No Time to Create Original Content? Try Content Curation

What does a museum have to do with content marketing? It's not a trick question—the answer is curation. A museum curator lovingly gathers the most interesting artifacts and displays them with printed commentary or those snazzy in-ear audio guides. You can apply a similar technique to content, gathering the best from around the Web to tell a story that will capture your audience's interest. Let's take a look at how.

What is Content Curation?
Content curation is the gathering of content from around the Web for display on your own blog or social media profile. You might balk at this—after all, you don't want your business’s website to look like a news aggregator—but in fact, curation can be a valuable part of your content marketing strategy.

Good content curation is not simply a case of sharing any old content related to your niche. Good content curation means searching out quality content and then enhancing it by adding your own commentary or marrying it up with other content to tell a story.

Think about our museum analogy—a bunch of random artifacts displayed haphazardly on the floor wouldn't hold a lot of interest. The fascination comes from the display and the way the story is told. This is the heart of good content curation.

How Can it Benefit My Business?
It's no secret that Google likes regularly updated blogs, and your audience likes regularly updated social media profiles. Content curation is a way of supplementing your original content with other items. This keeps your Web presence active.

Content curation can help to establish your business as a go-to for the best news and information.

How Do I Make Curation Work for Me?
Follow these three steps to get your curation up to scratch and make sure it enhances your original content (and you will still be producing that—the aim is to supplement not replace).

1. Choose your content carefully—think about whether it will speak to your prospects and customers and how it will inform, entertain, or help them.
2. Have an aim in mind—don't pick content at random, no matter how good. Think about your aim, whether that is to entertain, inform, or show your expertise.
3. Add something—add your own commentary to content, organize it into collections, let people know whether you agree or disagree with the information. Don't replicate—elaborate.

Content curation is starting to come into its own as a valid part of any content strategy. If you approach it with the same care you give to creating your own content, it can be a valuable supplement to it, enhancing your reputation and giving your online presence a boost.