How to Curate Content for Your Social Media Channels?

How to Curate Content for Your Social Media Channels? Struggling with keeping your social media channels up to date? Find out how to curate content for social media success without sacrificing your time.

Human biology dictates that people are known to have two types of skills: hereditary ones and acquired ones.

You cannot exactly change what mother nature has gifted you with. However, it is definitely up to you to be continuously growing the set of skills that one is able to learn in their lifetime. Especially with new technologies which are constantly expanding the range of things one can grasp. There is no limit to the things you are able to do, and that applies to online marketing too.

If you are running an online business and struggling with managing your social media accounts and publishing content — this post is for you. Content writing may not be for everyone, but I’m going to show you how to curate content for social media channels can keep your channels active and your audience engaged.

The first step in mastering pretty much anything is breaking down the term used to refer to whatever is that you are trying to acquire to understand what it actually means. By deconstructing the phrase itself, you can learn plenty about what are its implications and what is the best way to approach it. For this very reason before delving any deeper into the methods one can use in order to curate content successfully.

What is content curating?

In accordance to the well-respected Cambridge Dictionary, the process of curating can be defined as the selection of various things such as documents, music, products, or internet content to be included as part of a list or collection, or on a website.

Initially, the world of business marketing has borrowed this term from the museum industry. In that context, curators were the people strategically tracking down pieces of art and other exhibits to be shown at the halls of their galleries. In doing so, they bring different parts together to make a cohesive picture that would have an overarching theme and appeal visually and aesthetically to a specific audience.

When projected onto the social media plane, the role of a content curator remains very similar to its original form, with just a couple of redefined characteristics.

Curating content for social media channels involves:

1. Identifying the topics that would be interesting for your target audience
2. Browsing through the already existing content that suffices the previously identified topics, and therefore would be appealing to your social media followers
3. Selecting the best information out of the bunch you have found in the 2nd step and sharing it with your audience via your social media channels.

From elucidating the responsibilities of a social media content curator, it is now possible for us to find the best ways of getting the most out of each step.

First, it is important to understand that successful social media content cannot be created by one person. You will need at least a couple of professional assistants ready to share the tasks with you. The reason for this is that if you want to maintain the high quality of your posts as well as keep them coming as scheduled, you will for sure require some help.

How many social media posts are needed to receive sufficient engagement?

Granted you have a page on every major social media platform, and you can spend countless hours updating all of those. Of course, you can upload one post daily to get the bare minimum amount of engagement and traffic. However, posting twice a day, or, hear me out, three times per day will result in even higher numbers, will it not?

One of the most relevant questions raised among Social Media Marketers is the frequency with which one should post as well as the total number of daily uploads. This issue is so controversial, and there have been multiple studies to research the matter.

Conclusions outlined in these papers are very varied, but the general trend among the key social media sites is as follows:

• You need to update your Facebook account at least once a day to keep it relevant and show up on your followers’ timeline more regularly.
• It takes not less than 15 tweets on Twitter to maintain stable popularity.
• Pinterest requires a minimum of 11 pins per day.
• Instagram would require your attention twice a day.

It is also not only about how often you post but when you post, too. The time of your updates as well as its regularity matters, and sometimes overlaps for different platforms. This is why taking into consideration the amount of work that needs to be done, you should have somebody to team up with.

Sometimes, content curation is the only answer to maintaining the all-time high number of high-quality posts successfully. Content curation is much less consuming than creating your own content. However, this is not its only benefit.

Advantages of content curation for your social media channels

• It increases the trustworthiness of your brand
  Indeed, once you learn the preferences and interests of your target audience and adjust your selection of the best content accordingly. Your followers will view you as a reliable source, and a specialist in your area who curates the most appropriate content. See some great examples, click here.

• It helps you to establish an infallible connection with your audience

This is particularly true for the brands that are still at the very early stages of their development. They learn more about their audience by assessing the response rates to the content they share. This is the only reliable way of finding out the habits of your followers. By doing this, you will learn how your audience likes to receive the posts, what they share the most, which formats they prefer as well as when they are most active. It is much more efficient and cost-effective to curate content to start this type of conversation with your audience than if you were to create each piece of information you put out there yourself.

• It creates valuable bonds between your brand and media influencers

This benefit can be explained best through a simple analogy. If you steal an artist’s artwork, it will be considered blatant plagiarism and you will likely suffer unpleasant consequences. One way or another, your relationship with the real creator of this art you claimed to be yours will be irreversibly spoiled.

On the other hand, however, if you shout this artist out, say, on your Instagram story, with an active link to their profile and add some nice comments about this work, you will actually help them grow. Moreover, you will make them smile and remember you are a supportive person.

This is applicable on a bigger scale, too. If you are continuously cooperating with content creators and promote their work via your content curation plan, you build a strong positive connection with them. This can be beneficial for your brand in the future.

• It helps you stick to your posting calendar

Although it has been briefly mentioned before, we cannot stress enough the importance of content curating for maintaining a steady stream of posts on your social media channels. It is not always that you have the possibility to create enough content to satisfy the needs of your audience. So content curation is an excellent way of filling the gaps in your content plan and keeping the public entertained. For a list of the best social media scheduling tools, click here.

Things to remember when curating content

The only thing to remember, though, is that your curated content needs to be of the highest quality to accommodate its potential benefits. There are several important points that you need to consider when curating content for your social media channels to make it awesome.

1. Keep the content you curate up to date and relevant to your target audience
2. It is best to be sharing information from a reputable source so that your content is of the highest quality
3. Add your perspective on the content shared to add value to your brand. Remember that content curation is just a way of enhancing your own social media channel hence it has to take something after you
4. Just aggregating content is often not enough. Apply various methods of presenting information to make your curated content posts stand out among the rest of a kind
5. Think of the most suitable post format for the curated content posts and stick to it. Usually, such posts consist of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion
6. Giving credit is key! You have to attribute the original creator of the content you curate

Conclusion

Content curation is a great way to popularize your social media channels and keep your audience engaged. It enhances the social media page performance online and therefore helps the brand it is trying to promote. Overall, content curation is not difficult as it is much less time-consuming and requires less effort than content creation. However, it is only relevant if the curated content posts you produce are of the highest quality!

The post How to Curate Content for Your Social Media Channels? appeared first on Graphic Web Design & Brand Marketing Company Medford OR.

by Chris London of Pixel Productions Inc. The Everything Design Company