Doing more with less? What marketer’s not a fan of that?
Curating content is a must if you’re a content marketer, social media manager, or small business owner. You can do so on your blog, social media channels, email – anywhere you create content, you can curate it.
Sharing fresh and engaging content helps you build your brand and reach a wider audience. We all know that, right?
But it’s not that easy. Most marketers and creators are strapped just to create enough to “show up” to the content marketing game. That’ll keep us from failing, but won’t help us grow.
It’ll keep you implementing new strategies, but won’t allow you the time to think up and start new ones. You need to make more time.
Time-crunched marketers need ways to fill their editorial calendar without resorting to sharing low-quality content. And even if their calendar is planned out, being able to add more without sacrificing quality is always a bonus.
Curating content gives you more content and saves you time, but there are lots of other great benefits as well. It can build thought leadership, bring new points of view to your brand’s content, and demonstrate trends.
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Here are a few reasons to curate content for your social channels:
1. Become a thought leader
Sharing content relevant to your field helps you become the go-to resource in your industry. But you don’t need to create it yourself. Sharing it still says, “I read this. I know this.”
You still gain a reputation as a thought leader, one people know will have the answer when they need help. Whether it’s through your own content or a resource you’ve shared, they know you’ll have content to help with their problems.
When you share content that has all the answers, your audience will start following and subscribing more closely.
But, it’s not just enough to curate content. If you truly want to demonstrate your smarts and become a thought leader, you also need to add your own input. Add a personal comment to curated content. Audiences will love the bonus insights and you’ll prove your expertise and give them something to think about.
2. Add marketing resources to your team
Not every business can have a large, full-time marketing team.
If you have a small team or no one that’s fully dedicated to social media, you know how difficult it is to find time to create social content.
When a good social post needs so much: link, CTA, some kind of multimedia, etc., curation takes care of steps for you. For example, when sharing someone else’s blog post instead of your own, you only need to take care of the actual social content, not the landing page.
Luckily, social media management tools like DrumUp can make the job much easier. They’ll help you find stories to share based on the keywords that you input. From there you can share or schedule posts.
3. Grow your audience
A responsive audience is, and will always be, the backbone of your social media marketing strategy. To engage your followers, you need to share content that sparks discussions and starts conversations with and about your brand.
Curation is a great way to start conversations about things your audience is talking about. While looking for content, always keep this question in mind: “why would my audience care?”
From there, share the post with a question or added insight tapping into the topics your audience is passionate about to get the conversation going, learn more about them, and how you can grow your business.
Look for informative content in a variety of formats. Instead of constantly sharing blog posts, also add in images, infographics, charts, videos, etc. Not only will this keep your content from feeling stale, it will also engage different audience members. Some people prefer blog posts, and others are video junkies. Sharing both helps keep everyone in your community informed and engaged.
4. Boost your PR
Growing your brand isn’t easy – it takes time and effort. So does quality content. The good news is that there are already other people creating quality content that can grow your brand!
Monitoring and listening tools like Mention tell you who’s talking about certain things online. Use that to find content about your brand, your products, your company’s team, etc.
Promote content you find that mentions your brand. It can be anything from blog posts linking to your own, to articles about new products, to eBooks or infographics quoting your team members.
And again, remember to put your own spin on it. Instead of just sharing links, pull out quotes, add extra info, or create images to add originality and start a conversation. This will seem less promotional than just sharing.
While doing all of this, remember not to do any hard selling. Don’t start promoting your brand, your service or product in every post. Your audience will not enjoy promotional content every time. You can explain how the content relates to what your brand does. This way, you can subtly promote your brand while sharing good quality and relevant content.
5. Track industry trends
Lastly, curating content can give you a glimpse into ongoing trends in your niche or industry.
Say you’re a social media marketing tool, tracking that keyword in your curation tool. You see what your competitors are writing about, what industry publications are covering, and what the mainstream media is saying about your industry.
The more you curate content, the more you’re exposed to new topics, conversations, and points of view around the community you operate in.
This gives you insight into your own content marketing that helps with competitive analysis.
Unintended benefits
Start curating content for your social media channels – it brings more to your readers and has some helpful “side effects” as well.
When you’re constantly looking for quality content – reading it, sharing it, creating it – you develop an eye for the state of the market. This will also allow you to spot gaps in other people’s content, which you can fill with your own.
Content curation makes your social media marketing a lot easier, without taking any value away. Score. This makes it one of the most critical activities that you can carry out – it has the potential to grow your brand based on content you don’t need to completely create yourself.
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