This is definitely not a chicken and egg question! A debate in content marketing circles is whether or not you should simply focus on creating original content and forget content curation. Let’s be clear as my fellow content curator, Jan Gordon, says: There is no curation without original content.
I might qualify this a bit by saying, there is no curation with awesomely addictive social content! And that means creating content – blog posts, tweets, Facebook updates, YouTube Videos – that is valuable and high quality. Not sure if you have awesomely addictive content? Noland Hoshino recently pointed to this excellent checklist from the Content Marketing Institute.
Source: contentmarketinginstitute.com via Beth on Pinterest
But, remember don’t think content creation vs curation or as is an either/or. It is a both/and.
I might also add: There is not social content creation with content curation. Content curation, the process of seeking and making sense of the best content on your topic or issue from other content creators, can be the foundation of a content strategy. It can not only help you create original content, but also helps you builds your audience or network.
There are many other benefits to content curation – it can help build your staff expertise in a topic area, build thought leadership, reduce mindless information consumption, and inspire high quality original content. While content creation and content curation are two different activities, requiring different skill sets, there are a couple of places where they overlap.
Curated Content Formats
We know that content curation is much more than slapping together links or engaging in “push button” sharing with your circle of friends. Professional content curation is making sense of the topic by researching what’s out there. I like to think of content curation is going the library to research sources for your term paper!
This post from Social Examiner called: 26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Content is an excellent example of a blog post that is curated from many resources. I’m being a little ironic pointing out an example that includes lots of excellent resources and links to how to create awesomely addictive content for your blog. If your organization is writing a blog, this post is worth 30 minutes of your time to sit down and to explore with your team. You’ll come away with some very useful tips for taking your blog content to the next level, from the technical stuff like SEO to getting into the writing zone. (There’s a very simple and useful blog editorial template)
Newsjacking
Source: nonprofitmarketingguide.com via Beth on Pinterest
A big hat tip to Nancy Schwartz for curating on Pinterest this blog post from Kivi Leroux Miller summarizing David Meerman Scott’s e-book on Newsjacking which is well worth the $6.99. Newsjacking is piggy-backing on timely news or Meerman points out “the second paragraph of a news story.” It is done by creating original content that takes advantage of timely events that are getting mainstream media attention and providing your organization’s view or take on the topic and sharing it with your audience, including journalists.
Now, this is exactly what one does with curation on a day-to-day basis. Once you discover related content, you describe giving it your point of view or relating it back to your organization’s programs. A good curator will do with content that is not, at first glance, related to their subject (This skill is called “Transdisciplinarity,” or ability to understand and translate concepts across multiple disciplines)
Kivi suggests making Newsjacking part of your staff meetings – because you have to be agile to be able to pounce on the news. Leveraging current events as part of your content strategy – either by curating or creating original content – can also help your get more attention, but provide useful content for your network.
How are you creating awesomely addictive content for your organization’s strategy? Is content curation or newsjacking part of your strategy?
