Content curation can be quite time consuming, especially if you fall into the rabbit hole of the internet. Thankfully there are ways to keep on track. Here are 4 steps and tools you can use when curating content for your next blog post, email newsletter, or social network.
Step 1: Know where to find your content
The best and most efficient content curators know where they can consistently find high quality content. This means having reliable sources to turn to and reliable tools that help find content for you. If you’re looking for great content, regardless of your industry, here are some aggregators you can turn to:
You can also use tools like the Hootsuite’s Syndicator and Hootsuite’s suggested content to find great content to share. The Hootsuite syndicator allows you to put all the RSS feeds you follow in one place, so you don’t have to go to multiple locations to find content to share. The Hootsuite suggested content feature uses data from your Twitter profile to suggest three content categories you might be interested in. Once you’ve determined your content categories it will find relevant content that you can schedule or share out to your social networks at the click of a button.
Step 2: Actually read the content you share
We’re all busy, and content curation needs to be quick and easy for busy people. But, no matter how busy you are, before you share you should always read the content in question. Hootsuite recently did an experiment to answer the question, “how much of an article people read before sharing it,” and the results were surprising. Many people simply skim headlines or the first paragraph before sharing.
To be successful at content curation, you need to be sure that you’re adding value and providing great resources to your followers. You can’t do that without knowing what you’re sharing by reading it. When you are very busy, having a set of trusted sources allows you to share articles you haven’t read start to finish while still being confident in their quality.
Step 3: Save the best articles
You may have just stumbled across the best article you’ve ever read but, if it doesn’t fit in any of your content plans for this week, next week, or this month, don’t force it. The key to content curation is making sure the content you curate fits under one theme, a theme that your readers expect and come back for. So what do you do with that awesome content you found? You save it for a rainy day.
You can go old school and save the content you find in an excel spreadsheet or in your browser bookmarks, or you can use the Hootsuite Syndicator’s read later function if you’re curating content using RSS feeds. Build a system so that you don’t have to go searching for it later when you’re ready to share it.
Step 4: Schedule your curated content
Whether you’re choosing to share the content you’ve found via a blog post, email newsletter, or via social media, be sure to schedule your content. This allows you to share content in an effective way through the various channels you are using.
Tools like WordPress, Mailchimp and Hootsuite allow you to schedule blogs, emails and social media posts that all fit into your theme for the week or month. After you’ve scheduled all your content you can then add content in real-time as necessary and engage with your audience.
Extra content curation tips
There are some additional rules that a content curator must follow in order to be successful at content curation. Here are three:
- It’s important to give credit or link to the source you are using
- It’s important to provide quality over quantity when it comes to sharing content with followers
- Use content management tools to efficiently manage your curation efforts
Learn how to save time curating content with Hootsuite’s content management tools:
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For more insight on the subject, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Content Curation.