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Digital Doughnut Contributor
Digital Doughnut Contributor 10 September 2015

3 Tips For Beginners To Be Successful With Your Curated Content

Digital marketing is all about content and this is an open secret now.

Digital marketing is all about content and this is an open secret now. From blog posts, articles and white papers to videos, infographic, webinars and social network shares – content today is a conglomeration of many things.



Done right, it can make your digital campaign an instant hit and can also help you become a topical authority by establishing you as an expert. The best thing about content marketing is its affordability; businesses of all size and status can incorporate content marketing in their marketing mix.

 

But doing this right is easier said than done. The devil is in the details. You need to spend time and effort to align your content strategy with both your customers’ needs and your brand’s online persona. Most importantly, it must be meaningful enough to stimulate continued conversation.

 

When it comes to content creation, one of the best strategies is to focus on creating both original and curated content. The curation part especially involves keeping up with industry trends and news and sharing interesting content with thoughtful questions and comments and provide answers to those question through your original content. The goal is to become a sought-after source of industry specific knowledge by means of both original and curated content.


Why Curate Content?

Some of the best marketers are using content curation as a part of their content strategy. In fact, the content marketing mix is around 65 percent of original content and 25 percent of curated content. While content curation is all about finding and sharing quality content on a given topic, the secret ingredient to be successful is to know what exactly goes into your curated post.

 

Curation builds the foundation for your content marketing efforts. It essentially helps you build a larger group of audience with whom you can later share your own content in order to leverage word-of-mouth marketing and social sharing. In fact, a lot of Twitterati have largely used content curation to build their followings. This is quite justifiable considering the nature and purpose of Twitter stream.

 

In order to maximize visibility you must tweet frequently; some marketers are tweeting between eight and 10 times a day, or even more. And this too makes sense, considering the fact that content sharing is another popular method of content curation which works just perfectly. According to "The Science of Retweeting" report, 56 percent of retweets contain links while only 25 percent of tweets come with links. But content curating has its own set of challenges too.

 

While many brands and entrepreneurs can still manage the original content creation part, content curation is often like a chore to them, especially for beginners. Here, two things are important – you need to maintain control as well as keep the content fresh. It also demands time commitment and a long-term social strategy.

 

Let’s see how to do that in the best possible ways.


1. Identify Your Niche

The first step to content curation is to find your brand. This means your content should be on point and a homogeneous tone. In other words, your original content must be a natural extend to other content that you share on social media. And to achieve this, you need to first zero in on your niche or topic(s) you would like to cover.

 

There are a few things you need to consider here:

  • Opt for topics relevant to your business or products/services
  • It must provide a value to your audience
  • You must have clear opinion and expertise in that niche


One major challenge you are more likely to face when determining topic(s) is defining its niche. Go for something too broad, you content is less likely to meet the needs of your target audience as they would be clueless about what to expect; and opting for a narrow one means you are actually targeting a handful of people who are truly interested in your topic. The sweet spot, however, lies somewhere in the middle. You need to engage your readers with an interesting and valuable topic that reflects your brand.

 

Whatever you do, don’t follow others blindly. Know what you are doing and make sure it is actually worth your efforts. To quote Craig Badings of Thought Leadership Strategy, "Identify whether anyone else already occupies the space. If so, you may be two steps behind already."


2. Identify The Key Voices

You need to have everything in place when it comes to curating content. Michael Georgiou, the co-founder and CMO of a Charlotte Web Design company, believes that the secret lies in proper homework. For example, if you are targeting people interested in tech, startups businesses and social media, then websites like TechCrunch and Mashable are your best sources. Similarly, if your brand persona is all about business and finance, start reading CNNMoney and Forbes etc. It is imperative to stay current on industry trends as well as on thought leaders in your particular domain.

 

You can also use news aggregator apps to find current topics and organize your newsfeed.


3. Have A Content Sharing Strategy

One unforgivable mistake marketers often commit is sharing their content all at once. They posts a huge bunch of content at a time and then go without posting anything for long stretches. This largely impact your credibility and regularity. Besides, people will be overwhelmed when you flood their timeline with your content all of a sudden and might even start "unfollowing" you.

 

A much better approach is to create and publish a steady stream of content on social media. You can even post your content on a schedule. There are several social media publishing tools like Sprout Queue, Compose, Hubspot Social Inbox, Buffer, TweetDeck, Hootsuite, and SocialOomph that you can use for this purpose.


Conclusion

These are some of the basics of content curation to help you get started and there is more to learn. In fact, these tips are just to give you an idea about how to start tweaking your content curation strategy in order to have compelling effects on your target audience, right from day one. Also know that it would take some time and continuity to build a successful content marketing strategy. It is a long term project; so don’t expect to translate your social content (both original and curated one) into sales immediately. Having reasonable and realistic expectations will help you in the long haul.


About Author:

Michael Georgiou is a dynamic business professional and entrepreneurial guru associated with Imaginovation – Charlotte Web Design company proven his success in creative strategy, online branding, project management, and communication projects in both the public and private sectors.

Find out more on the future of Content Marketing at our DLUK - Trends briefing on the 24th September 2015

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