When Curating Content, Don’t Pull A Melania Trump

Published: July 26, 2016

1Melania

This is Melania Trump.

Melania was recently accused of taking excerpts from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech from the Democratic National Convention and using them in her own speech at this year’s Republican National Convention.

If you’re a marketer, think of Melania’s speech as a piece of poorly curated content that wasn’t cited properly.

Get the latest B2B Marketing News & Trends delivered directly to your inbox!

Don’t be Melania.

While plagiarism is frowned upon, properly executed content curation is not. In fact, according to Curata, a content curation and marketing platform, 65% of content should be created internally, 25% should be curated and 10% should be syndicated. Here are some more stats on content curation to get you up to speed:

  • 82% of marketers curate content. (IMN Inc.)
  • More than 50% of marketers that curate content said it has increased their brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic and buyer engagement. (Curata)
  • 41% of marketers that curate content indicated it has increased the number and/or quality of their sales-ready leads. (Curata)

To show you how to correctly curate content, I did some curation of my own. Here, I highlight some key takeaways from a variety of sources covering content curation.

The Basics

This infographic by Curata highlights the five key elements of a carefully curated and properly cited article. While you’ll be including information that was taken from the original asset, you must also include your own spin on the content. It’s easy to pull a Melania and simply “copy and paste” information from the source, but if you’re not adding your own point of view to the piece, your reader won’t deem your story important.

Form A Complete Strategy

While it may seem easy to collect a variety of content from the web, it does require some effort. This Slideshare posted by Marketing Hacks goes beyond the basics, highlighting the importance of planning, scheduling and citing your curated content.  

The Why, Where, How And How Often

Taking a “spray and pray” approach is not the answer. You can’t just throw out as much content as you can find and expect people to soak it all in. This article by Jay Palter provides answers to the why, what, where and how, including where to find content to share, how often you should be sharing it and even how to measure the results.

Get Inspired

There are many B2B companies who are getting content curation right. So if you’re still uneasy about how to go about it, get inspired by your peers. This article from B2B News Network spotlights companies, including Adobe and IBM, that are successful in content curation. 


Image: lev radin / Shutterstock.com 

 

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
B2B Marketing Exchange
B2B Marketing Exchange East
Campaign Optimization Series
Buyer Insights & Intelligence Series
Strategy & Planning Series