Content curation can be a big boost to your small business. If done strategically it can not only provide a better experience for your audience but it can also make better use of your time and resources giving you one less thing to stress about. You’ll get better audience engagement and they’ll benefit from more diverse content and will feel more confident in their purchase decisions.
What Is Content Curation?
Content curation is simply gathering, discovering and organizing valuable and relevant content from numerous sources and sharing it with a specific target audience.
Content curation involves sifting through numerous articles, videos, blog posts, social media posts images and more. That’s the discovery part. Then comes the selection part when you choose the most valuable and relevant pieces to present to your audience. The last part is finding a more meaningful and organized way to present it so that your audience can extract value.
Essentially, you are mining for content to use.
What Is the Difference Between Content Curation and Content Creation?
Unlike content curation, content creation involves the development of original and unique content from scratch. You’re taking your own photographs, writing your own opinion pieces, building your own online tools, making your own graphics.
Doing so allows you to tailor your content to your specific audience and conveys your brand’s message or information. It’s not found; rather, it’s created.
Creation can be a time-consuming and resource-intensive process that involves significant effort, creativity and expertise.
Content creation is about producing entirely original content, while content curation is selecting and sharing existing content that is relevant to your audience.
What Are the Benefits of Content Curation for Business?
Content curation offers several benefits for your business when it’s part of your marketing strategy and is something you should consider as a way to get the upper hand on your competition.
Time and Resource Efficiency
Content curation allows your business to leverage existing content which you can find easily online by doing a quick search. This can save you time and resources compared to creating original content from scratch. It’s especially useful when your resources are limited or you aren’t feeling very creative at the moment. This method allows you to not avoid or dismiss the fact you need some content. Rather it gives you a way to find some rather than make some!
Diverse Content
When you take the time to curate content from different sources, you can provide a wider range of perspectives and info to your audience. This kind of diversity makes the content more engaging and informative. People hunt it down because of the value you’re providing them.
Expert Positioning
Want to be seen as an expert? When you take the time to curate content from experts in your industry, you can start establishing yourself as knowledgeable and even more reputable within your niche. Showing that you can weed out the good from the bad is it’s own kind of expertise. This can actually make the content you share more informative and engaging. People will see it’s coming from a place of know-how and will swarm to it.
Audience Engagement
You want your audience to be informed and engaged because it really boosts interactions and gets you more likes, shares and comments. As an information-loaded authority you’ll get more followers. You gott love that! And you’ll start building a community around your brand.
SEO Benefits
Regularly adding curated content to your website can improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) performance. Search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.) love fresh content. Curated content is a great way to maintain an active and regular presence online.
Stay Current
Industries are always changing, and it’s so important for businesses to stay up-to-date and current. When you choose content curation, you can share the latest news, trends and updates with your audience and you don’t have to spend time doing extensive research or exhaustive reporting.
Fill Content Gaps
Finally, if you have any gaps at all in your content strategy, curated content can fill those gaps. For example, you might not have the expertise needed to cover a certain topic thoroughly. And that’s okay! You can curate content to still provide your audience with value in those areas where you may be lacking.
What Are the Limitations of Content Curation?
Content curation has many benefits, but let’s take a quick look at some limitations you may encounter.
Lack of Originality
When you rely too much on curated content, it sometimes leads to a lack of brand identity and originality. As a business, you want to stand out in the crowd for all the right reasons. You don’t want to look like you are just copying others or lacking in the creativity sector.
I see this all the time on LinkedIn. Someone takes the time and effort by putting in the thought and the work to craft a really insightful post. And then the comment section fills up with “Me-too”ers. There’s no originality in a “Me-too” style reaction.
Quality Control
Finding trustworthy high-quality content can sometimes prove to be a challenge in and of itself. You won’t find the same standard of content across the board, which means you may end up with substandard or low-quality content. Or you may find some things you like from over here, some things you like from over there, but they don’t match each other in style, voice, tone, or quality.
Consistency Problems
Some small businesses owners, the ones who only use curated content, may run into consistency issues. The content may not always align with their brand messaging or values. Being consistent gives your audience a way to recognize your content from your competitors or from other industries. Putting your stamp or your signature on your content is stronger than collecting other people’s stuff and trying to reclaim it.
Copyright Issues
Using curated content feels a little bit like theft, doesn’t it? If you do it incorrectly, it is! You have to make sure you have the proper permissions to use curated content, or you could be facing copyright violations that can lead to messy legal situations. Don’t just snatch content and use it. Especially if it’s really good stuff. The person or company who made it will notice and they won’t be flattered.
The Importance of Owning Your Social Media Content
To be sure, curated content can give you the steady stream of content you need to keep all your channels active and alive. Posting regularly on all your social media profiles keeps you top of mind for your audience. It also makes you look good to the search engines. Falling behind in your posting schedule, or failing to post at all, makes you invisible. When you go long stretches without posting your audience assumes the worst. They’ll get the message that you don’t care, aren’t a true professional or have gone out of business. That’s not the message you want to convey. In the social media world no news is NOT good news.
BUT…. it’s not the only way to get the content you need.
It’s crucial to find the right visuals to go with your posts. Sometimes you’ll look and look, and hunt and hunt but the visuals you want to tell your brand story just aren’t out there. That’s when you need to get your own.
If the assets you’re after can’t be curated you’ll need to create them. But don’t worry. Taylored Photo is here to help.
Hiring a professional photographer for a branding photo session is highly recommended as an investment that pays off exponentially over time. These visuals will be the WOW factor you need to really stand out and to bring in the right clients for your business.
Content Curation Best Practices Checklist
When curating content, there are some best practices you should follow:
- Understand the interests of your target audience and curate content that resonates the most with them
- Find content from different reputable sources, influencers, publications and user-generated content
- Make sure the content you curate adds value or insight and that it comes from a credible source
- Avoid curating content from your direct competitors
- Always give proper credit when and where credit is due. Give proper attribution to the original creator and respect copyright laws. Don’t steal!
- Be consistent. Maintain a regular posting schedule to keep the audience engaged.
- Find some balance with original content. Curated content is complementary. It should NEVER replace your original content strategy.
- Find the right images to accompany your curated content. Visual branding is just as important, and this can help you maintain brand consistency.
- Hiring a professional photographer is the best way to get images that align with your message.
Ready for more helpful tips and advice on images as you curate content for your business? 90 Days of Instagram Content From One Branding Photo Session is a great place to start. It has all the advice you need to make a lasting impression on social media.
And when you’re ready to book a brand photo session get in touch. Tailored Photo offers many methods of getting ahead of the content creation process. Explore our many options ranging from Content Happy Hours and Content Membership packages to one-time product photography and headshot sessions. Your social media feeds will never feel bare or inadequate again!
