Why (And How) To Add Curation to Your Content Strategy
What is Curation?
Curation is simply sharing other people’s work on your channels. The difference between curation and spam, however, is sharing work that you know your audience will like. To curate means to “select, organize, and present, typically using professional or expert knowledge.” The selection is important, of course, but so is the organization and the presentation. People want to hear your thoughts and comments on the things you share.
Curation is a great way to start a conversation, and become a more trusted voice within your space.
Why You Should Curate
Some accounts create no original content whatsoever, only curating content within their niche. And guess what? People love it. Curation adds incredible value to an audience with very little effort in comparison to creating original content. And if you can curate premium content, adding thoughtful comments along with it, the public perception of your work will increase in value as well. People will associate your work with the work you’re curating.
Curation also disrupts the hamster wheel of self-promotion. If you’re always trying to increase engagement on your own content, you’ll be surprised to see how quickly people engage with a well-curated article or video. It’s a conversation starter, and an excellent way to grow a community.
How You Should Curate
The first step to curating well is understanding your audience. Start by writing out a few content buckets–categories of things you can curate. Then, test a few posts in each bucket and see how they perform. If one does exceptionally well, expand on that category and find more varied content within it.
A great way to get started is to create a backlog of content that you already enjoy. Plan to filter these out on your channels over a few weeks. Then, create a simple system for curating interesting things in real-time. Screenshotting and posting an image or article on Instagram or Twitter is easy. Ripping videos and pulling clips from them is a bit trickier, so find simple apps that can do things like this quickly.
I said it before, but make sure you add your comments to your curations. Even if it’s just a few crying laughing emojis on a funny meme, this goes a long way in helping your audience understand how you feel about the content.
What to Expect When Curating
You can expect increased engagement on your curations if you’re curating interesting content. So be ready to engage! Respond to messages and comments to grow your community one person at a time. Also, keep in mind that controversial content performs. It’s not wise to always be posting sensationalist media, but don’t be afraid to post something that rides the line. Since it’s a curation, your name isn’t completely on the content.
There’s no reason not to add a little curation to your content strategy, since the initial benefits are large in comparison to the small amount of time you’ll need to invest in it.
Good luck!
