If you are a gallery-goer and deal with art exhibitions and visual artists, you are probably familiar with the term “curator”. The curator is the one who encourages you to see the works of a particular artist.
This ability comes from the fact that the curator offers you the value of spending your time safely browsing the gallery, And that is nothing but “trust”.
In content marketing, we can create this trust with content curation or content selection.
Just as in the opening brochure of the painting exhibition, we see a summary of the reasons for choosing certain works together with the summary of the gallery, in a selected content collection we can access all the information we need in the shortest possible time. to have This “saving time” and “meeting the need for information” are the golden points of trust building.
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What is Content Curation?
Let’s first define our task with the word curation.
Curation strictly includes a set of actions and in a more precise sense, a process. A process that includes searching, selecting, and organizing to produce or promote a collection, exhibition, etc. This collection can be works of art, fashion products, handicrafts, electronic industries, or content.
Now that we have learned the word curation so carefully, it is better to go to the main point and see what content curation means. Content selection is the same as content curation.
In simple terms, content curation means selecting content, collecting and presenting content with a specific approach to our business, transferring content to our choice, and adding our perspective to the topic.
“Michael Bhaskar” in his book titled “Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess” defines the concept of content curation with this theme: the process of selecting content, categorizing, and arranging it in a way that is suitable for the audience. It is called content curation if it is valuable and digestible.
In recent years, content selection has become one of the main elements of content marketing for many companies that have had effective and successful activities in the field of their digital marketing strategy.
What exactly does a content selector do?
Content curation does not involve producing exclusive and so-called original content, but instead, it involves gathering content from various sources and presenting it in an organized manner. Therefore, a content curator or content selector is not necessarily responsible for creating new content, but rather for searching for business-related content and conveying information to readers in a combined manner.
Content curation is something we all probably face daily. For example, as soon as we use RSS Reader online services, we monitor the abstract links of websites and blogs, review the feeds of social networks, become members of newsletters, or create newsletters for our business, all in the form of content selection and with the same purpose. Is.
For content curation, there are no specific restrictions on the content format. Videos, articles, images, music, podcasts, or any piece of digital content that can be shared can come in handy.
It may not be out of place if we say that the best content selectors in social networks generally have the most followers, because the audience knows that instead of checking the site and page in general, they just need to follow you and find the most complete, updated and reliable content in the desired field on the page. Or read your site and save time.
Secrets of Content Curation
It is no secret that there is a lot of information in the Internet world; But is all this data useful? The answer is simple: no.
Success in content curation for business, content marketing, or SEO goals depends on collecting and serving only the best and most relevant content possible.
The content selection process is similar to making a compilation cassette of our favorite music in high school. If you remember, in these tapes, we tried to record the best songs in the limited space of the cassettes.
It is interesting to know that just as we do content curation for our work, the audience also does this for themselves. It means that he goes straight to the content he wants and ignores the rest. So here it is important to know what exactly our audience is looking for and what they want.
Content selection is a good tool for SEO optimization for many companies. A business that links multiple pieces of content on a specific topic together on its site has a better chance of increasing traffic when the audience searches for that specific topic.
Also, sites that regularly use content curation are constantly updated, and search engines reward them by showing more of these sites to searchers.
In addition, the content you choose for a specific topic will automatically include the most popular search terms in your industry, which will increase your site’s ranking in search results.
Advantages of Content Curation
One of the biggest advantages of content selection is creating value for the audience. We live in an age where an almost limitless world of data and information is available to everyone. Most of the audience are actually “consumers of information” and naturally do not have enough time or desire to review all available content. This is where Content Curation comes in handy.
It is you who is responsible for understanding and extracting the main needs of customers or personas about your business. You need to know what is most important to them. Then present relevant and selected content to them in a concise format. Now think about it, is there anyone who hates this washed-out combination and doesn’t want it?
By providing curated content, your audience will trust you and accept you as a content-thought leader and trusted authority.
In addition to these, another advantage of content curation or content selection is having new and attractive content at times when your content writing skills are at the bottom of the pot and you lack original content. Naturally, collecting content from other sources is easier than creating new content.
Success in content curation or content selection
- Creating a personal link in providing selective content
If you visit nextdraft.com, you will get to know exactly this concept. “Dave Pell”, the supervisor and the main author of this platform, wrote in explaining his work: “Every morning I go to 75 news sites and from that nightmare full of sand, I collect 10 of the most interesting news and information of the day. Then I present them with my sharp wit, quick and sharp. In a way that makes your computer vibrate with pleasure. No robots, no algorithms!
Here a personal context and a deep and unique connection between the content selector and his audience is formed. The audience realizes that behind this collected information, not a robot, but a human is sitting. This creates a loyal bond between you and the audience.
- value creation
It doesn’t matter what field you are active in. Your customers expect to have useful, up-to-date, and compact information in the same field and save their time while gaining knowledge.
If you can help them save time by providing useful and concise information and experiences, you’ve taken a big step toward building trust and loyalty.
- Advertising compensation with content selection
All of us, when we are in the position of a customer of a product or brand, have the experience that we get tired of the advertisements of that brand. This is exactly why brands need to go beyond their products or positive attributes.
The relationship that customers have with brands today goes beyond the product. A customer may be attracted to our brand and business by seeing our product, but what keeps him always with us is something beyond the product. Something like offering curated content or impressive after-sales service that can entice him to stay loyal.
- Short time for content selection
Once you’ve decided on content curation, the hard part begins. Bookmarks and lists of required resources may be useful at the beginning, but they are not always a good solution. Instead of these difficult tasks, go for the content selection tools or curation tools, which we have specifically introduced here for you some of the best.
The best content curation or content selection tools
To make content curation a measurable and regular strategy in your work, you can use dedicated and free tools that will help you make content selection a routine of your work:
Flipboard is a mobile and desktop app that lets you create mini-magazines with links to your favorite news, blog posts, and websites.
Pocket is a great tool to get into the habit of collecting content to save and read later. With this tool, you can categorize articles by tag. The internal search feature of the site makes it very easy to find articles.
Elink.io
Collecting content from different websites and sharing them in a way that can be presented concisely is the key to success in selecting the content that we have access to in this tool.
Twitter Lists
If the accounts you follow on Twitter are not organized, it can be difficult to keep track of them all. That’s where Twitter lists come in handy: curated groups of Twitter users that you can categorize and follow separately from the rest of your feed.
When you’re a content curator, you can create a Twitter list for email marketing and another for blogging, etc. You can even make the list public so other Twitter users can access your lists.
Scoop. it
Consider the Scoop. it platform—which is cool—as an effective bridge between content curation and social networking with a Pinterest-like interface.
Simply select a specific topic and Scoop. It will provide you with the most relevant articles to view and share. It will also suggest related topics for you.
The platform’s intelligent search engine can monitor your favorite topics and identify relevant content you might like.
It also has features like easy integration with WordPress, and creating content for multiple channels including websites, emails, and social networks.
In short, if you are a good curator, then you must also be a great searcher. So don’t limit yourself to these tools and don’t underestimate your innate searching qualities. In today’s information-rich world, regardless of the size of your team or business, content curation should be part of your content marketing strategy. Good content curators can create a valuable source of trust for customers and audiences that ensure business survival.