One of the best social media lessons I ever learned came from my good friend Laura Petrolino.
Laura taught me that by becoming a content curator (i.e. regularly gathering and sharing links to useful articles and posts) for my social media followers and fans, I would be able to steadily grow my social media presence.
In turn, Laura taught, my increased social media presence would lead to more visits to my site where folks could read my content as well as learn about my product and service offerings.
This has turned out to be a successful strategy for me. Using the content curation approach, my presence continues to grow on multiple social media sites.
In addition, by using certain techniques (discussed in the video below), I have been able to network with folks blogging about similar subjects who, in turn, have shared my content with their readers, growing my presence even more.
Lastly, by tying in content curation with my weekly newsletter, I’ve been able to share great information (while remaining relevant) with my subscribers as well.
I’ve shared Laura’s approach (with her permission *smile*) in the video below. The video also includes a brief wrap-up which uses online exposure measurement to validate content curation.
Enjoy and, if you do use, or have used, a content curation strategy, please share your experiences in the comments below.
Important note: This is not meant to be a replacement for regular social media engagement and activity. You will not build customer relationships with this approach, but it IS a great, and easy, add-on to your regular social media activities that increases both your traffic and your reach.
Added later: Since this post received such a strong response, I thought I’d expand the topic by listing some of the content curation tools available for building your social media presence. [Read more and view the list of tools…]
Note: For a larger view of the video, click the arrows in the lower-right corner after it starts for full-screen mode.
Ah…I’m blushing!
I’m a big fan of being a ‘connector’ in business and content curation is part of that philosophy. As you share important links, articles, etc. with your community you both educate them and build their trust in you as a thought leader. You make being a member of the community more valuable to all involved because you are providing knowledge beyond just your own.
You also are connecting with your peers, you are acknowledging what they bring to the table and sharing it with your followers (a great honor). You are connecting them to people who they might not have been connected to in the first place, as well as educating them about you and your focus. Relationships are built, knowledge is passed and all in all everyone’s business/life/etc. is improved.
Matt is particularly good at this because he has a keen awareness of the needs of his community and thus finds great resources to connect them to.
Aww, now it’s my turn to blush! 🙂
Aside from the additional benefits you mentioned Laura, my favorite part of content curation is that I actually enjoy sharing useful information!
Yes, I’m geeky that way, but I love the feeling of passing on something which will help someone else. In fact, it’s the whole reason I do what I do here on my blog and with each of my clients.
-Matt
Loved the video Matt. Added it to my Shortform channel http://www.shortform.com/imarketsb
Going to use what I learnt to share the link on Twitter =)
Thanks Sherwin!
Glad you found the video useful and excited you are going to use what you learned right away! 🙂
-Matt
BTW – like that ShortForm tool – gonna have to explore as yet another great way to collect and curate content, this time video. 🙂
Grrrr now you’re just stealing my thunder :p
Hehe – don’t worry, there’s room for us all and so much content to curate! 😉
Great article and I’m glad to see someone else turning and testing out content curation. Finding, organizing and sharing content are the pillars to make your content curation strategy successful. I find that a lot of people I chat with about curation are doing well at two of the pillars and are always missing one component – for a successful outcome, it’s important to do all three. Find relevant content, organize it to make it easy for people to find the content relevant to them, and sharing through a microsite or twitter or other social media channels.
Thanks!
Jessie
Thanks for your kind words Jessie!
I agree – if you’re missing one of the three pillars you mentioned, content curation would not be nearly as effective.
Interesting product you’ve got there – may need to take a look. 🙂
-Matt
Hi Matt,
thank you so much for your interesting article and shared about your experiences.
I put it on my topic here: http://bit.ly/nrmfNN on great curation platform Scoop.it!
I am curating a good topic about trend of Content Curation, posting every day real-time news, useful content marketing, new tools and platforms.
My topic received many views and it is followed from many people.
This my new approach on social media was/is a fantastic discovery!!!
Wishing you happy content curation,
Best Regards
Giuseppe
Giuseppe,
Thanks for your kind words and for sharing my post on Scoop.it (a great example of content curation in-and-of itself)!
-Matt
Curation plus seeking out or being the lightning rod for hard to get/find content is how Scoble became the Scobleizer. How Kawasaki became the most recognizable “Guy” on the web. Curation on your blog or social media isn’t just passing around stuff other people are passing around already. It’s about digging and surfacing content that hasn’t yet gotten passed around – so people will love it and pass it around. That’s how these guys became master curators with massive followings.
Jack,
Thanks for pointing out a couple master curators! Scoble and Kawasaki truly understand the power of content curation and use it very effectively.
-Matt