Authority Content Series: Building a Reputation via Content Curation

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Welcome back to our Viral Solutions series on creating authority content. Last week we discussed how to develop high-quality original content as a way to establish yourself as an authority in your field. However, not all of the content you share has to be original. You can position yourself as an expert through strategic sharing of pre-existing content created by other respected businesses and entrepreneurs in your field in a process known as content curation.

Even if you make content marketing a priority at your company, you’re going find it difficult to create enough content quickly enough to meet all of your marketing needs. In fact, of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers, the ones at the top of the list are typically a lack of time, an inability to produce enough content, having a hard time producing content that engages an audience and a lack of budget for creating that content.

Content curation solves all of those issues, making it extremely beneficial for your company.

Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Services or people that implement content curation are called curators. Curation services can be used by businesses as well as end users.

Building a Reputation via Content Curation

Here are just a few of the reasons why you should make content curation a part of your authority content marketing campaign, and how it can help you to continue to position yourself as a thought leader in your field:

Building a Reputation via Content Curation

What tactics ensure your efforts get noticed?

Leverage ‘underground’ content. “Effective content curation highlights amazing content that readers have never seen in a way that adds value and impresses the original source. Share valuable content that people haven’t seen so you become the go-to place to find the best content. To build brand awareness and grow a following, you want to be a trend finder, a trend analyst. My curated content with the most engagement is not content found in the most obvious places for my industry. Anybody can take articles from popular sites and share them. It doesn’t stand out. True value comes from frequenting locations that are abstractly relevant – the places that publish content strongly relevant to your audience 10 to 20% of the time. When the content is relevant, it resonates because it’s fresh, new, and otherwise unseen by those in your space. They aren’t willing to dig to find that content, that’s why they need you.” ~ Ross Hudgens at Content Marketing Institute

Content Curation Should Offset Promotional Content“Customers grow tired of brands ceaselessly promoting their own wares. Which is why today’s progressive brands think beyond products or features. Successful brands understand that the relationship customers have with brands today transcends the product itself. A product may initially attract you to a specific brand, but it’s what the brand offers after the purchase that will keep you around (and make you a fan).” ~ Patrick Armitage at HubSpot

Share curated content on your social networks. “Social media is one of the channels where content curation is key to staying relevant to your followers and growing your following. Follow the Social Media Rule of Thirds, put your pride aside and share other people’s content. Why is it important to share outsider content by other businesses or thought leaders? It shows your audience that you know the industry well, that you’re collegial and are aware of competition. It shows that you’re collaborative and confident enough in your own brand to share another’s content. It also doubles your exposure by potentially connecting you to another brand’s audience or online community.” ~ Kristina Cisnero at Hootsuite

The Three S’s of Content Curation:  Seek, Sense, Share. “Content curation is a three-part process:  Seek, Sense, and Share.    Finding the information or “seeking”  is only one third of the task as Mari Smith points out in this video about why curation is important and some tools  for doing it. Making sense of the information is just as important.  Sense making can be a simple as how you annotate the links your share,  the presentation,  or what you’ve left out.     Sensemaking can be writing a blog post using the links (like this post) or summarizing the key points in a presentation.  However you create meaning, but it has to support your organization’s communications objectives or your professional learning goals.” ~ Beth Kanter

While content curation might not take as much planning and effort as creating your own original high-quality content, you should keep in mind that it still requires a strong editorial commitment. You must carefully consider what forms of content you are willing to share, and what sources you do and do not want to support.

Stay tuned next week for the next strategy you can use to help establish yourself as an authority figure in your field through content marketing.

Lindsey Perron

Lindsey Perron

Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC

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“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring

 

customer value optimization specialist

 


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Filed Under: Content Creation

About Lindsey Perron

As Thomas’ daughter, Lindsey was introduced to the world of sales and marketing at an early age. Curious about what her dad did, Lindsey would jump at every opportunity to help and ride along on sales calls. Always quick to take charge and lead the group—a trait that has only grown with time—Lindsey was frequently told by her parents that she was destined to be a manager or CEO of some sort. While working toward earning her bachelor’s degree in human services from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Lindsey interned with the UW Office of Equality and Affirmative Action and served on several councils, which gave her the opportunity to develop her persuasive writing skills, researching skills, problem-solving skills, project management skills, and more. After working as the lead teacher of the 4-year-old room at the local daycare center, Lindsey decided to switch gears and join the Viral Solutions team. In her position, Lindsey is able to help clients think through an end goal and reverse engineer it into the steps needed to achieve it.

When she’s not working, Lindsey loves spending time with family, be it traveling somewhere together or just hanging out at home.