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If you are related in one way or another to the world of Social Media, content curation is one of the basic tasks that you must perform on a daily basis.
Do you have a blog? Whether you have it or not, this technique can also be very helpful. In this article you will know how and why I say it.
This is a fundamental and key action within a strategy based on the , since it helps us to develop content and also to spread what we consider to be of quality, both for us and for our community.
Having said that, I would now like to continue defining this concept:
What is Content Curation?
We have literally translated this from English: “content curation”.
The content curation (or content curation) consists of selecting relevant information that is already published on the Internet, filtering it, organizing it, adding additional value and disseminating it to our community.
I want to draw your attention to a very important part of this definition: adding value.
Why? Because the content curator (the person who carries out this digital activity) has the task of adapting that content to their community.
You must therefore enrich it when you are going to share it, either giving your opinion or providing additional information.
Namely, a retweet (RT) is not content curation. Neither is copying the title of a post, adding the original link and spreading it on your social profiles.
However, it is if you add a “plus” to the content of your broadcast that does not appear in the original information.
Do you see why I said that you can also do it daily, if you are in the world of Social Media?
How to carry out a correct content curation?
It is possible that you have fitted the previous definition perfectly, with the idea that you had about what content curation is. Likewise, emphasizing the importance of providing additional value has made you doubt if you could do it.
So, so that you have everything in order and encourage yourself to develop this exciting practice, I recommend that you follow these 6 fundamental steps:
1. Select relevant information
The key word in this step is “relevant”.
What do I mean by that? Obviously, you are not going to select any information on a topic, but just whatever of interest and utility to your community.
For example, if you are going to make a post about “how to spend a nice Christmas in Lapland”, it is not relevant that you select generic information about traveling in the Nordic countries.
Therefore, you must know what needs you are going to cover and you must also know the users you are targeting.
2. Filter this information
All the information that falls into your hands on a daily basis will not serve you. Not even all the ones you are going to go out to find for that specific topic you want to address.
You will have to make a selection of the one that fits you with the answers you want to give your users.
With the example of Lapland, you may not be interested in the information you find about Christmas in other places in Finland.
3. Organize all the filtered data
Sort what you’ve found, to make it easier for you to craft the new item you’re preparing.
For this same case of Lapland, the possible groups of information could be:
- Preparations.
- Most suitable departure dates.
- Airlines that fly to Lapland.
- Hotels, traditions, etc.
4. Add valuable information
All that content that you have collected you must put in a shaker, add your secret ingredients, shake and voila!
You already have your in Lapland.
This is the moment when your savoir faire as a Social Media or Copywriting professional has to come out.
Add personal experiences, define a , make a good index, complete the information with data that you know in other ways, etc.
5. Spread the new content
You already know that if you do not publicize your articles or posts, it is as if you had a store in a dark alley on the outskirts of the city: nobody is going to read you.
So prepare some good “copy” and share it on the social networks where you are present, upload it to news aggregators, publish it on your blog, include it in your newsletter and, in general, integrate it into your entire content strategy.
6. Measure the results obtained
The last step we must take is to know if our publication has been successful.
Select the ones you normally use and assess the most relevant KPI’s.
Measurement is the first step to improvement.
What are the benefits of digital content curation?
Carrying out this process brings benefits to your daily work, especially if you are short on time.
Here are some of them:
- You collect a large amount of information, which helps you create your own articles, whether they are those of your website or blog.
- You learn, because you read new things, which surely talk about topics that you do not know or that will improve your knowledge.
- They are the support to make you visible on social networks, since you take advantage of that quality content to spread it in your community and that they know you.
- It helps you improve your digital reputation, since you can position yourself as .
- It facilitates Networking, because by collaborating with the diffusion of the contents of others, if you do it well, they will surely thank you.
- You increase the number of followers, as a consequence of the previous points.
