What is curated content?
In a nutshell, it’s sharing original content you didn’t create yourself.
It’ll still be high-quality, relevant content to your industry. It should also be entertaining, inspiring, and educational.
By the end of this guide, your social media platforms will include a mix of original and curated content. And it’ll be a huge part of your content marketing strategy from now on.
What is content curation?
Curated content is anything you choose to share with your target audience that you didn’t make yourself.
Retweeting is the simplest form of content curation. Because you’re sharing a piece of content that’s been written by someone else.
But Tweets are only the beginning.
So, what other type of content should you curate?
We suggest a mix to keep your audience on their toes. Things like:
- Articles
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Reports
- Interactive content (like quizzes)
Here’s a cool infographic from Venngage that explains the sweet spot between curation and creation:
But why would you want to share content from other people?
The benefits of content curation
Well, curated content has tons of benefits.
Firstly, it’s a huge time-saver as you don’t need to constantly create new content. And it makes sure you’ll still have a full content calendar.
Aside from that, here are some of the most popular benefits:
- Builds trust with your target audience
- You can start and develop business relationships
- Keeps you up to date with industry topics and trends
- Ensures you’re posting regularly
- Gives your audience a different perspective
A ‘thought leader’ on social media is someone whose account is an expert source of valuable content. This can include some influencers, too.
They share someone else’s content but make sure to add their own unique insight, too.
Rand Fishkin is awesome at this:
If you want to join the thought leadership ranks one day, you’ll need a solid content curation strategy.
And it all starts on social media.
Can social media marketing affect SEO?
Curated content can be presented as roundup blog posts, email newsletters, infographics, and more.
But we believe the most effective way to use it is on your social channels.
The number of people on social media platforms has skyrocketed over the past few years. Facebook still reigns as the most popular, but each has hundreds of millions of active users.
Nowadays, content creators flock to social networks to share their best content. Some even pay for PPC (pay-per-click) ads to promote it.
Widespread social sharing is also linked to SEO. But that’s a whole other blog post.
Curating on social media is a form of digital marketing with massive potential reach but no cost. (Because you wouldn’t pay to promote someone else’s content creation.)
Source: GIPHY
To be effective with social media marketing, you need to post a lot of quality content regularly. And unless you have a huge marketing team, you won’t have enough time to make that much of your own content.
That’s why curated content is so helpful.
So onto our next question, where should you curate content from?
Where can you find curated content for your social media?
Yes, you can find great content for social media on social media. But a lot of the time, it can be a needle-and-haystack type of search. (Thanks, algorithms!)
You also don’t want to waste time trawling through search engines with no real focus.
So, where can you find the right type of content more easily? We’ve got some suggestions.
Some of the best sources for curated content are:
- Hashtags
- RSS feeds
- Signing up for newsletters
- Aggregation tools
Hashtags are used on all social media sites these days. Twitter and LinkedIn are popular networks to track industry-specific hashtags to curate from.
RSS feeds like Google Alerts can also keep you on top of breaking stories. It monitors the web and alerts you when it finds related content for your chosen keywords and specific topics.
Curated email newsletters are also handy as someone’s done all the curating for you! Check out examples like NextDraft or The Browser for inspiration.
Source: NextDraft
There are also lots of aggregation tools out there that bring lots of different content into one place. Tools like Flipboard, for example, that collect global news stories.
But for awesome social media posts on the daily, there’s one content curation tool to rule them all…
Quuu – The must-have content curation tool for social media
What if we told you we knew a tool that could send social media content from your niche to you every day? Would you believe us?
Well, you better believe it, sister – ‘cause it’s true!
Meet Quuu.
It uses a content curation marketing AI genius called Robin. And Robin is ready to curate for you.
Choose your favorite interest categories, and Robin will send you a mix of high-quality, relevant content every day. There are over 500, so plenty of choices!
Just hook up to a scheduler and let it post for you on auto-pilot. Otherwise, choose manual mode, and you can take full control.
As a default, content will be shared with the title as a template. In manual mode, you can update this and add a personal twist to everything you share. (Something we’d recommend if you want to become a thought leader!)
If you want even more content every day, check out Quuu Discover. It allows you to top up your daily suggestions by viewing everything we’ve got for your chosen categories.
Best part is, there’s a free plan to get you started. Once you love it, you can upgrade to add more social profiles.
How do you curate content like a pro?
Anyone can reshare or retweet a piece of content. And yes, that’s technically curation – in its simplest form.
But when you go to an art gallery or museum, you can bet the curator hasn’t picked just any old garbage to display.
Imagine going to an exhibition about sea creatures and finding a tin of tuna under a spotlight.
Would you be impressed?
Unless it was a magical, dancing tin of tuna, probably not.
As a curator, you need to be selective. Share only the best content you find. And don’t forget to add a personal twist.
Source: PRLab
Only you have your unique insight and experience. That’s what’ll make you someone worth following.
When you’re curating on social media, try the following:
- Ask your audience a question about the content
- Voice your opinion and start a debate
- Highlight a statistic
- Summarize the content in bullet points
Copywriting expert Dave Harland has a cheeky example of his own:
If you’re totally new to content curation and want a complete beginner’s guide – check out the one we’ve linked.
Your content marketing strategy is about to level up!
Conclusion
As we’ve explained, curated content is sharing the best content that you didn’t create yourself.
Done right, it should be high-quality and relevant to your industry.
If you only take one thing from this post, let it be this. Be very selective with what you post.
Whether you’re curating manually or using a tool, make sure it’s something your target audience is going to love.
That might take a bit of research, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Quuu makes it easy to find and schedule curated content for social media. But take some time to pick your favorites, add unique insight, and you’ll be a pro in no time.
Do you think you’ll add curated content to your content marketing strategy? Who is your favorite person/brand that you’ve shared from recently? Let us know in the comments!
