Have you ever watched a squirrel or a bird foraging for resources on a cool autumn day, collecting sticks, grass, straw, acorns and leaves, then carrying them back to home base to prepare for winter? Cute, right?
We humans are a little bit cute, too. From our hunter-gatherer roots, we’ve been collecting and storing berries, grains, rainwater and other resources. We’ve even adapted these mannerisms to a modern environment.
For instance, you’ll see this behavior exhibited by the content marketer, rummaging through their natural habitat, selecting and sequestering small commodities — memes, videos, infographics, blogs, you name it — accumulating valuable resources to keep their communities thriving.
In short, we call it content curation. But why does the content curator perform these rituals, and what can they teach us about the digital savanna?
The Gatherer’s Guide to Content Curation
The marketing Pride Lands is a place of fierce competition. Content curation leverages this competition by disseminating existing — rather than new — content across channels. Ultimately, this supports our efforts to survive and thrive by conserving the department’s most valuable resources: time, energy and, of course, creative juice. Here’s how:
- Optimize existing content: You don’t have to build everything from scratch. Take a look around and see what resources you can use to grow and nurture your communities.
- Save time: As our relationships with all stakeholders become more complex, we begin to realize how valuable a marketer’s time is. Curating content eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel, allowing for more efficient use of resources.
- Scale your strategy: What better way to build an empire than by making connections with those who have already built them? Think big and expand your reach with a broader spread of perspectives.
- Lead your audience: Every herd has a leader. The best among them understand the importance of delegation, sharing credit and collaborating to spread the load.
- Pay attention to industry trends: A sharp eye helps detect trends, threats and opportunities in the wild, just as it does in marketing. Budding conversations keep you informed about competitor movement and audience sentiment.
- Diversify your content calendar: Boost engagement and tap into new audiences by offering a broader spread of educational content.
- Connect with buyers: Curating content from relevant sources underpins your values. 44% of consumers make purchasing decisions based on your value alignment alone. What’s not to love?
Which Content Should You Pick?
Our gatherer ancestors needed a keen eye to ensure the berries they collected would support, rather than harm, their communities. Likewise, in content marketing, we must carefully curate collateral according to specific benchmarks. Here are some best practices for choosing high-quality content.
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Decide: Who Is the Content for?
Study your prey. Get specific about what piques your audience’s interest, what challenges they’re facing and where other content curators fall short. Understanding this will help shape the goal and direction of your content curation efforts.
For instance, let’s say you run a vegan corporate catering company. You can then curate content targeting event planners, office managers and HR leaders across a range of topics like event venues, accommodating dietary requirements, promoting vegan values and more.
Explore: What Resources Do You Have Available?
What does the hungry lioness do? It’s not a trick question: She scours for food. But, of course, she’s more likely to rummage through nearby grasslands for food before embarking on a long, exhausting trek — and you should do the same. Your grasslands are your existing content collection. Figure out what assets you can reuse, repurpose, re-optimize and share.
Then, consider where you’re going to extend your search for great content: Your audience’s preferred social media channels, competitor websites, YouTube accounts and industry news websites are all valid — just make sure you’re drawing shared content from reputable sources.
Blend: What’s Your Ratio of Content Curation to Creation?
It’s all about balance. While inviting new topics and ideas into the mix can take you far, you don’t want to overwhelm your content curation strategy with exclusively external content. However, you’ll likely come across subjects you haven’t covered.
Decide on a ratio of curated content to created content to address any identified topic gaps, paying special attention to your audience’s evolving needs and interests. Some gaps may introduce opportunities for thought leadership through original content creation while curating and sharing well-established topics could simply save you energy.
Organize: What Topics Will You Focus on?
Head down to the watering hole and discover what all the creatures are talking about. Realistically, it probably looks more like jumping onto a social media platform and engaging in social listening. This helps focus your strategy on a relevant and specific topic, empowering you to share valuable information your audience wants to hear about, rather than sprinkling new content into your mix ad-hoc.
Serve: How Will You Share Your Valuable Content?
Content curation is a great way to introduce new concepts and underscore your values. But you can also stack your strategy and tap into new dissemination channels, such as:
- Underutilized social media platforms.
- Employee advocacy on socials.*
- Curated posts on your blog.
- Emails with curated links.
*I know, nobody wants work to bleed into personal time. However, 64% of employers with active employee advocacy programs on socials report new business attraction — so, there’s that.
Plan: How Can You Anticipate Future Needs?
If you’re new to content curation, you’ll find out pretty fast what works for your audience and what doesn’t. Make sure you measure the success of your initiatives regularly so you can refine your approach and hit the green light every time.
Incorporate content curation into your plan. Set up a content calendar, showing both original content creation and curated projects for visibility, planning and agility as your strategy rolls out.
Tracking and Tracing: It’s All About the Metrics
One great benefit of the animal kingdom is that beasts rely on instinct — rather than spreadsheets — to locate their next meal. But in another light, one great benefit of digital marketing is that we can use numbers to analyze, predict and optimize processes in ways our physical senses can’t.
Here are some metrics to consider watching:
- Search traffic: Check for spikes in search traffic on your website or a specific page to help determine your strategy’s efficiency.
- Engagement rate: Mentions, likes, follows and shares on social media are a good sign your audience is reading with your content.
- Click-through rate (CTR): If you’re sharing a curated blog post or email newsletter, CTR indicates the level of engagement with each piece of content. You can analyze CTR across topic, source or content type.
- Conversion rate: Measure how effectively your content or landing pages drive action, such as form submissions, purchases or sign-ups. High conversion rates signal that your messaging resonates with your audience.
- Time on page: See how long visitors spend on a specific page. Longer times usually indicate engaging, high-value content, while shorter times may require a tweak in the strategy.
Examples of Good Content Curation
GoPro: Curate Customer Testimonials
GoPro thinks of customer testimonials and user-generated social media content as the most prized acorns. By curating and sharing “Photo of the Day” nuggets via social channels, it showcases product value, building trust and credibility into its content marketing strategy. Bonus points because they’re real, raw and relatable.
Marketing Brew: News for the Time-Starved
Marketing Brew gathers relevant industry news and serves it up in one neat little newsletter. It’s a major time-saver and a budget-friendly way to boost audience engagement through thought leadership.
National Parks and Wildlife Service South Australia: Curating Wildlife Content
Sharing user-generated adventure content via a social media feed embedded on its website, South Australia’s National Parks and Wildlife Service flexes its offerings in local activities, inspiring audiences to dream big. Looking beyond the pretty pictures, it aligns with the audience’s aspirational values, which builds emotional and community connections.
Deadspin: Sports News With a Side of Sass
Deadspin takes the same old sports stories, adding a humorous take. By pairing curated sports news with entertaining commentary, it engages its audience in a novel way, highlighting the brand’s point of difference and igniting loyalty.
Gather, Share, Thrive: The Marketer’s Mandate
In the marketing wilds and through severe competition for resources, we must eventually bridge the gap between “us” and “them” to best serve our communities. Content curation is one of the most accessible ways for marketers to achieve this.
If you want to leverage and scale your strategy, take a step back and tap into the wealth of resources around you. Curate the best of them and use that content for growth.
Good luck out there in the jungle.
