Find yourself struggling to think of new ideas for your content, or maybe you’re just burning yourself out from creating fresh content all the time? Don’t worry, we’re here to show you how to save a bucket load of time, and reduce the amount of content you have to create while achieving the same results!

The secret strategy is….

CONTENT CURATION!

But what is it?

Content curation is all about finding and gathering awesome content online (like this blog ?) that surrounds a specific area, and presenting it to your community in a way that adds value! More than simply re-sharing content, content curation is a way to provide extra value to your community whilst showing off your niche-specific expertise. It’s a win-win, really!

Unlike content marketing (always creating fresh content, running out of ideas and often burning yourself out), content curation doesn’t require you to consistently generate original content. Instead, you pull in information from other sources (this blog, for example) and deliver it to your audience! And no, this doesn’t mean copy and pasting content, but essentially finding a good mix of resources and mashing them all up into a nice content mix and sharing this with your followers!

Benefits of content curation:

• Shows off your expertise to your audience – By sharing content that you know is relevant to your followers and that will add value into their lives, you’ll build up a reputation. Over time, they’ll know that when they come across your content, it’s worth the read. Just because all of the information doesn’t come directly from you doesn’t affect this – trust us!
  
  
  
• Fill gaps in your content calendar – If you’re a small business owner or a social media manager, your digital marketing strategy should include some sort of content calendar (and if it doesn’t, you need one ASAP!). You’re probably creating all the content yourself, running out of creative juice and leave yourself wondering what to post. Curated content is an easy fix for this, and also low-budget! Another win-win.
  
  
  
• Build your network – If you’re following a brand and are eager to get on their radar – this is your chance! If you genuinely find someone’s content really valuable and think it will be equally valuable to your followers, be sure to tell them so! Let them know when you re-purpose and curate their content on your own channels – over time this is going to build you more and more relationships online (and not the Tinder kind). You never know where these relationships will take you in the future, so it’s great to start building them!
  
  
  

Checklist on how to curate content the right way:

1 – Still add originality:

People follow you because they like your channel and the information you are providing. Don’t just re-share the comment without your own input and aspect of originality – provide your community with your take on the content, that’s what they want to hear!

Saying this, try not to make it too lengthy – just a couple sentences explaining why you think the information is great is more than enough value added to that curated content – easy peasy!

2 – Know your audience:

As a small business owner or social media manager, you should already have a rough idea of who you are targeting and tailoring your content towards. If you don’t have a clue who you’re trying to target, don’t worry!

One way to figure out who your target audience is, is to create audience personas – think about your audience as real people rather than a stat on a screen. Whoa re they? What are their interests? Are they mostly female or male? This will help you consider what types of content (both original and curated) will be most valuable for them.

It won’t be perfect first time – pay attention to the content you are posting and the engagement levels of your curated posts. You’ll learn over time what types of content are truly resonating with your followers. With that data, you can then focus on that specific content type for your future curated content – voila!

3 – Credit the original content owner:

Like we said earlier, it’s important not to just directly copy someone’s content – essentially stealing their work. This includes not crediting the person who made that content – it’s unprofessional at best and illegal at worst.

When you’re curating content, make sure to credit the original owner, you can even tag their account and share a link to the original content if you want to! Remember, the more you interact and network with the original creators, the better off you’ll be further down the line!

4 – Do your research before posting:

We all know the good old saying – ‘you can’t believe everything you see on the internet’. This is true for all aspects of the online world, even if the content has come from a guru. We can’t tell you the amount of supposed social media gurus and experts we’ve seen hopping on myths and trends without checking their facts first. Make sure that the information you’re sharing is accurate and is coming from a credible source.

Curated content example:

If you’re part of our Instagram fam, you’ll have noticed that we take advantage of curated content every now and then. Here’s a recent example from our Instagram:

Original Content – https://www.instagram.com/p/CK3KHZZDHML/

Curated Content – https://www.instagram.com/p/CPoaAO4ppC5/

As seen from the above, we have actually re-designed the post to fit in with our branding as well as changed part of the content. The important part to focus on is not what we have changed and what we have curated, but we have credited the original creator in our post – ‘Inspired by Sweeter Social’. You can use whatever phrasing is suitable for the content you’ve created. Inspired by, influenced by, taken from, copied from, etc. As long as you credit the original creator, you’re good!

So, after all that you’ve read about curated content – are you going to be trying it out? Let us know in the comment section below, we would love to hear your thoughts!!