In today's fast-paced digital landscape, content marketing has become a must for businesses of all sizes.
But consistently creating valuable content that actually builds your credibility with your prospects is challenging, especially when there are countless types and forms of content for multiple platforms.
With the growing demand for quality content, it is difficult for companies to keep up with the need for fresh, relevant, and engaging content.
This is where content curation comes in. Content curation is collecting, organizing, and sharing content from various sources to provide value to your audience - while positioning yourself as a go-to resource for “cutting through the noise.”
But how do you know if content curation is right for you and your business?
Can anyone from any industry benefit from sharing relevant third-party content?
Here at UpContent, we understand wanting to ensure any new content strategy you engage in is actually going to help your business and not waste time.
That’s why we created our content curation software to help you automate the parts of content curation that should be automated, like sourcing and sharing the content - while streamlining the selection and inclusion of your perspective on the curated articles which add real value to your audience
In this article, we'll explore the benefits of sharing curated content, some limitations and drawbacks, and what kind of company is a good fit for content curation.
Benefits of Sharing Curated Content
Just like when you walk through a museum and look at exhibits curated from multiple sources to tell a complete story, content curation can help you tell your full story while deepening your relationship with your audience as a giver of knowledge - regardless of its origination
While benefits can vary based on what you’re using curated content for, this list is a great starting point.
1. Establishing Authority
By curating content relevant to your industry, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Curating quality content can help build your credibility, and your audience will appreciate the valuable resources you provide.
2. Diversification of content
Content curation allows you to diversify your content by sharing different perspectives, formats, and topics you may not have the resources or expertise to address otherwise.
The idea that you or your marketing team alone will be able to cover a wide range of topics, be unbiased, and always be the leading expert is unattainable - no matter your team size or budget.
Instead, content curation allows you to share a wide variety of perspectives, showing that you are also open to ideas that aren’t always your own.
3. Increased engagement
Sharing high-quality curated content can help you to engage with your audience by providing them with content that they find valuable and interesting.
Because you can share more content around areas within your industry that aren’t necessarily something you specialize in, the more likely you’ll share content that is more relevant at that moment in time to your audience.
In fact, we have seen that engagement goes up by at least 33% when using curated content in your content mix!
4. Growing your audience
When you curate content, you're not only providing value to your existing audience but also attracting new followers who appreciate the content you share.
This could be someone on your email list who forwarded a curated newsletter you sent out to a friend or someone resharing an article you posted on LinkedIn.
Most of the time, people remember who shared the content with them rather than the publisher, so becoming a reliable resource for good information keeps people coming back and new people following.
5. Cost-effectiveness
Content curation is a cost-effective way to create a content marketing strategy since it requires less time and resources than creating original content.
With content curation software, you don’t have to spend hours researching, sourcing, or verifying curated content to be shared.
At that point, you could have paid someone to create the piece!
But instead of having someone on your staff dedicated to finding curated content, you can use the experts that already work at your business to approve content automatically sourced for you.
6. Time-saving
Here at UpContent, we believe that content curation should have the same amount of strategy that you apply to your original content efforts, but that doesn’t mean it can’t help you save time.
It just means that saving time shouldn’t be the only or main reason to curate content.
Content curation can help you save time by leveraging existing content rather than creating it from scratch.
Using tools like UpContent allows you to find and share quality content with your audience quickly.
Limitations and Drawbacks of Content Curation
While content curation can be an effective way for companies to provide value to their audience, it has its limitations and drawbacks.
1. Low-Quality and Outdated Content
One of the biggest challenges of content curation is the risk of curating low-quality or outdated content.
Sharing irrelevant or outdated content can damage a company's reputation and credibility and result in a loss of trust from its audience.
It's important for companies to curate high-quality and relevant content from trusted sources to maintain the trust of their audience.
One way to ensure you don’t do this is to set filters and guidelines.
We recommend not sharing content older than 30 days (in most cases, not older than seven days) and taking a look at the publisher to ensure it is an organization you’d like to “stand next to” when speaking with your audience.
2. Curating Content Legally
Another drawback of sharing the content of others is the potential for legal issues.
Companies must be aware of copyright laws and obtain permission before curating and sharing someone else's content.
Failure to obtain the necessary permissions (which vary depending on how you present the content of others) can result in legal and reputation consequences.
