Let's talk social media content.
Consistent high quality social media content is what we're all striving for, but often not quite achieving. It takes time to trawl the net for great content to share with our followers and even more time to put that together into something valuable that is worthwhile sharing.
Let's say you haven't gotten round to writing that great social media strategy. Or you have but you're frazzled trying to think of and write content all the time. Now is the time to include curated content to make that impact.
What Is Content Curation?
Content curation is the act of discovering, gathering and presenting digital content that surrounds specific subject matters. Basically, it's finding and sharing great content relevant to your audience, rather than writing original content yourself.
In an ideal world your curated content would sit nicely alongside originally created content. The advice is varied on the best curated vs original ratio, but let's say you aim for 50/50 as a starting point, when you have your flow you amend to suit your audience.
Why Curate Content?
There are so many benefits to content curation. For one, it allows you to stay informed about your subject matter and displays your knowledge to your audience. It helps your grow your network (because you'll be crediting that original author each time you share something) and, perhaps most importantly....it saves time! If someone has already said what you want to, get sharing. You'll get your audience's attention whether the content was created by you or not, as long as it's suited to them.
There is no reason NOT to curate.
Top Tips For Curating Content
So you have decided that you want to start curating your content. Or perhaps you're already doing it, but your process needs streamlined. Here is how to gather your content together effectively.
Sign up to a content creation tool. We love Feedly. Feedly brings together all the latest articles from your favourite websites into one place. Simply sign up, spend a little time discovering and adding the sites that you are interested in and save Feedly on your favourites list. Now, rather than spending hours trawling various websites you simply need to check your Feedly feed and get sharing.
Let Google do the hard work for you. Set up Google Alerts with all the keywords you're interested in and watch the content flow in.
Follow and check in with those who share great content. Share their content by retweet, regram or the share button on Facebook. Don't forget to credit the author. Not only are you acknowledging their work, but you're opening up an opportunity to start a great conversation. Don't underestimate how valuable this can be for you and your business.
Create a Twitter list. This will help you to keep your Twitter connections organised. you can create your own list but also subscribe to lists created by others. Read more here.
Sharing Your Content
You've found the content you know your audience will love and you're ready to share. What's next?
It is now time to plan your posts. Take some time to write a little about what you're sharing so you're adding a new voice to it and demonstrating your own knowledge.
Don't now use all that time you have saved on writing content throughout the day. Pick a day that works, write your content for the week in advance and schedule your posts using a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or Buffer, Facebook Pages Manager or TweetDeck.
You're all set. We hope that our tips help you become more productive with curating content for your social media platforms, leaving you with more free time to spend on other areas of your business.
Do send us a message if you have any questions, we'd love to chat.