Don’t know what content curation is? Find out the strategy that will reinforce your brand’s authority

In WordPress alone, there are more than 76.3 million new posts published each month. It is amazing having so much information available, isn’t it?
Now imagine that you have to work on a school project and you have access to the library. There is a lot of information available, but there is no classification.
Can you imagine yourself going through every book?
That is exactly what online content curation solves.
This strategy is about filtering the huge quantity of information available on the net so that you can locate the highest quality content. But… is this going to help your online shop somehow?
It will help you in more ways than you think… but you will have to read this post in order to find out why.

What is content curation?

In order to explain the meaning of this concept, it’ll be useful to know where the expression itself comes from.
The original term, curation, comes from the world of museums. For an exposition, the “curator” is the person in charge of selecting what will be shown among all of the possible works of art or artifacts.
Therefore, a good definition would be…

Content curation is about finding and selecting the most relevant content within a field and strategically sharing it with your audience.

Here you have an example:
If your e-commerce is about dog food, a good curation strategy would be about choosing the best content available in the world of pets.
But, let’s take a look at the most important thing here—why is it useful for your business?

Advantages of a content curation strategy for an e-commerce

If you thought that this strategy didn’t have much value to add to your business, you’re dead wrong! 😉

1. Creating an audience and gaining visibility

If you want one-up your competitors, it is difficult to do so just by posting commercial advertising messages.
For any strategy based on Inbound Marketing, sharing relevant content related to a specific topic is essential in order to create an audience that is interested in your products and services.
In fact, when sharing content, it is always advisable to do so according to the 80/20 rule. 80% external content and 20% of your own content.
This is why it is essential to have a good selection of all of the best articles related to your topic.
This will allow you to get more followers, which will permit you to tell them about your own content (and to direct them to your website).

2. Learning

The time spent on searching for and selecting the content could be the best teacher. Without realizing it, you will be learning and keeping yourself up-to-date about everything that is going on in your field.
More knowledge, more confidence, new ideas… are you starting to see the potential here?

3. Transmitting impartiality

We have talked about this a million times—buyers don’t trust sales messages and they are always looking for external opinions.
By adding third-party content, you will be seen as a more objective source. In fact, this type of post could work as social proof.

4. Authority

Your audience is used to reading online content. So much so that it will take them just a few seconds to know if your content is worth it or not.
This is why it is very noticeable when a brand shares just quality content.
This has the immediate effect of that brand being seen as a source of authority and a valuable resource (they will be loyal to your content).

5. Lead capturing and nurturing

In this post we talked about what a sales funnel was and why it was so important for an online business.
For online shops, it is difficult to sell to someone who is visiting your shop for the first time, which is the reason why you need to establish a relationship with them.
In order to do so we will get their email addresses, and we will start by sending them specific content to make them go through our sales funnel with the goal of turning them into clients.
You may have noticed that we said “specific content”. We mean reports, statistics, comparative articles, or any other post reinforcing our products’ potential.
And where are we going to get those from?
You guessed it—from our content curation strategy.

5 keys to making your audience fall in love with your curated content

Becoming a content curator will take time. In fact, you will need several months to get to know all of the different quality sources in your field.
However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t deliver great work from the very beginning. You just need to follow these five steps to start seeing results:

1. Buyer persona: all your content strategy is based on your buyer persona. The first thing you need to know is which topics would be useful for them.
2. Quality sources: one of your main challenges is to identify which blogs show more quality. Start by checking influencers that are always seen as a credible source and go on from there.
3. Current news: when selecting content, it is important to double check that the information is up-to-date. Take into account that, unless the topic is a timeless classic, or it is about a tool, it might be obsolete.
4. Classifying and storing: finding good information is as important as knowing how to classify it and storing it. At the beginning, with fewer posts, it will be easy. However, how about when you have thousands? Will you even be able to find them?
5. Content creation: in addition to sharing it, this valuable information will help you improve your own content. Watch out—this doesn’t mean copying. If you are talking about another’s person strategy or theory, always quote them.

This information is a good starting point for you.
Bit by bit, you will develop your curation skills and you will start finding better content.

What content curation tools should I use?

Within the curation process, we need to differentiate between two stages:

1. Finding and classifying content
2. Sharing content through our communication channels

Let’s take a look at the best tools for each of them:

A. Tools for capturing content

There is a huge variety of tools in order to find and classify posts. Here you have a selection of the most known ones and how they can help you.

1. Feedly

It is the most well-known aggregator of feeds and RSS.
It allows you to read the content from all the websites and blogs you select in just one place. It classifies them by category in order to let you quickly have a look at those you are interested in.
There are extensions for both Chrome and Firefox that allows you add Feedly to any website that you are navigating.

2. Pocket

This extension allows you to store and file whatever you find online. A good content curator is always alert to see if they can find a good post or video that may be of interest for their audience.
Its integration with Feedly is one of the most common combinations.

3. Evernote

Even though it is not specifically a content curation tool, it serves the purpose. It is a productivity service that helps to always have your information available and organized.
If you install the browser extensions, you will be able to collect any content you find. It is like your browser’s bookmarking system, but on steroids.

4. Instapaper

This is another tool that we like very much because of its simplicity. It allows you to add notes, highlight, and make comments on the texts and content you collect. It is perfect for iPhone.

5. Buzzsumo

It is indispensable in order to detect the most-shared posts on social networks. Just by entering the topic you will see what people have been sharing between the selected dates.

6. Facebook and LinkedIn groups

One of the easiest content curation tools on social networks is searching in groups. Join them and you will be exposed to relevant content related to your niche.
If you are looking for a more professional tool, you can check Scoop or Storify. In order to go a step or two further, you can check Curata.

B. Tools for sharing content

Once you have your curation scheme, it is time to share the content. Here you have some options:

1. Hootsuite

This is a complete social network management platform. It allows you to share content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (three different social networks in its free version).

2. Buffer

Similar to the previous one—we like it because it is easy to integrate the free version with Feedly.

3. Telegram

A messenger app that is becoming more and more popular. It also has the option of creating broadcasting channels, kind of unidirectional WhatsApp groups in which only the administrator can post.

4. Newsletter

We already talked about the use of newsletters for e-commerce. It can be perfectly combined with content curation as a broadcasting platform.
You can even add a collection of the best content in your autoresponder.

5. Blog

You can also write blog post with a selection of the best content created by third parties and share it on your social networks. If you tag it, it is probable that people will share it on their networks too (extra visits). 😉
Are you still doubtful about the advantages of having a blog for your online shop? Then read this.

Use content curation to gain more visits and to improve your shop’s reputation

This is a strategy that requires persistence, but that can return very good results.
Start today and you will begin to see how people start adding you to their lists as a result of the quality content you share.
This is your hook attract more clients!

We recommend that you read the following article on social commerce for more info 😉