Do you dare to continue with this list of benefits? Tell me on social media 😉
Top 10 tools for content curation
One of the great inconveniences that this generates is the high . Managing a high volume of information can make us saturate with it, block us and make us unable to continue with the task we were doing.
Luckily, there are tools that help you overcome it and that support you in the phases that we have described.
Today I am not going to list the many that you can use for content curation, because perhaps that also borders on infoxication.
We are only going with the 10 that, from my point of view, will help you save more time, really, in your work.
1.Feedly
If you are a newcomer to this world and you don’t know , I recommend that you open a profile on it immediately (just after reading this post and sharing it, of course).
Seriously, as well as being very popular, it’s free (for the most part) and very intuitive.
It is an RSS reader that allows you to follow the blogs that interest you and organize them into different categories.
You can also create alerts, work teams with which to share the content you filter and detect inactive or missing blogs.
2.Pocket
Another excellent free tool.
Once you link it to your browser by installing the little button, you can save in it all the url’s that you find interesting.
I even save the URL’s of the emails that I know I will need to consult in a few months. For example, the subscriptions I have to the blogs of some colleagues.
The options are to classify them into categories that you decide, read later, tags, videos, etc.
3. Content Gems
This is one that offers you the articles already published on the Internet from the search that you define. It was designed with the sole focus of helping digital marketers.
As with the previous ones, you can define categories or market niches that interest you and the tool notifies you of the new publications that appear in it.
From my point of view, this option is inconvenient, since this notice is sent via email.
4.Buffer
For the phase of dissemination of already curated content, I recommend you, for the speed in programming. You just have to link your social networks: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest and that’s it.
In the free version you can connect a profile per social network and schedule a maximum of 10 publications in each one.
I assure you that, to begin with, you have enough.
Two quick considerations about this tool:
- 1. Remember that urban legends say that Facebook gives more reach to your page posts, if you program directly from there. Just in case, I advise you to do it.
It works very well and if you have doubts on how to do it, let me know.
- 2. On LinkedIn, Buffer doesn’t allow mentions, which is inconvenient for me. It seems “ugly” to me that you share someone’s content and do not publicly acknowledge the authorship.
So I only use it for my own content or for profiles that do not have a presence on that social network.
5. Google Alerts
We all know this Google utility, which we can also use as a tool for content curation.
My recommendation is that you use an email just for that, if you don’t want to get overwhelmed when you see your main email inbox.
Remember: don’t fret!
6. Content aggregators
They are digital spaces in which we authors upload our articles, with the intention of disseminating them.
Here, the posts are voted on by other users and only a few make it to the front page.
The benefit that you can obtain from them for content curation is that, thanks to those votes, you know which ones have been liked the most.
I mention 5 of the most used by the community of bloggers:
7. Paper.li
is a digital newspaper that you build yourself. I find it a very fun tool for content curation.
For me, it has 2 basic usability:
- The one to collect articles that will be useful for your new articles.
- The one to take advantage of those posts that are interesting to you, organize your newspaper and spread it.
That is, in addition to obtaining information, you reorganize it to give yourself visibility.
8. Scoop.it
It allows you to make a selection of your articles of interest, published on different social networks, and bring them to the same platform.
In it, you show the contents as if it were a blackboard.
9. Storeify
This is another tool that I find interesting to use. It offers you the possibility of creating stories, through a slider presentation.
You can use it with information collected from different social networks. For example, to make a summary of a “Twitter Chat”, to design manuals, to give advice on tasks, etc.
What do you use it for? I would love for you to share your ideas with me through my social networks.
10.Flipboard
is another very interesting and fun tool. How much fun you can have doing content curation!
If before we talked about the digital newspaper, now we are going with the magazine. Here, you choose the topics that interest you, follow the magazines of other users or build your own.
Discover your creative power and share original content, to stand out.
Conclusions
As I told you at the beginning, there are many tools that you can use for content curation. Even social networks: Facebook and LinkedIn groups, Twitter lists,…
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