What Are The Benefits of Curating Quality Content?

by | Jul 14, 2017 | Content & Writing, Content Marketing

What Are The Benefits of Curating Quality Content?

This post was created with Pam Didner.

Content curation is about sharing.

Content curation is the act of pulling relevant content from other reputable sources that you can share or republish portions, snippets, or summaries of on your own website.

There are some clear benefits to curating content:

  • Takes money and time to create original content: Content creation is not free. You need to spend time (if you do it yourself) or spend money (hire freelancers or agencies) to create content.
  • Balance costs with 3rd party content: Often organizing a curated post takes less employee time, cutting content creation costs.
  • It’s about sharing: It’s not about “us”.  It’s about your audiences.
  • Enhance the readability of original content: Leverage other content to validate your points.

Are Content Marketing Curation Methods Working For Other Sites?

Some of your most-used websites and apps are often curating content. Take, for instance, Flipboard, Google Now, and Apple News. These services give users the choice to personalize their content, based on their subscribed interests and browsing history. After learning a user’s preferences, the content is curated by algorithms, who predict the information users will most like to read.

Content curation algorithms will continue to become more prevalent in our much-loved publications and apps, but this theory can still be used with your own efforts. If possible, allow your audience to subscribe to topics they are most interested in with separate RSS feeds by topic (which WordPress lets you do fairly easily) or make it easier to sort by topic on your website. Track your metrics closely to determine what topics users on your site are going to and spending the most time on.

Content Curation Best Practices

As mentioned in a previous blog post by Pam, Bruce Clay gave us three guidelines to follow when it comes to best practices in content curation.

  1. Your blog’s text should be unique: don’t repeat what the original content is saying. Heidi Cohen recommends adding your own commentary to the content.
  2. Sources should be of high quality: don’t give sources or curate content from untrustworthy online publications. Make sure to vet everything.
  3. Add value to the user: don’t curate content just because it’s easier than always writing unique blog posts. Be sure the content you are sharing is of value to the user.

The Key of Successful Content Creation: Understand Your Audience

Knowing what is valuable to your audience is key to any successful content curation endeavor. Besides tracking your website metrics for patterns in behavior, It’s important to conduct A/B testing original and curated content to see what gets the most traffic and shares. You can also try A/B testing layout, titles, curation sources, and topics to see what your audience is most interested in. Creating personas and documenting topics are helpful to improve content curation

Some Content Curation Tools

There are several tools on the market today that make curating content easy. Some popular ones are:

  • Curata has content curation software
  • Scoop.it allows you to create your own curation pages and embed them on your website then share them on social media
  • PublishThis lets you organize and pull in external and internal content for republishing.
  • Epicbeat lets you find and curate content easily with integrated tools, like a WordPress plugin.

Content Curation and Content Aggregation

Some of your most-used websites and apps are often curating content. Take, for instance, Flipboard, Google Now, and Apple News. These services give users the choice to personalize their content, based on their subscribed interests and browsing history. After learning a user’s preferences, the content is curated by algorithms, who predict the information users will most like to read.

Content curation algorithms will continue to become more prevalent in our much-loved publications and apps, but this theory can still be used with your own efforts. If possible, allow your audience to subscribe to topics they are most interested in with separate RSS feeds by topic (which WordPress lets you do fairly easily) or make it easier to sort by topic on your website. Track your metrics closely to determine what topics users on your site are going to and spending the most time on.

In Summary

Curate high-quality content by focusing on what your audience is interested in. The best-curated content marketing strategy is to have curated content be a mixture of your total published content, not your sole focus. Experiment with sources, titles, and summaries to see what your readers enjoy most and make sure everything you share provides value.

Kelsey Jones

Kelsey Jones

Founder/Chief Marketing Consultant at Six Stories
Kelsey Jones helps clients around the world grow their social media, content, and search marketing presence. She enjoys writing and consuming all kinds of content, both in digital and tattered paperback form.
Kelsey Jones
Kelsey Jones