Content Curation Guide: How to Boost Social Media Marketing - Social Champ

• Updated on: 2020-03-29
• Read original article here

The word “curation” seems a cool thing to do. Like curating music or art for an event. But what does it actually mean? What is the difference between content creation and content curation? How do you become a content curation pro? What are the strategies that could make you an expert in content curation? If you want answers to all of these, then you’ve come to the right place.

Let’s start with what and whys of content curation. Moving forward in the guide, we will be teaching you how to boost your social media marketing with content curation. How to curate content that your audience will like and share.

Content curation, in simple words, is the term used for the process of finding content, relevant to your audience, from a variety of sources online. And presenting the best pieces strategically through your communication channels. For example, compiling a list of social media influencers and sharing it with your audience.

The most important and fun thing about content curation is, it doesn’t involve creating your own content. You research information produced by someone else and share it on your channels that your audience will find insightful and respond to.

Content creation is way more different than curation. Content creation, in simple words, is a process of looking for a new topic, deciding the form of content, integrating a strategy into it, and then producing it. Creating your own content. For example, writing a new blog post or a social media post on a trending topic.

The process of creating content is a little more complicated and time-consuming than curation. It may involve brainstorming sessions, thorough rounds of editing, and working with different teams before publishing the content.

Here’s how you can have a clear picture. Think of content creation as the first dance of any wedding. The amount of efforts put together to select the music, mix the sentiments, personalize it, choreograph the steps according to the couple’s story, and all of the rest to make it an unforgettable memory is what creating content is all about. Whereas, content curation is being the DJ, creating a playlist for the wedding guests. Your song selection is what makes you successful. Compiling a playlist knowing your audience. Giving them the confidence that this is what they want so they could actually enjoy being there.

Think of the difference as writing a story and posting it to all your social profiles vs. compiling a list of best stories and share it for your followers (The BuzzFeed thing).

Which one sounds easier? Creating original content or gathering existing relevant information and sharing it? After all, masterpieces like Mulan or Harry Potter aren’t produced daily!

According to a survey, only 5% of marketers said that they have never shared third party content on their pages. 75% of the content marketers said that it is a daily struggle to produce enough quality content to keep the audience engage on each social channel.

To understand this, first, we need to understand the significant difference in concepts and theories of traditional marketing vs. digital marketing.

One of the theoretical foundations of traditional marketing was “creating as much original content as possible.” But with the amount of information we’re dealing today, even traditional marketers now agree to the fact that creating original and engaging content daily is an unrealistic task.

Social media marketing has made content marketing almost a daily task. Previously, traditional marketing channels didn’t require a daily injection of fresh content. Today, even the brands with the best creative heads and marketing teams can’t create content with such frequency. Which gives content curation a significant rise. Digital marketers now depend more on other sources for ready content to share it from time to time.

Content curation adds value to your brand, like all other facets of digital marketing.  It helps you create lasting relationships with your consumers.

41% of marketers have proven that curated content has increased the number and/or quality of their sales-ready leads.

Content curation benefits everybody. It helps the distributor whose work you are sharing. It helps your clients by sparing them time from searching for extraordinary data. And it benefits you by keeping your clients drew in and making the most of your brand. By curating content, you can produce new thoughts for your very own content strategy while gaining the regard of your friends in the business.

Content curation can likewise support your search engine optimization efforts by helping you gain inbound links from other persuasive sites. This is a procedure that is some of the time alluded to as “preciprocation.” Start by making a rundown of definitive, influential sites which have shown a willingness to link to different resources. Either through blog content, news roundups, or “how-to” guides.

Offer their articles on yoursocial media marketing channels, and email marketing channels, and ensure they know after you’ve done it. Likewise, you should interact with them in their blog comment section or through email. Ensure your communications with them show that you have a genuine appreciation for their work by posing great questions and making intelligent remarks.

Whenever you write on a related subject, reference them in your article, and after you share it to your fans, inquire as to whether they would consider sharing it to theirs. Try not to expect profit. Even though your company has promoted their work, it doesn’t commit them to do the same. All things considered, your odds of getting shared and linked to are far more prominent when you have put in the exertion of building up a genuine relationship with your prospect.

Here’s a simple case. Imagine the owner of the corner coffee shop in your locality, takes a microphone and yells about how great his coffee is and that there’s a free bagel on every purchase. All. The. Time.

At first, it would be great stuff for marketing. But soon, people will be annoyed. They will start avoiding to go even near his café, as he will start screaming in their ears. No matter how great his coffee or bagel is, thanks to his antics, the coffee shop owner will begin losing his business.

This is precisely what you will be doing by sharing only original content to promote your brand. Yelling and screaming about your coffee into their screens. Once your audience is bored, (which won’t take that long) they will try to avoid you at all costs, no matter how great your original content is. Sharing self-promoting branded original content might take away your loyal and old customers too.

While searching for the perfect curation topic, consider these three factors:

For an ideal piece of curated content, you should look for a topic that has relatively low competition. But, there’s sufficient content available for you to dig into. The topic should be relevant to your audience.

