Congratulations for getting your faithful readers and followers!

If you have been reading prior posts here, you know that content that is deemed valuable and relevant to your viewers is what drives traffic to your site and ultimately clients that want your services.

The thing is, while you may have been creating content at a maddening pace while trying to be consistent, you may now find yourself short on time or lack a sufficient budget to carry on the content moving forward.

Enter Content Curation!

Content curation is a cost-effective practice and can be incorporated into:

  • Blogs,
  • Ezines, Newsletters
  • Social media posts
  • Whitepapers
  • Guides on trends or latest information

What is Content Curation actually?

Content curation

Content curation is the process of gathering highly relevant information from outside sources and sharing it with readers. The key here is that the information is relevant and also in sync with the services you provide.

The most important feature of content curation however  is that it the content that you are creating acts as a backboard or framework from which you add your own ideas, reviews, and opinions.  It is not meant to be copy and paste which is “content aggregation”.  An example of this would be discussing a medical breakthrough that was just announced or something that is trending and then add your own experiences to it and reviews (with possible predictions for future use or ideas on its value)

Forms of Content Curation

The most common forms of content curation is found in  blogs, newsletters, and social media posts.

Blogs

Curation is a great way to keep blog pages updated and relevant. These articles should feature industry roundups, game-changing business developments and predictions for the future, among others.  It is a great way to add prospective by interweaving many views into one cohesive outlook.

Digital newsletters (aka Ezines)

Emailing Ezines  is an effective tool for content marketers to deliver quality content directly to the inboxes of prospective clients and those that are currently consumers of your service.  It is an effective technique to generate leads (new patients) and grow your business (practice).

One of the greatest appeals of hot new trends curated into your newsletter is that rather than having to scour the internet, your newsletter with the information is right there in their inbox.  All they need do is open and read it!

Social media posts

Posting on various social platforms several times a day attracts viewers and tells them that you speak their language.  The thing is, you’re not always going to have the creativity or time to produce new content to share, so curated posts, images, quizzes, surveys, videos, etc. can fill those gaps.

The focus should be on shareability and engagement. This is what makes your posts viral. Fun facts, entertaining or humorous stories and visually compelling content create higher engagement and inject your brand into online conversations. Encourage your viewers to share with friends and family if they enjoyed your posts or found value in them.

Curate or Create- That is the Question! 

Fifty-five percent of B2B marketers are solo meaning there simply aren’t enough people to handle steady content creation (at least not in-house). A study by Content Marketing Institute revealed the most common challenges B2B marketers face are:

Prospects want to know your brand is authentic, engaging and industry-leading. This is done by releasing proprietary research, crafting a strong resource center and providing information or opinions that can’t be found elsewhere.  You can also measure and re-optimize posts based on web analytics data – you effectively have an entire roadmap of what works and what doesn’t, and you know how, when and what to create in the future. Register for Google Analytics if you haven’t yet.  This will tell you which information was found interesting.

The key to curation is weaving a narrative of sources into a comprehensive piece while adding in one’s own thoughts, reviews or opinions.

Develop unique commentary and custom marketing techniques. But keep curation on your list of skills because it has tangible benefits. The best option is to find a strategy that allows curation and creation to complement one another, forming cohesive, refreshing, measurable campaigns.

Conventional wisdom shifts, but a general breakdown to shoot for in 2018 is 65 percent creation and 35 percent curation.

Consult

If you need more help with this, get your 30 minute free consultation at 516-647-3002.  Let’s discuss your needs and how you can accomplish them.  Let’s make 2018 the best year ever!