Content creation is often thought of as the most important practice when it comes to content marketing. However, you might not always have time to create the kind of long, informative content that gets links and builds your reputation as an expert.
One solution is to seek out content that has already been written and curate it so that you can then present it to your audience and provide them with value.
You don’t want to focus on curation alone, but you can certainly use it alongside content creation, and it can help to give you a reputation as a trusted authority.
Make use of dedicated curation tools
There are many ways that you can curate content, and some of these involve using specific tools to save time:
- one of these is Flipboard, which is for tablets and mobile devices. Using this, you can create your own magazine by curating content from elsewhere, and it is a more visually attractive way for your audience to access the content;
- a similar tool is Paper.li, which you can use to create a newspaper of your curated content to make it more readable;
- or you could use a tool like LinkedIn Influencer Content Search. This tool can help you to find related content directly within LinkedIn and then provide it to your target audience.
Use social media
Social media is the perfect way to curate content and share with your audience. In its simplest form, it involves finding something interesting and simply sharing it with your followers, perhaps by retweeting it.
You could even create a weekly highlight of your five favourite tweets, and then you could make this into a regular feature.
Comment on third-party content
This is a way to combine content curation with your own content. Simply find an interesting article on a trending topic related to your insurance products, and then provide your reaction to it. Take a new angle, or add some further information to add to the debate.
You can then highlight the original article to your audience as well as telling them that you have written up your reaction to it.
Blog round-ups
If you have a blog, create a regular round-up of the best five or 10 posts of the week or month. This is a way to provide value to your audience because you are saving them the time required to find all the posts themselves, and they will start to trust your choice because you are an authority in your niche.
Use curation to your advantage
Curating content allows you to provide real value to your target audience without having to create the content yourself. Your targets will appreciate the effort you have gone to in order to find content that they will find useful or enjoyable. So use some of these techniques and make the curation of content part of your marketing plan.
