PR Word of the Week #33: Content curation

Time and time again, I hear business professionals tell me they can’t start a blog, they can’t start Twitter or keep up Facebook because the just don’t have the time to create content. Although it is important to create unique content once in a while, the majority of content found on blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other social channels is curated content.

Content curation

(kənˈtent kyo͝oriSHən)
noun

Curation Services defines content curation as:

The process of continually finding,organizing and sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online.

How do you curate content?

PR Daily published an article called A step-by-step guide to curate your company’s news that includes some great tips to get businesses started on populating their social channels with curated content.

Their top suggestions include:

  • Identify opportunity: anything related to your business or your business’ industry can be curated. Everything from company news to big news and changes in your business’ industry.
  • Select curators: just like when you start up a Twitter account, a blog, a Facebook Page, a YouTube channel, etc, you always need to assign someone the task of ensuring content is up-to-date. While your “blogger” may be creating new content, your “curator” skims the web and finds industry news related to your business.
  • Monitor conversation: set up a Google alert, or use more sophisticated tools such as Sysomos or Radian 6, to monitor the web to find relevant content to curate.
  • Select the best content: depending on your industry and business, your curator may have to comb through a lot of content. Make sure you are picking content that communicates to your audience your company’s key messages and contributes to your company’s overall goals and objectives.
  • Announce and promote: there are many ways you can package the curated news. You can write up a weekly/daily blog post called “industry news”, or set up a newsletter to send to your clients and potential clients with a mix of your unique content and curated content. Retweet or link to curated content through Twitter, or post links to your Facebook Page.

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