Content Curation Meaning: The Ultimate Infographic

Even if you’re new to content marketing, you know creating your own material is key. But what’s this curating thing you keep seeing?

Curation should be part of your content marketing strategy. But thing is, it’s not about you or your business. It’s a non-promotional way of sharing relevant content with your target audience.

In this post, we’ll cover the meaning of content curation, some of the main benefits, and how to spot those doing it well—all wrapped up in one handy infographic.

Content curation meaning infographic

What does content curation mean?

Content curation means sorting through relevant online material in your niche. Then sharing the best you find with your audience. This can be any type of great content. Podcasts, eBooks, YouTube videos—you name it.

With original content creation, you make your own and distribute it. While this can be educational, it’s still promoting your own business. And we want to balance that.

Let’s also cover a few terms you could see thrown around when curating:

  • Aggregation: Collates a bunch of content into one place (e.g. RSS feeds)
  • Categorization: Splits pieces of content into specific topics or categories.
  • Algorithms: Different sets of rules that all social platform feeds follow.

What are the benefits of content curation?

The benefits of content curation are everything you’d want from a marketing strategy:

  1. It saves time and money
  2. It helps with building relationships
  3. It can help you become a thought leader (cliché term, but true)

You find it ready-made. There’s also less to lose when you share it. If your target audience doesn’t enjoy it, you haven’t spent time or money making it. C’est la vie.

In more detail, content curation:

  • Fills gaps in your content calendar
  • Lets you find out the type of content that resonates with your target audience
  • Balances self-promotional social media posts and branded content
  • Acts as an introduction for influencer outreach
  • Turns your platform into an expert resource from a variety of sources
  • Offers a chance to engage and build community

So, how do you know when it’s working? Well, your content curation strategy will be successful when you:

  • Know your audience: Consistently share the best content they’ll enjoy.
  • Add value: Put your own spin or opinion on someone else’s piece to enhance it.
  • Credit the source: Don’t take ownership of something you didn’t create.

What is content curation on social media?

Success on your social channels means posting quality content consistently. But that can be tough to keep up if you’re a solo business owner. Creating new content every week may not be high on your list of to-dos. 

The easiest way to share curated content is on social media platforms. However, they’re not all built the same.

Privacy settings on social networks like Facebook are different from Instagram or LinkedIn. It’s a lot easier to browse for high-quality content on some apps than others.

Twitter is an excellent platform to browse and curate. For every Tweet to share content, you can:

  • Tag the content creator (and start building relationships)
  • Attach the link to the original piece or your updated version
  • Add unique insight to share texts

It can be short and sweet. Rand Fishkin (founder of Moz and SparkToro) is a master of using curation as part of his social media marketing:

But these platforms aren’t the only places you can curate. 

What does content curation look like on other platforms?

Let’s say your social media accounts are full. You’re on top of things over there. Did you know you can also curate content on your site or blog? Another great platform is your email newsletter. 

Here are some examples of content curation formats you can try:

You can even use one content style to curate another. For example, filming a video about a recent article you read.

All of these types of content are super shareable. And social shares are great for SEO (search engine optimization). What have you got to lose?

Content curation tools to make life easier

Your curation process might involve manually searching through Google results or bloggers’ sites in your industry. You might enjoy it. But what if you haven’t got time for that?

Sweet Brown shakes her head and says "Ain't nobody got time for that."

Source

That’s where content curation tools come in.

These tools can help you find the right content for your audience a lot faster. Heck, they can even deliver them straight to your inbox or dashboard.

There are tools for social media, email, and your website. Here are some of our favorites and what they do:

  1. Quuu: Adds call-to-actions (CTAs) to each piece of curated content you share to direct readers back to your own site.
  2. Pocket: Simple read-later bookmarking tool to save all content you find in one organized place.
  3. Scoop.it: Create and publish topic web pages and newsletters with curated content.
  4. elink: Use web links to create email newsletters, RSS website widgets, and social bio links from templates.
  5. BuzzSumo: Curate from trending topics and influencer social media content in your industry. 

If you don’t want to spend hours sifting through irrelevant content, give one of these tools a go.

Conclusion

Only posting your own content regularly can be tricky to keep up. But content curation helps take the pressure off. Not only that, it makes you look less self-promotional, saves time, and builds relationships.

Just as a museum curator finds the best artifacts to display, you need to put work into finding top-quality curated content for your audience. Master this process, and you’ll become an expert resource for all those in your niche.

Do you now understand the meaning of content curation? If you have a favorite content curator, why not share them with us on our Twitter account? We’d love to know more!