Content Curation: Tools & Tips that Every Content Curator Should Know

You are probably thinking that content curation is another strange term coined by the marketers of those marketing or advertising agencies in the big cities of the world. And you're kind of right.

This concept is strongly linked to content marketing, one of the strategies with more and more importance in companies. Thanks to content, it is possible to connect with the audience in a more natural and quicker way.

However, a question that often arises about content curation is how to apply it correctly, what tools to use and what information best suits the needs of the brand in its online marketing plan.

Definition of content curation in marketing

Content curation is a technique that consists of searching, collecting, filtering and selecting the most important information found on the Internet (social networks, blogs, websites...), and then sharing it with the audience.

What is a content curator

Bearing in mind the above meaning, a content curator is a professional who researches and gathers the information available on the Internet on a daily basis and chooses the most relevant and useful content in his/her field.

Advantages of content curation

Some of the benefits of this strategy are

• Improves the image and online reputation of the brand.
• Reduces information intoxication or ‘infoxication’.
• Increases the number of followers.
• Gives more brand visibility.
• Improves SEO or web positioning through quality content.
• Helps to find ideas to create content.

How to cure content step by step

In order to achieve an optimal content curation, certain steps have to be followed.

1) Identify

It is vital to know the needs of the followers. In other words, to understand what they consider to be quality content.

2) Search

Search engines, social networks or websites, among others, are ideal for finding such useful content for the audience.

3) Filter

Not all contents are valid, so the less valid ones should be avoided. Make sure you have read them all before getting rid of them.

4) Organize

Save the information (including its sources) in some database, a cloud storage service or whatever, but organize everything to easily locate and use those contents.

5) Reinvent

Offering fresh content with a distinctive touch is priceless. Think of new ways to attract the user's attention, such as a different structure, colors, images, videos, etc.

6) Share

Sharing the content among the audience is basic, otherwise only you would be the receiver... Use social networks, blogs, websites, etc.

7) Measure

The measurement of results is very important to know what interests the audience, what has more engagement and what contents have to be cured and created from now on.

Types of content curation tools

There are different categories of tools for curing content.

RSS feed

With these programs it’s possible to subscribe to certain media and web portals with interesting content, and receive notifications when they’re updated. Then you can sort and filter everything by categories, be always updated and gather in the same place the relevant contents as information sources.

Content aggregators

These tools, which are also known as social bookmarks, make it possible to detect current information on a certain topic with labels and topics. Thus, you’ll know which contents are the most valued and read by the users of these platforms.

Alerts tools

With these tools you can select keywords and receive an email when an article about the specific topic is published.

Trending tools

Through textual data and statistical graphics you can see which terms are the most searched for on the Internet, as they track trends to reach a greater number of users.

3 best content curation tools in 2020

Some of the best tools used by content curators are:

1. Google Trends

Google Trends is the analysis and consultation tool that the online giant offers its users free of charge. It’s widely used by SEO experts, as it allows them to know the popularity of the keywords indicated, as well as the search trend according to the location and other related topics.

2. Feedly

Feedly is an RSS tool that allows to quickly organize and access from a web browser or a smartphone apps all the news and updates from blogs and other sites that the system supports. It’s ideal for saving time and not having to check all the news sources one by one.

3. Pocket

As its name suggests, Pocket is an ideal mobile newsreader for storing those interesting articles, videos, images or websites, among others, for later checking. It has several modes to adjust the view: white, sepia and dark. You can also listen to the articles if you don't feel like reading.

As you may have noticed, content curation is an important part of a content marketing strategy. With it you can select the content that is most interesting to your audience to generate more engagement and leads.