To avoid these risks, companies must be selective about the sources they curate from and take the time to review the content before sharing it.
But don’t be scared. Content curation is perfectly legal!
As long as you are not presenting the work you are curating as your own or detracting from the traffic the original author should be receiving for their work, you won't be breaking any copyright laws.
3. Thought Leadership Isn’t What Your Customers Are Looking For
While curation can bring benefit in some way to nearly all organizations, if you are in an industry where your customers are more interested in features, functionality, and price rather than the thought leadership of your brand, curation may not be a good fit for you.
Think CPG, apparel, many e-commerce businesses, etc.
For many B2C companies, the buying decision is more impulse than thought ased, so the most research customers want to see are reviews from other buyers.
There is an exception if you are a lifestyle brand that has values you want to share about i.e. conservation, giving back, etc. Then those topic are a great fit for content curation!
Some Examples of Good Fits for Content Curation
Content curation is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all businesses, and it’s not a silver bullet to fix your content marketing strategy.
A good fit for content curation is when you clearly understand your audience's interests and pain points.
By curating content that speaks to the audience's interests and provides solutions to their pain points, a company can establish itself as a thought leader in its industry and build a loyal audience.
At UpContent, we help hundreds of companies across many industries, from individual sales reps to small businesses and large enterprises.
Some industries we have seen the most success in (but this is not an exhaustive list by any means) are:
- Financial Services
- Sales
- Healthcare
- Tech
- Accounting
- Education
- Marketing
Building Your Personal Brand
Many of our customers use UpContent as a resource to help build their thought leadership and credibility with their audience.
Social selling has become a popular, and even some would argue the most successful, way of building trust with future clients.
When trying to build your thought leadership, it can be easy to lose yourself, which hurts your whole strategy.
People want to connect with you, and maybe you’re wondering why sharing someone else’s content helps people get to know you more.
That’s totally valid! But we naturally trust a resource more when it’s supported and cited by other credible sources, so by sharing your opinions with curated content, you’re establishing yourself as the expert you are.
Small Businesses
Curated content is an excellent resource for small businesses that want to establish themselves as thought leaders with limited resources.
Small businesses often don't have the budget or time to produce a large volume of original content.
Content curation allows them to provide value to their audience by curating content from relevant sources.
For example, a small software company that provides accounting solutions for freelancers and small businesses can curate content from relevant sources, such as blogs that cater to freelancers and small business owners.
By sharing valuable content on topics such as tax laws, financial planning, and bookkeeping, the company can establish itself as a thought leader and build a loyal audience.
Niche Industries
Another type of company that can benefit from content curation is one that operates in a niche industry.
In niche industries, there may be limited content resources available, making it challenging to create a constant stream of fresh and engaging content.
By curating content from a variety of sources, companies in niche industries can stay up to date with the latest industry trends and provide value to their audience.
This will also allow you to expand into other niche areas of the industry without having to dedicate a ton of resources to creating content.
For example, a company that provides specialized software for dentists can curate content on topics such as the latest dental technologies, patient communication strategies, and industry news.
But creating content in those different areas would take time and resources that smaller tech companies may not have.
By sharing relevant and valuable content, the company can build its reputation as a trusted source of information in its industry and establish itself as a thought leader.
Companies with Multiple Content Channels
Content curation can also be effective for companies with multiple content channels, such as blogs, social media, and email marketing.
Managing multiple content channels can be challenging, especially for smaller businesses with limited resources.
Content curation can help these businesses provide valuable content to their audience without overburdening their content creation team.
Using software like UpContent allows you to automate much of the process.
The company can increase its reach and engagement by sharing high-quality and relevant content on multiple channels without creating all the content from scratch.
How To Know If You’re A Good Fit For Content Curation
If you’re trying to solve a problem for someone, and you need people to trust you are the best person to solve that problem, content curation is for you.
Content curation can be an effective way for you, whether you are an individual building your personal brand, a small business, or a large enterprise, to build your credibility, whether you’re B2C, B2B, or anywhere in between.
If you’re interested in getting started with some curated content, you can sign up for a free trial of UpContent and start curating content today!
Or, if you’re interested in learning more about how content curation could help you, check out some of our other articles.
Become a Better Thought Leader with Curated Content
