Content Curation Software

Content curation is now fast catching on as a method for creating authoritative and useful content. Creating quality curated content is an art and with any such activity there are things that you should and should not do. Here are nine content curation best practices that you should try to follow so that the content you create is nice to read, useful to readers and fair to the creators of original content.

1. Make use of your creative abilities

Many people think that a content curator is just a person who finds and arranges other people’s work in an interesting and useful way. While that is essential, significant value addition is important in terms of opinions, recommendations and commentary. Curated content is actually an interesting and useful blend of collected content, original opinions and contributions from others.

2. Identify content that is related to your website, but interesting to the readers

Always keep the interest of your readers in mind. They are looking for something that is useful to them. Try to find content that will be very interesting to your readers, but is related to your website in some way. For example, if your website is promoting baby strollers, look for articles that the owners of baby strollers will find interesting. For example, tips on using baby strollers, reviews of popular baby strollers, feedback left by buyers of specific strollers, advantages and disadvantages of stroller features, statistics reflecting the popularity of different type of strollers, etc.

Try to develop a collection of sites which regularly publish such material and bookmark them so that you can periodically check them for new content. You can also subscribe to their RSS feeds or follow them on social media so that you are alerted when useful content becomes available. Content curation tools such as Curationsoft are excellent for finding related content.

3. Regularly publish new articles or posts

Your readers will find your website or blog useful only when there is regular useful content coming in. While even one article a week is good enough, try to publish it on a particular day of the week so that your audience will know when to expect new content from you. A great article is nice to attract attention of new readers, but regular content is what will make them regular visitors to your site and encourage them to bookmark it or share it with others.

4. Go where your audience is

Gone are the days when readers bookmark and visit sites. There is an information overload and scarcity of time. Most people have a few sites that they visit regularly including social media sites or YouTube. Find out where your audience is coming from and places that they visit regularly. Try to create content there and then gently bring the visitors to your site. You could do this by interacting or writing guest articles on popular blogs or social media websites.

5. Use platforms judiciously

When using multiple platforms, it is important to understand that a major part of your audience could be using more than one of those platforms. So if you are using multiple platforms to inform your readers about some interesting piece of information try to space it out. Sending it out together could hit the same users multiple times at the same time, which is a bit of a nuisance. Spacing out your tweets or comments will also serve as a reminder even if the same reader gets it again.

6. Always give credit to the original content creator

Irrespective of the platform and irrespective of how little of the information you quote, always give credit to the original author. This is an essential courtesy and the author will appreciate the gesture. You are also making your article, post or comment more useful because readers will be able to click the link to get more information. When we say original author, it is the first person who put that content in the public domain. So if your source is itself quoting someone else, you should find the original source and give credit to them.

7. Don’t create duplicate content

When you quote someone else, quote only the part of the article that is relevant to your discussion. Copying an entire article will most likely get you penalized by the search engines for creating duplicate content. Try not to quote more than 15 percent of the original article. Quoting an entire article could also be seen as copyright infringement unless you have the permission of the original source.

8. Be careful with graphics and videos

Many content creators who put up graphics on sites such as Pinterest appreciate your quoting them. However, creating graphics and videos involves a lot of work and not everyone will like you to copy their work to your site. Check the copyright notices carefully and when in doubt get the permission of the creator of the content.

9. Encourage discussions

Interactivity is a great advantage of the web and you must encourage reader interaction by allowing comments and responding to them. You should also interact and comment on the website or blog of the original author. This can also be done on social media such as Twitter, but be careful to read the linked content before you decide to re-tweet it.

Content curation is a nice strategy for content marketing and creating nice curated content is an art. Try to follow the nine content curation best practices discussed above and you will soon be creating valuable content which your readers will appreciate.

The truth is, writing is not for everybody. There could be a lot of reasons why one would despise writing.

Whether it be too time consuming, too much work, a writer’s block or any reasons at all, the fact still remains the same, a good website needs quality contents. Therefore, as an internet marketer, you need to get contents for your blog or webpage like it or not.

The thing about writing is that even if you are good at writing your own contents, you might get bored with it easily if you have to consistently and churn out content after content every single day.

And if by any chance you do not get bored with all the writing, you might still get very tired from all the writing. Plus if you are not one of those rare people who can write a lot of content fast as if the idea is just flowing out of you at a constant rate, it will take you a lot of time just to write a small part of your content.

The thing is, writing your own content is not easy and quite frankly, not everyone can do it. If you’ve ever considered outsourcing your contents to someone else you might find yourself switching between content writers every now and then due to quality drops or inconsistently in their writings. Or even worse sometimes they take your hard-earned money but never gotten to get your work done.

Some people need to be inspired to write and when they are out of their creative juice, they won’t be able to churn out any content at all. Therefore, here are some ways to help those who are frustrated with all the work involved in providing adequate amount of content for their site or for those who do not like to write at all.

