Content Curation is the act of discovering, gathering, and presenting digital content that surrounds specific subject matter. Though it is still considered a “buzz word” by many in the content world, content curation is now becoming a marketing staple for many companies with a successful online presence.
Unlike content marketing, content curation does not include generating content, but instead, amassing content from a variety of sources, and delivering it in an organized fashion. For instance, a content curator is not necessarily responsible for creating new content, but instead, for finding relevant content pertaining to a specific category and funneling this information to readers in a mash-up style.
Content curation is all around us. It can take the form of an RSS feed, links posted on blogs, social media feeds, or an online news mashup. There are no limits when it comes to the types of content either. Videos, articles, pictures, songs, or any piece of online digital content that can be shared can be curated.
What are the Secrets of Successful Content Curation?
It is no secret that there is a lot of information on the internet. Therefore, to be successful with content curation in a business setting, it is important to display only the best, most relevant content possible. The process of content curation is similar to making a mixed tape for your highschool sweetheart, where you want to choose only the best songs to share. Not all content is created equal. Most readers are turning to content curation to help them sift through the information overload, and are only looking for the top pieces of content surrounding a particular subject, and will side step additional, erroneous information if it doesn’t stack up.
For most companies, content curation is being used to drive Search Engine Optimization (SEO). A company that links multiple pieces of content about a specific subject increases its exposure when that topic is searched. In his article “Winning The SEO Battle Through Content Curation,” Eric Savitz, Forbes staff writer, notes that “many are turning to content curation tools that help find, organize and share content online to ensure that their site is constantly delivering updated, highly topical, keyword-rich content — making it a natural winner in the battle of Search Engine Optimization.” Sites that use content curation usually update rather frequently, and search engines tend to reward these up-to-date sites by indexing them more often. In addition, “The content you curate for your chosen topic will automatically include the most popular search terms within your area of interest,” writes Savitz, which can boost search result rankings.
Why Social media and Content Curation?
For some time, social media were considered something related just to the B2C world. Over time, however, companies have changed their opinion: they want an increasing engagement with customers through B2B activities on social media as this is positively related to the perception of the company’s reputation and its proactivity. Just as it is no longer conceivable that a company doesn’t have a website (and a quality one!), it is not acceptable that a successful company does not socially interact.
So, it is very important to effectively interact with social audiences:
- Assessing and improving your messages, values, content, strategy, starting position on social networks
- Post the right messages with the right tone on a continuous basis
- Target, then grow your audience
- Effectively and promptly interact
- Transform conversations into leads, preference, respect, reputation
- Measure visibility and interaction levels
- Manage your social reputation
Top managers must be Social Media Rockstars and need to be continuously present on Social Media with the right messages and tone. Therefore our action plan re: content curation for managers and companies is simple and encompassing:
- We listen to your needs and we get your inputs
- We analyze your products, strategies, organization and we write in autonomy “tweets” (on the social platforms that we will define), helping you continuously grow a loyal community
- Once we defined the objectives, we will roll out the best editorial plan
Please contact us to discuss Content Curation in detail.