Content Curation Strategy and Tools to Help You Position Yourself as a Thought Leader
By now, most marketers have embraced content marketing as one of the best ways to attract and retain prospects. The problem is, many lack the time and resources to consistently create engaging content.
Consider this: research suggests that 55% of B2B marketers believe it’s harder to reach customers because of an increased difficulty capturing customer attention.1 Clearly, there is a disconnect. In fact, according to Zazzle Media, 60% of marketers find it difficult to produce content consistently. 2 If you’re one of them, I have news for you—the content you put out doesn’t need to be created 100% organically by you. You can use resources available to you to fill this gap by developing a content curation strategy.
What does ‘curated content’ mean?
A content curation strategy means that you are using existing social and third-party content that you identify, gather and share on a particular subject that’s pertinent to your audience. In essence, it’s a way to do more with less while still delivering value. With so many tools and sources of information available, it is among the easiest ways to beef up your content marketing strategy without beefing up resources (more on content curation tools later).
Why is content curation important to your marketing strategy?
Using a content curation strategy shows your readers it’s not all about you. The fact is, self-promotion alone won’t win you the loyal relationships you need to support business success. It is only when you offer value-added content that is meaningful and useful (and not self-serving) that you begin to move the needle in engagement. In the world of content marketing, tapping into the endless well of curated content is a great way to do just that. By offering a variety of perspectives outside your own, you’ll add more dimension to the insights you deliver to your audience.
A robust content curation strategy should include both social media and blogging. Using curated content on social media helps you keep up with the frequency of postings required for effective social media marketing. What’s more, curated content can help you cut through the social media clutter that’s already jam-packed with post upon post of self-promotion. By bringing in insights from industry experts for the sole purpose of delivering greater value to your readers, you’ll establish your business as a trusted source of insight and information, which will help you build credibility with your audience. This drives engagement, which translates to more traffic to your site. Plus, when you use mentions and tags, you’ll broaden your reach to additional audiences while setting the stage to form new connections with the authors of your curated content.
Blogs, on the other hand, require less frequent outputs than social media, but can be much more time consuming to produce. While many mistakenly believe their blog posts must be created in their entirety in-house, curating content for a blog is a highly effective way to fill in the editorial calendar without eating up more time.
I’m not suggesting you do a simple cut, paste and share. In fact, if you do this, you’ll not only be flagged for plagiarism, but you’ll negatively impact your website’s organic search ranking. No—instead, gather the content you feel is relevant, write descriptions in your own words, make relevant connections and include links to the source(s). The key here is to add your own commentary on the content you’ve gathered. With this approach, you’ll save yourself the time it takes to write an entire post from scratch, while both bringing in outside expertise and adding in your two cents as a thought leader. You can also use curated content to support your own authored posts by way of stats (much like I’ve done here, today) and quotes. But always cite your sources and provide link-backs.
Content curation tools you can use:
With so many content curation sites, tools and software out there, the process of curating content can be fairly simple. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Feedly: One of the easier-to-use social media content curation tools out there, Feedly helps you find, select and post curated content based on any topic of your choosing.
- Sprout Social: While primarily used for social media publishing and reporting, Sprout Social recently launched a new feature that can help you discover and aggregate relevant articles and posts.
- Twitter lists: Amidst the flurry of activity on Twitter, you can create a list of the thought leaders you follow for easy access to sharable content.
- Industry publications: With a wealth of relevant information for your audience, industry publications are a great source of credible, expert industry insights that you can easily share.
- Local publications: For small businesses, look to share local news—particularly as it relates to your business community, or any news that highlights a charity you support or a strategic partner.
Content curation best practices:
While curating content is a great way to share other people’s insights, the process is not black and white. Keep these best practices in mind as you create your content curation strategy:
- Add your own value. This is not a hit-and-run situation. When you share from content curation tools, demonstrate your own expertise and make it relevant to your audience
- Tap only high-quality, reputable sources for sharable content
- Create an internal database that includes a range of go-to sources
- Share a variety of content types (e.g. videos, infographics, articles, etc.)
- Work towards a 75%/25% split of originally created and curated content
Remember: always provide the appropriate attribution!
Incorporating content curation into your marketing strategy not only helps you optimize your internal marketing resources, but it also gives you endless opportunities to deliver deeper insight and broader expertise to your audience. There’s a time for self-promotion and there’s a time for value-add. Curating content is an effective way to strike a balance that drives loyalty and engagement.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you develop a content marketing strategy.
- https://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-news/86-of-b2b-marketers-agree-personalized-content-is-key-to-success-new-research/47526/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://optinmonster.com/content-marketing-statistics/
About the Author
Kaitlyn Wilcoxson, Account Group Supervisor, is a data-driven, problem-solving marketing guru who, as one of the firm’s longest employees, has worked with almost every client Paradigm has ever partnered with, and has been instrumental in their success. Kaitlyn ensures Paradigm’s clients and internal teams are positioned for growth. She manages resources, develops team members, monitors the quality of deliverables, and manages process and procedure planning. She was awarded the Gold Level Stevie® Award for Customer Service and Sales Manager of the Year in the 17th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.
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