This is a guest post from Norman Arvidsson at EssayPro.
Content curation is a tool used by bloggers and others who publish online to greatly increase the quantity and, often, the quality of the content that they publish online.
In content curation, you curate things that you think will appeal to your audience, throw in your own thoughts, and publish it on your site. It allows you to share great material from across the internet with your own particular audience, and you can add your own comments about relevant topics from the websites of other people and organizations.
As long as you’re not plagiarizing, breaking any laws, and you provide attribution by providing the original source with a backlink, then the curation of content is a splendid and very sensible method of bringing worthwhile content to your audience.
How do you publish editorialized content on the internet?
There are a number of ways to curate content on your blog or site in a way that’s useful as well as legal and ethical. However, before considering content curation, it’s important to have a general understanding of online publishing.
There are a number of methods to online publishing: content aggregation, content syndication, and content curation.
You should understand the differences between each before you publish any content:
- Content syndication: With content syndication, you put your article, blog post, video, or other content out to other third parties, who then re-publish either on their own sites or perhaps sell it to others who may want it. In essence, syndicated content is content that goes through a third party for consumption or publishing online. There are companies, such as Newstex and NewsCred, that specialize in various content syndication services.
- Content aggregation: Content aggregation is the collection of information based on a common topic involving one or more related keywords. Aggregating other people’s information conveniently augments your original content, while providing a broader perspective. Examples of companies that do this are AllTop and PopURLs.
- Content curation: When you do reviews of content from a large number of sources, get links to these, then publish all of this on your site, you’re curating content.
Syndication and aggregation are largely automated, while curation is not. Genuine content curation needs a human touch with thought, interpretation, and comment.
In content curation, you watch, listen, and read all sorts of online content that you believe will appeal to your audience, then collect links to the most suitable content, share a small amount from that content, add whatever commentary you think is necessary, and publish it.
Always remember to name the author, cite the source of the material, and link back to that source for the necessary attribution.
Examples of curated content roundup
The so-called roundup is a blog or web page of summaries of other articles or books. For example, a web page featuring a roundup of curated content on B2C marketing could appear like this:
- Each curated blog post’s title serves as a subheading in the content roundup post
- Each blog is summarized under that heading/link by highlighting the main points and key points and, where possible, giving credit to the author or webpage. The commentary should be 100-300 words.
Examples of B2C marketing strategies with big results
There’s a nice article by marketing expert Lisa Manthei about some very effective B2C strategies in digital marketing. The article starts by citing the sheer size of the B2C e-commerce market, with a 2015 report of sales in excess of US $24 trillion with about 20 million retailers worldwide.
She goes on to discuss five strategies that all B2C marketers should be aware of. These are contests, retargeting programs, membership programs, the use of social media and ambassador programs. Each strategy is clearly described with compelling examples and magnificent photos. This article is a must-read for marketers.
Some producers of curated content like to quote a key statement or phrase from each article that succinctly sums up what it’s about. However, care must be taken when you do this to avoid accusations of plagiarism.
Some general rules are:
- Summarize the content that relates to its heading and try to avoid repeating anything that also appears in the other blog articles in your curated content.
- Do your best to make each section flow/lead into the next. Structure and order them in a logical sequence.
Aside from roundups, there are other ways of displaying curated content.
Slideshows
Slideshows have great visual appeal and can increase page views for your site or blog, as visitors need to click through each page or part of the slideshow to see them all. For audiences who like slideshows, they’re ideal for curated content.
Embedding curated content
There are tools that can simplify the process of content curation, and, with some tools, you can actually embed the curated content in your blog. Tools like ”Storify,” “eLink,” and “RebelMouse” provide easy ways for you to embed curated material. If you’re wondering what this means, check out eLink.io and their great video about embedding curated content.
Wrap up
There are some significant advantages to using content curation. Be sure to keep the above in mind next time you try curating content for your business.
Norman Arvidsson is an enthusiastic guest contributor and marketing planner at EssayPro. He knows everything about technology, business writing, and web design.