Content Curation, put in simple terms, is the process of selecting the best pieces if content surrounding a specific subject or topic.

According to an infographic published by Mashable, about 571 websites are brought into existence, 347 WordPress blog posts are posted, and 3,600 Pictures are uploaded on Instagram every minute. With millions –and perhaps billions, of gigabytes of information buoyanting around the internet nowadays, content curation has proved to be a very powerful tool when building an audience for your site.

Companies that use curated content get 30% more page views on average than companies that don’t., this is according to a survey conducted by  Curata (a marketing and Software development firm). Mashable is a perfect example of the websites that have built huge followings by publishing curated content.      It’s a very well-known fact that –readers don’t like sifting through throngs of websites to find the best information.

Now that you have known about content curation, it’s time to give you the right tools to help you get started with your own marketing strategy.

here are the best content curation tools you can use for your blog:

Google

 

We all know that Google is no longer just a search engine. While carrying out a simple Google search will usually produce useful results, you can also make use of other Google tools in your content curation efforts. You can set up Google alerts for specific topics, and have a list of relevant links sent to your mail box as often as you wish. You can also customise Google News to find interesting articles and discussions on your selected topics.

Industry Associates

Learn from the best in your industry.  Most top industry associations seem to be good about keeping track of top news in their fields. Subscribe to their newsletters or follow them on social media to stay informed of what is people are talking about in your industry. It’s also advisable to subscribe to conference newsletters, even if you don’t plan on attending the conference.  It’s very helpful in the sense that you it helps you to know what topics and keynote speakers who are making a splash in your industry.

RSS Feeds

 

RSS feeds provide you with frequently updated content published by a website and that’s offering you a great way to keep up with your industries best blogs and stay on top of trends. Just sign up with an RSS reader like Feedly or Newsblur, and subscribe to the top blogs in your field. When you subscribe, your web browser automatically checks for updates and downloads new content that you can see what’s new   since you last visited the blog. If a blog you are interested in doesn’t have an RSS, you can sign up for their newsletter instead.

Ask your audience

You can get good valuable pieces of content by asking your audience advice you whenever they find some interesting articles. You can even have a customised email address set up for this, like suggestions@youcompany.com  or tips@yourcompany.com

Social Media

Social Media has become a great way to keep up with curated content. After all, Social media users curate content every minute by Sharing, Resticking and Retweeting. Keep track of your selected hashtags on Facebook, Twitter and Amunzi to see what people are talking about.

Delicious

A site which started out a a simple social bookmarking site.Delicious has grown into one of the best content curation tools on the web. This program allows you to easily “capture the web you have been missing” by saving content and organising interesting links you find online. You can also discover the specific content pieces that others have tagged by clicking the “discover” tab

Your own Content

content curation
content curation

Most companies mostly have a good amount of useful content concealed in old blog posts, videos, slide show presentations, articles and other sources online. Should this be the case with your company, I really urge you to find ways to curate past content. Here are some of the ideas to help you get started.

  1. Creating eBooks out of popular pieces of content  written on the same topic
  2. Create a video or slide show presentation that you can publish online.
  3. Create infographics of statistics pulled from your content.
  4. Create a video series based your past written content
  5. Create a resource section of your website where you can categorise your most useful blog posts and articles. You can also title it as a “Best of  2012” page.
  6. Create a new list blog post that includes past blog posts around a certain theme.

With more and more content being shared on the net everyday than ever before, content curation allows your brand to choose the best examples and to make the context in which you present them. This also gives a chance to get connected with those whose content you are curating and to keep abreast when it comes to industry trends and thought leaders. This works both ways, as your company extends its reach whenever its content is curated. Essentially, everyone involved has something to gain from curated content.