A content curator is someone who aggregates content from across the web. They’re not the ones who copy stuff from the Internet and repost the same on social media, blogs, etc. Content curators are passionate about what they share and hence they “curate” content before sharing by adding more information and value to it.
Content Curation is different from Content Creation because curators do not generate any significant content by themselves. A curator’s primary goal is to find interesting stuff and then re-publish the same by adding their own views about the content.
Why Content Curators?
The internet is an information superhighway. People post gazillions of photos, videos, articles, etc. on the Internet every single day such that no software can sort them. What’s more? It contains a good amount of spam too which machines can’t recognize.
According to Fast Company, “Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize, and organize information.” and that exactly is the reason why curators are the new superheros of the web.
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Let’s say I’m passionate about “Technology”. So what I’ll be doing is reading the popular tech magazines, blogs, following events, etc. so that I keep myself up-to-date about the latest happenings in the industry. People who want to follow technology the way I do can follow my updates instead of reading multiple blogs, magazines, etc. as they may contain too much irrelevant information for them.
The best example is Mashable and TechCrunch. Both the publications cover almost all the technology stuff but the fact is that they post too much unwanted stuff. I have even unsubscribed their RSS feeds as most of their articles have nothing to do with me.
But luckily there’s Techmeme, a technology news aggregator. You can check Techmeme.com and it shows how content curation should be done.
Curation: Techmeme accomplishes this the only way possible: by linking to stories from all around the web. Spotlighting the writings of reporters, commentators, and industry players from across the media and industry landscape provides the only effective means of offering a comprehensive view. And by doing this well, we spare readers the impossible task of monitoring an abundance of news sites, tweets, and status updates.
Why Content Curation Matters?
If content marketing is all about creating and sharing your own content then content curation is all about finding, organizing, and sharing great content. Content curators aggregate interesting content from across the web about topics that they’re passionate about.
Today, content curation is as important as content marketing as it’s a great way to improve the user experience of your website and/or brand. Moreover, content marketing is not easy as creating high quality content is expensive and takes a lot of time and effort.
Content Curation is not something that can be automated because no computer algorithm can find exactly what your users want. So it’s your job to find interesting content what you think will be of interest to your readers.
Content Curation Tools. Curated.
Now let me feature some of the best content curation tools on the web. And the best thing? Most of them are free! Of course, there are a ton of other tools, but I have decided to feature only the quality ones, that I liked the most.
1. Twitter List
Twitter List is a curated group of Twitter accounts. You can create your own Lists or follow Lists created by others. Viewing a List timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the accounts on that List.
2. Pinterest
Pinterest, as you probably know, is image sharing on steroids. It’s an amazing tool to curate images and no wonder it’s one of the top traffic referral. In fact, Pinterest used to drive more traffic than Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit combined. Simply “Pin” interesting images, that you come across while browsing the web, and organize your pinned images by creating Pinterest Boards. You can even invite your friends so that they’ll be able to add new Pins to your board.
3. Scoop.it
Scoop.it is an online magazine creator that allows you to create and share your own social magazines easily. You can add content to Scoop in 4 different ways: you can Re-Scoop content shared by other members, publish suggested content by Scoop.it, add a custom post by sharing a URL of your choice, or by accepting content suggested by another Scoop.it user.
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4. List.ly
List.ly allows you to create lists on almost anything – images, videos or even texts. Makes lists and invites other community members to vote up and down for it. You can even embed your lists on your website by adding their codes or by using their official WordPress Plugin. List.ly can not only be used as a content curation tool but can be used to get content ideas.
5. Pearltrees
Pearltrees allows you to cultivate your interests. You can collect, organize and share web pages, files, photos, notes, and everything you like on the web for free. You can also discover interesting content based on your interest to enrich your account. And you’ll be able to create an unlimited number of folders and subfolders so that it’s fun and easy to manage your pearls and pearltrees.
6. Flipboard
Flipboard was a social magazine app at first and later they reimagined the app so that users are now able to organize articles, photos, video, and audio as magazines. Users can either make their magazines private or can share with the public so that every Flipboard user can now become an editor.
7. Diigo
Diigo is basically a social bookmarking network but it’s also an amazing curation tool. With Diigo, you can bookmark, organize, and discover interesting links on the web and can then organize them using tags, lists, and groups. If all you want to share is links then I guess Diigo is the best tool for you. Because it’s super easy to add links as you browse the web and is very simple to share and organize the links that you have collected.
8. Medium
Medium (Premium) is an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic.
9. Sniply
Sniply (Premium) is a simple tool that shortens links and allows you to overlay your own custom message onto any piece of content, creating an opportunity for you to include a call-to-action with every link you share.
10. elink
elink (Freemium) has everything you need to save bookmarks and build webpages, email newsletters, RSS website widgets, social bio links, social walls, automated content and more.
11. Quuu
Quuu (Freemium) ensures you’ll always have the freshest, most relevant content to share with your followers on social media so you can automate your content curation processes. Choose from over 500 interest categories.
12. UpContent
UpContent (Premium) helps users builds trust with their audiences through discovering, collaborating on, and distributing curated content across a variety of platforms.
13. Flockler
Flockler (Premium) helps marketers like you to display Instagram images, Facebook posts, Tweets, YouTube videos, and more on any digital service to increase time spent on site and drive conversions.
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Closing Thoughts
You don’t need original ideas to write a great blog post. All you need is passion and an ability to curate content. If you can’t write original blog posts then start curating content.
If you really add more value to the original content by acting as an expert yourself and giving an unbiased view on the story then users will like your content and it will rank higher on search engines.
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In order to succeed it’s better to focus on niche topics instead of targeting a whole industry. For example, if you’re an iPhone fanatic then you can focus on three hashtags – #Apple, #iOS, and #iPhone.
Once you start curating content you’ll get more ideas and can start sharing other tech stuff that’s somehow related to your primary topics. But make sure you’re consistent and share almost everything that’s digital media (articles, photos, videos, audio, e-books, infographics, podcasts etc.) related to your topic.
Have I missed your favorite content curation tool? Do let me know!
Happy Curating! 🙂
