As someone who takes part in providing Melbourne SEO services, I am often told that content is king. I couldn’t agree more with that statement because I have seen it with my own eyes how content could either make or break a brand depending on its quality. I have seen it with my own eyes how content miraculously changed someone’s mind when it comes to buying, including me. Let me tell you what I have seen in my perspective. A year ago, I came across this new local cosmetics brand that sells very cheap makeup series. When I first saw the products, I was like, “It’s just too cheap; would I be okay if I used it? What ingredients do they use to produce this highly affordable makeup? There must be something fishy, right?” That’s what was on my mind back then and when my friends asked me whether I would join them buying the products, I humbly refused. One day, exactly a month ago, I got a direct opportunity to collaborate with the said cosmetics company and I saw how much invested they are in content creation and even content curation. True enough, when I checked out their official social media account, they are truly doing it well and even have almost 160,000 followers. Their content is also engaging and interactive. After having an innovative and inspiring talk with the person in charge about their vision and mission as well as their content value, I quickly learned one lesson to conclude; the reason people buy from this brand is not merely because they sell cheap products, but it is because of how their content changes how people think about this brand. From this example, I think business owners should learn to focus on content and their brand value. The problem is; how do we make content?

There are two ways we can create content. It is by creating content or curating content. What’s the difference? Creating content means that you freshly create content that has never been made by anyone before. Curating content, on the other hand, is the method of creating content through the existing content, which means, you re-create the existing content that once was made by someone else and make it more enchanting and interesting in your own way. While it might seem that curating content is easier than creating fresh content, curating content is actually more difficult than creating fresh content. For that reason, I’m going to discuss it here – a guide to content curation. Are you perhaps a business owner looking to promote your business through making high quality content? Keep reading this article to find out!

The crosscheck and the ‘think twice’ method

If you follow 9GAG on Instagram, you might notice that not all of their content is freshly made by them. In fact, 9GAG often re-shares content from someone else and gives credit to them by mentioning their Instagram account in the caption. While that might seem so easy, you should know that the interesting content you find on internet is often labelled as nameless and it’s hard to find the original source of that content. If you randomly re-post content, you might be faced with these problems:

• Credit source (If you re-post funny or interesting stuff)
• Hoax or unknown source (If you re-post information related stuff, especially controversial stuff)
• Rude content (If you post something funny but the content may not be for everyone and it’s an insult to some people)

If you are thinking about re-posting content or curating content from the existing content, those problems above might be your challenges. For that reason, you need to crosscheck and think twice before curating content – that’s the main point of content curation. Think like this; supposing you were browsing through an online shop and you were adding more and more stuff to your cart. However, before you clicked “Checkout”, you felt the need to review the cart with these considerations:

• Do I actually need this?
• Is this urgent?
• Will it be okay if I buy this another time?
• If I wait a little longer, they may sell this half-price (discounts)

…and so, you emptied the cart. Not only would it save you from wasting money recklessly, you would also gain more unexpected benefits just from holding back. Just like content curation, before you re-create or re-post the existing content, you need to consider these:

• Can I re-create this content better than this original content?
• Will my audience like my version more than the original one?
• Does this content come from reliable source?
• This content is interesting and funny to me, but does my audience think the same way as I do?
• Is this content offensive to some people?
• Who is the original creator of this content? Can I contact them and ask if they are okay if I re-post their content?

After considering those mentioned above, if you think all checks out, start doing these:

• Brainstorm ideas with your team
• Collect ideas found during the meeting
• Combine the ideas and review it again
• When you curate the existing content, make sure you re-create better version of yours
• Double-check the information and sources
• Think twice before posting
• Do some testing first
• Ask around. You can ask for opinions from your family, friends and employees

I know it takes a lot to make content, let alone curate content and there are actually many more ways to curate content and it is more complex if I explain it here. However, the main point of curating content is the crosscheck and the ‘think twice’ method. You can’t produce high quality content and expect positive results if you don’t do this method. If you need more explanations about content curation, maybe you can contact us now and have an inspiring talk with our team to help you get started with your business.