is the process of sifting through online information on a specific topic or niche and select the best information for their readers.  A content curator is essentially an editor – someone who collects and shares content written by other people and writes original content as well.

A good content curator will share only the best and most relevant information, helping to establish themselves as a thought leader in the topic that they curate and become a valuable resource to their readers. So, for instance, if you’re in the landscaping business, you would gather, edit, and share only high-quality, helpful landscaping information and tools, thereby becoming a “go-to” resource for your readers.

4 Advantages of Using Curated Content

1. It can save time over writing original content
2. It can help an individual or organization establish themselves as a thought leader
3. It can help you grow your audience by sharing the very best content
4. It can help you to stay informed about the latest news in your industry

12 Tips on Becoming a Successful Content Curator

Anyone has the potential to become a content curator. Here are some tips that help will get you moving in the right direction.

1. Know your audience and only share relevant content
2. Only share the best quality curated content – don’t waste people’s time sending them useless crap to read!
3. Provide context and explain why you chose the info you included
4. Tell a story
5. Combine curated content with original content
6. Use all types of content – blog posts, videos, slide shows, infographics, etc.
7. ALWAYS link to the original source of curated content
8. Measure your results
9. Read, read, read!
10. Sift through all of the information you can find on a topic and find the best of the best
11. Organize the content in a logical way
12. Use a blog, page on your website, e-newsletter or another format of your choice to share information

3 Excellent Content Curation Tools

There are tons of content curation tools out there that will help you find, organize and distribute curated content – here are just a few:

• Pearltrees
• Storify
• Scoop.it

This is just the most basic information on a large (and growing) topic. In my post next week, I’ll dig a little deeper and show you good and bad (lazy) ways to go about content curation.

Contrary to what some say, content curation is not about shortcuts!

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