As shown in the above Venn diagram, your topic should fall in the middle of it.

Here are 5 simple questions you should ask yourself while looking into your competitor’s landscape for curation topic:

Write your desired keyword or topic into Google news and see how many search results you can get. Sort them by date and have a look at how many pieces of content are created on the topic per week or per day.

Check it on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn too. Search by relevant hashtags, if there are any. Review all the news, visual content, and blogs.

Here are a few resources you should look for your curated collection:

Once your topic passes the above two checks, here comes the most crucial hurdle. You have to make sure that the curation topic meets the interest of your business’s target audience. If they don’t find it interesting, your curated content will fail to give your social media marketing the boost you’re expecting.

You can use Google Keyword Planner to check the general interest of the online audience in the given topic. Or you can do a simple survey to get the opinion about your topic. Ask your audience how they feel about the topic in your Instagram stories, or in a live session, or by creating a poll.

Identifying the topic for curation, collecting and organizing the content is all behind-the-scenes preparation for the final sharing of your curated collection. This will be the moment of truth.

As a content curator,you need to decide where your target audience is. And which channels are the best suited according to your audience? Following are a few channels you can take action on:

Following are a few simple content curation strategies and tips you can use to boost your social media engagement.

Let’s start by sharing 60% of curated content and 40% of created content. And then adjust it according to what resonates with the audience. The best way to divide the content on social media is by using the 5-3-2 rule. You can read more about the 5-3-2 rule in this blog.

No one can be expert in everything related to their field. That’s why sharing content from trusted, reputed, and authentic sources of the same niche will not only help you learn about new things but will show your followers that you know more. Sharing curated content is a great way to establish yourself as a trusted advisor. And also to grow your audience.

As everyone says, “consistency is key.” It’s one of the key fundamentals to be successful. To be consistent with original content is an impracticable approach. No one can produce unique content regularly. (Not even daily vloggers on YouTube, they also need a break after a while). To fill the holes in your social media schedule when you’re not creating content, you can use curated content. It saves time and keeps up with consistency.

Consent is everything. If someone is sharing any information online publically, that doesn’t mean that you can own it without giving them credit. Make sure you always credit the source. If you’re sharing their information on your website, toavoid duplication and plagiarism issues, always credit the source with a backlink. If it is a social media post, make sure you mention or tag the original source. When sharing an image or video from another page to your page, try to share it directly from the share button, instead of downloading and uploading it.

Give the curated content your own twist. Add a little something original to the curated content. Give your opinion or insight on the curated and shared topic. Add something unique. A new angle to the story which isn’t mentioned yet in the story. Add something people could relate to. Just remember to maintain the balance between the original and the source.

Larry Kim, CEO mobilemonkey, has built a huge audience through content curation. He not only tweets about marketing stuff but adds content that is humorous and emoticon-rich.

You might wonder how can poor SanDisk look good on Instagram when all they have is flash storage solutions! Here’s how you can make memory cards and flash drives look cool. And this is how creative you can go with curated content. SanDisk spices its Instagram feed with user-generated photos.

If you have a Pinterest account for your brand too, content curation isn’t an option there. Every pinner is expected to curate content. Save pins from other accounts. Here’s how Bark does it.

Here’s how IBM is using LinkedIn smartly by avoiding any heavy tech jargon and sharing posts that have a human factor in them.

Social media management tools like Social Champ can make the process of content curation much easier for you.  Social Champ gives you the power of curating content in a few simple clicks.

Once you have identified your curated topic by following the tips mentioned above, all you have to do know is type that keyword or phrase in the search bar in the suggestions tab. Social Champ scans all the articles across the Internet on the given topic and shows you the best content suggestions.  To have a stream of relevant content from authentic sites daily, you can also add your favorite blogs through the RSS feed. This will keep you updated about the latest news from your favorite resources. And the best part is, you can directly share any posts from these sources to your social media accounts within the app.

If you wish to automate the process, for example, you want to post a blog post on your social profiles once or twice a week from any website, you can simply add it to Auto RSS feed. Set the frequency, customize it by adding a headline or hashtags if you want, and set the schedule. To access all these amazing and easy-to-use features,sign-up for your free trial today.

When it comes to digital marketing, the one who has the best content wins. Having said that, it is also annoying to read the entire blog post and in the end, find out that the answer you got so far is “it depends.” But how frustrating this sounds, social media marketing, and digital marketing can never have a “one size fit all” strategy.

Every business and every brand on social media has its own goals which are not necessarily the same. And to reach those goals, each brand has to come up with a unique digital marketing strategy. If an approach works out for someone pretty well, that doesn’t mean that it will do the same for the others too. Digital marketing strategies vary from business to business.

Putting it simply, you will get more engaging followers when you offer them valuable and engaging content. And adding content curation in your strategy can help you do so. Start the tips mentioned in this guide. Avoid curating offensive content.  Start with the 5-3-2 rule for content distribution. Keep Tracking your ROI. It will give you a complete insight into how often you should share created content and curated content.