By Kolade Stephen Oluwatoba
Can we all agree that content creation is a difficult task? It is something that gives business owners a headache. However, the stress and challenges that come with content creation is not enough to encourage the stealing of other people’s content. While stealing may seem super easy, it comes with the following risks or ruining your brand’s reputation.
When people use terms like “adapting” or “curation”, it disguises the seriousness of the offense. It is actually against the law to steal other people’s content. Most countries have Copyright laws – a form of law that protects the original works of– in place. Content curation should be the process of gathering information that is relevant to a particular topic or area of interest, with the intention of adding value to the content and making it unique for your audience.
No doubt, content curation is easier than writing your own content from scratch, and when done accurately, should make you look like an expert, grow your network, grow your business and help you stay informed.
How do you then curate content in the best way? First, there are some things you need to put into consideration to decide which content is best. Ask yourself the following questions: Why would this help? Is this a trustworthy source? It is unique? Will it ginger engagement? Once you’re good with these, follow these steps:
Know Your Audience
Take your time to understand that every business has a unique audience. Know your audience and the kind of content they would like to read. If you give content that is irrelevant to them, it might not get any engagement and would be useless.
Make Sure the Content You Curate Matches Your Brand Standard
The standard of your brand varies with another. Do not insensitively curate content without minding or finding out the relevance to your brand. This is bad for your business image.
Decide How Much You Want To Curate
You should also have original content and not curate everything. Give your audience a feel of your thoughts and ideas about a particular topic also. There is no answer to how much content you should curate, but Curata did some research into what you should do.
You can also look into this mix:
- 65% Original created content
- 25% curated content
- 10% syndicated content
Share Only What Matters
Put these into consideration: Relevant, Timely, Interesting, Useful. Anything except this is not important. That’s all I’ll say about this.
Promote Yourself
Do this just a little bit to avoid boring your audience. You must relate your content to yourself.
Acknowledge Sources
If you don’t give proper credit to the original content creator, you are stealing content and not curating. Always attribute your sources and let them know.
Remember To Include CTA
Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, downloading an asset, or link to another piece of content, give your audience something to do when they’ve finished reading your content.
Well, now can you answer the question now? Are you curating or stealing the content? Have a professional team handle your content for you. Have a chat with us as we discuss better ways to improve your content.
Don’t forget to share this amazing content with your buddies.
Do you have any questions about these steps highlighted above? Send us an e-mail at info@blackinkm.com or DM us via any of our social media platforms highlighted below.
With all the possibilities that content curation can offer, there can still be an aftertaste: black sheep feel validated when they steal content and ideas, plagiarizing their way through the internet. A real curator is different. For ethical and data protection reasons, stealing content is not advisable. But marketing is also about securing sources: reaching out to authors, photographers, graphic designers, and video bloggers is highly recommended. The online community values transparency. Readers are happy about clear sources because it gives them the opportunity to find exciting new input. Added to this is the fact that other content creators can cite important networks. It is best to contact authors whom you wish to quote and ask for permission. This is not always possible (due to time constraints), and also not always necessary – citation is also allowed without permission – provided the source is clearly named, the citations are not too long and the content is not reproduced in an incorrect context. However, hardly any author says no to building a reputation and backlinks. Social media makes it easy to notify original authors about sharing their content, on Facebook or Twitter, you can link people on the day and inform them at the same time. Chances are good that the relevant authors act as disseminators and in return distribute, like or comment on other curated contributions. In the best case scenario, they themselves become followers and begin to share unique content with you, ensuring high-quality backlinks.