5 Tips to Content Curation Success
Content curation is a process of manually collecting related information from different sources and presenting the information in a coherent manner to make it fit to a specific audience. Wikipedia defined it as a process of selection, maintenance, archiving and gathering of digital assets. This is usually done in order to improve the quality of the information presented to the readers, as well as to enhance the user-experience and to meet the needs of the readers around a specific topic.
In essence, curation of contents is like editing an article. You have to ensure that each paragraph is within the context of the subject matter and the discussions are also properly referenced from reliable sources. In another perspective, it is also like scrapbook making. You cut out different related photos from various sources and paste them in the scrapbook added with some of your comments and opinion. You are also presenting the photos in a way that they are properly organized so that viewers will truly enjoy seeing your artworks and better understand the message that you want to impart to them.
In a fast-paced world of digital information where millions of people around the globe crave for more information daily, authors are catching up with the demand for high quality information loaded with facts and interesting figures. Content curation offers one of the best solutions in providing people top-notch articles that are credible and relevant to the readers’ needs.
More bloggers today are now turning to curation of contents because they can quickly produce the articles without spending so much of their time, while maintaining the quality of the contents. In fact, this method has become an integral part of content marketing for some internet marketers, and it is quite effective in igniting social interaction with the readers as well.
However, not all curate contents will generate awesome results. You need to have some skills in order to make your contents appealing and effective in imparting the messages that you want to tell to the readers. There are also certain measures that you need to observe in order to avoid legal issues.
Some content creators have misunderstood the concept and simply copy-paste an entire article, which is already a form of plagiarism. Even copying an entire paragraph without proper attribution has led others into legal case on plagiarism. Thus, there are a couple of things that you should be mindful of in order to prevent problems ahead.
5 Tips on Curation of Contents
To ensure success, there are several attributes to include and techniques to follow in order to make things right. Here are five of them that can help you attain your content marketing goals via curation of contents.
Choose a Hot Topic that Targets a Specific Audience
First and foremost, you must decide on a specific main topic to focus on. It must be something that many readers would like to read. Hot topics will obviously give you higher page views, so start looking for something to write about. Ideally, go for breaking news, market and industry updates, and trending topics. They will help you quickly attain your page-view goals.
But before choosing a topic, it is best to decide first on which market segment that you would like to reach out to. It must be relevant to your business. Once you have decided on this, you can start choosing a topic that would appeal to their interests. Make sure that the subject meets the needs of the readers and give them valuable insights as well.
Properly Give Credit to the Source
Add a link to the source of the information that you gathered from an external source. With so many advanced tools available nowadays, it is easy to catch blog owners that are stealing web contents by copying, in whole or in part, an original article from another source and claiming it as their own. A plagiarism checker, Copyscape, is a popular tool that is used by many webmasters for checking the originality or uniqueness of the content.
Some web owners may allow a portion of their webpage to be highlighted in a post but with one condition, you must link back to the page and properly attribute the website for the information. It is important that you should not miss out on this, or else you shall be in for trouble ahead.
Use Curation Tools
You can manually search for the contents for curation. But this will take some time and a lot of efforts on your part. The entire process will become easier if you are going to use several curation tools that can greatly help you find the best sources to get the information that you want.
One of the best tools to use is the RSS Reader for marketing. You can subscribe to the RSS feeds of different sites that are related to your niche and get fresh updates whenever there is a new post being published. What is good about this is that you don’t have to visit each blog that you are subscribed to. The contents can be read right in your Reader dashboard.
This tool will alert you if there are fresh updates in your subscriptions. A combination of these excellent tools would be perfect. What’s more, some of them are free to use at no cost on your part. But if you want premium tools with better features and awesome benefits, there are also a couple of good tools to choose from such as Curationsoft.
Promote Engagement with your Readers
Content marketing should not be a one-way channel where you do all the talking and your readers are just spectators without giving them the chance to voice out their own opinion. While many contents were created to get more visitors to the website, you must establish harmonious relationship with the viewers.
You should give more focus on conversion, and you can easily convert viewers into customers if you are able to build a respectable image and establish good communication with the readers through the comment section. So encourage placing some comments in your content and quickly answer the questions being asked in the comment section.
You must also thank those who placed some comments. Moreover, add your opinion on certain topics. Not all readers will agree with your views but an opinion can trigger healthy social interaction with them.
Properly Schedule the Posting of Your Contents
Don’t just publish the curate contents any day as you. Rather, create a schedule and stick to it. Choose the best day in a week to publish the content and inform your subscribers of your posting date. This can help gain more subscribers and some of them will checkout your post on right on your schedule posting date in order to be one of the first few people to read your post.
In a nutshell, content curation is one of the best content marketing strategies that can greatly help you attain ultimate success in your business. But you have to do it right to make it work. You can start with the above tips to make the curation of contents helpful at your end in achieving your business goals.