Content curation is a practice that improves your traffic through the integration of interesting content for your community. Indeed, it makes it possible to mix information and concentrate it in quality content. But what is content curation really about? Does it replace content marketing? What are its prerogatives? Overview of content curation.
What is content curation?
Content curation is a system that involves collecting the most relevant information about a topic or theme via third-party sites, then reworking it in order to share it for your own audience. Sharing can be done on various communication channels : websites, social networks, e-mailing, etc.
Content curation relies on monitoring quality content and its sharing. The most concrete example of content curation is the White Paper. There are, however, several forms of curation: aggregation that brings together several sources in the same place, distillation that simplifies the content, elevation that analyzes several contents in order to draw a synthesis, mashup the mixture of original content and content resulting from curation.
The steps to follow in a content curation:
- As a first step, the most important thing is to select the Sourcing. The goal is to find the most captivating content.
- Then identify the information that deserves to be shared. This is Filtering.
- Rewriting is an essential step for more originality and readability. The content must be relevant to your audience. In any marketing approach, the expectations of the target must be taken into account.
- Finally, the point that makes the difference between a simple watch and a curation of content:sharing. It can be broadcast on various channels in correspondence with the target audience.
What are the prerogatives of content curation?
Become the reference : the user is sometimes overwhelmed by the information that comes to him during his research. Faced with this, when you regularly share content that satisfies your audience you become a reference. The audience saves time because of you.
Build relationships : By bringing more visibility to the external content you’ve selected, you trigger a sense of « accountability » in it. This opens up new opportunities for you. On the one hand to share your own content, and on the other hand to build collaboration through joint actions.
Build expertise : by dint of sorting, rewriting on one or more themes, you acquire knowledge that brings added value to your content.
Save time : producing marketing content takes time while content curation is faster, even more so with the many tools available on the Internet.
Broaden horizons : several themes can be addressed during a content curation. Indeed, topics complementary to your area of expertise that interest your readers can be exploited.
Provide credibility : by publishing articles from external sites, you show your audience that you are opening up to the market.
Is content curation replacing content marketing?
The two concepts are sometimes confusing, but thedifference is quite significant. While curation is based on existing content, content creation indicates authentic content production. This difference stigmatizes content curation as duplicate content. Content curation certainly provides less originality than creation, but it assimilates and disseminates content.
Both techniques are strategic assets in a web marketing maneuver and have complementary benefits for the company :
- Content marketing makes it possible to: increase traffic, attract qualified leads, improve SEO, affirm the reputation of the company in the market.
- Content curation gives the opportunity to: create relationships with other companies and thus increase its notoriety and theirs, save time for the content manager, expand the market by increasing visibility thanks to provided and varied topics.
Content creation is essential in a web marketing strategy. However, to diversify your editorial line, and bring articles with different resources, content curation is ideal.
Finally, it is not a question of replacing one concept by another, but of using each of them in the ideal proportion. According to Convince & Convert, the majority of companies use 25 and 50% of their monitoring items. The key is to have a proper curation/creation ratio. The study conducted by Convince & Convert also showed that the balance is 25/50% curation versus 75/50% content creation.
Tools to help with content curation
Many software programs are available online to perfect content curation. Here are some examples:
It allows you to search and filter content before sharing it on your platforms: social networks, newsletters. The free version allows you to publish up to 500 pieces of content per month on two social networks. To access an unlimited number of posts on social networks and blogs, you must switch to paid mode.
This tool offers the same functionality as its Content Studio counterpart. It allows you to share content in newsletters and on social networks. The basic features are also free.
It gives the possibility to share content on various channels: social networks, blog, website and newsletter. The free version is limited to a single social media against 5 accounts for the paid version.
Content curation is interesting as long as it is used sparingly.
