Content Curation: Best Practices:
1. Become Part of the Content Ecosystem
2.
Follow a Schedule
Audiences expect some regularity, and they’ll reward you for it.
It doesn’t need to be a schedule that you can’t keep up with. If you want to
curate three new links a day, and write one big post a week, that’s a schedule.
Make sure to post at the same time each week. This is so readers know when to
expect new material from you. Consistency and regularity will also bring you
new users, and help you grow a loyal base of members who appreciate your work.
A good example of someone who gets why a schedule makes a difference is Jason
Hirschhorn via his MediaReDEF newsletter. He never misses a publish
date.
3.
Embrace Multiple Platforms
It used to be that your audience came to you. Not anymore. Today
content consumers get their information on the platform of their choosing. That
means you should consider posting short bursts on Tumblr, images on Pinterest, video on YouTube, and community conversations on
Facebook. And don’t leave out established sites and publishers. If your
audience hangs out on a blog, you may want to offer that publication some guest
posts or even a regular column. Essentially, you have to bring your content
contributions to wherever your readers may be.
4.
Engage and Participate
Having a voice as a curator means more than creating and
curating your own work. Make sure you’re giving back by reading others and
commenting on their posts. A re-tweet is one of the easiest ways to help build
relationships with fellow bloggers and curators. And your followers will
appreciate that you’ve pointed them to good content. One word here, I never hit
an RT without clicking through to read what I’m recommending. You can also lose
followers if you don’t put in the effort to recommend material that you really
think merits their attention.
5.
Share. Don’t Steal.
Take the time to give attribution, link backs, and credit. The
sharing economy works because we’re each sharing our audiences, and providing
the value of our endorsements. If you pick up someone’s work and put it on your
blog, or mention a fact without crediting the source, you’re not building
shared credibility. You’re just abusing someone else’s effort.
The important thing to realize is that we’re increasingly living
in a world of information overload. So when people choose to listen to you it’s
because you’re able to separate signal from noise. You provide a clear,
contextually relevant voice within the topic or topics that you create and
curate.