Outsource (Forums, Freelance Sites, Fiverr)

The first and most immediate way to get content for your site or blog is to outsource this tedious work to those who has more time and talent than you do. As I mentioned before, not everyone can write and you might even find it hard to find someone that can provide what you want and provide you with all the quality work consistently.

Meanwhile, I mentioned quality above and this is a key to your businesses’ growth. You cannot simply expect to use useless junk articles and put it up and think that it should work just fine. The thing about content in 2012 and many years to come is that junk content does not work anymore.

Google now hates junk content, and the worst of it all is that if your content has little to no value or that if it does not make sense to the human eyes, you get penalize and mind you…

Google has never been ‘nice’ to those who do not play by their rules.

The good thing is that there is no shortage of freelancers on freelance sites or site like Fiverr or on the forums. There are people out there who could provide you with the quality that you are looking for and there will always be people who will be able to satisfy your need for content.

The key here then lies in your willingness to go out and seek for these qualified people.

Always remember to check their portfolio and track record. The only problem is that most people with the better track record will charge higher than the rest. This means you will need to find those that have some record already but not as expensive yet. Keep a special lookout and see if they are writers from an English-speaking country so that you can be sure that their work has minimized mistakes and errors.

And then ask them if they include proofreading in their work or not. Be extra careful not to buy into those super cheap offers that have writers who are not competent. If in doubt always buy an article from them first with limited characters or ask for their work sample which they have done before.

Guest Writers.

If you are tired of writing for your own content, you can always get other people to write contents for you. You can do this by inviting guest writers or guest posting on your blogs. This method is gaining popularity these days because other writers can get a link back from your site, which means traffic and good backlinks from you and you don’t have to do all the tedious work.

Just be careful with whom you ask to write and make sure that they are ‘legitimate’.

Read through their articles first and make sure the articles are unique (not a duplicate content) and well written before you publish them on your website. Be sure that their link is working and points to a relevant site as well for best results.

PLR Content.

Another great way to get content for your site is to use PLR content. PLR stands for Private label rights which means you are allowed to use the content as your own. Plus you are allowed to claim as the owner of the content as well. This way, you will not have to use Articles that other people write that has a link that links back to their websites.
Plus, most importantly, Private label Rights contents allow you to edit the content to anyway you like to. This means that you could take a private label rights content and edit it to be unique.

This way, you save all the time required to research into the topic and the time to write it. All you have to do is to tweak the articles and make it look unique. Therefore, your article will not be deemed as a duplicate content by the search engines. Some PLR uses will even use ‘Spinners’ to quickly make their PLR Articles unique. PLR articles are a true time saver indeed.

With all the wonders and benefits that PLR contents provide, it’s no wonder why so many people are looking to use PLR contents for their sites.

Image via Wikipedia

Everyone knows about guest posting.  The ability to generate targeted direct traffic and valuable links through guest posting is well covered by many pro bloggers.

Still, very, very few people who need attention use guest posting as a method for zooming up in search rankings, credibility, and coming out in front of a large swath of their target market.

Funny, because guesting is the only way to accomplish meteoric growth and mass attention on the web without spending massive amounts on paid advertising.  People must think it’s just too hard to land a guest gig or too hard to write a great guest post.

Well, for those of you who know you need to guest post but fear the above, here’s a tip:

Guest curate instead!

Bloggers don’t care much about the format or contents of a guest post beyond the requirement that it be awesome.  And there’s more than one way to be awesome with guest blogging.

Just like you would for your own site, you can curate an excellent, professional, informative or entertaining post as a guest post.

Think:

• A top 10 list
• 5 photos from Flickr that make you go Hmmm
• The best YouTube videos on “x” topic
• The 20 best Tweets on “x” in the last 20 hours
• Top news on “x” from Google News

Image by Sean MacEntee via Flickr

Why do we hate our inboxes so much?  Could part of it be that we have subscribed to lists that were big on promises of useful content only to be hit with marketing messages?

It’s not entirely a problem of “evil” marketers.  While many content publishers do a great job producing content for their sites and social networks, we all seem to leave our subscribers in the lurch at times.  This is because, when it comes to sitting down and putting yet another piece of great content together, we often just don’t have the energy.

Curation to the rescue – again!

This tip was provided by James Pruitt.  Follow him on G+!

James answered today’s question I posted on G+:

 ”What are you going to do to save time this week?”

His answer:  ”curate your newsletter instead of writing one”

He then went on to talk about a test he did with CurationSoft and Aweber.  Turns out, you can curate a killer newsletter with the HTML editor and CurationSoft with drag-and-drop ease.  Or any newsletter/mailing list management tool that allows for html emails.

So think about it:  You are likely in the same boat all of us are with your email newsletter.  We promised to bring the goods and be useful to our subscribers, but it is hard to save time and energy for this purpose.  But if you have a simple, fast way to put together some very interesting stuff with CurationSoft (mixed with updates from your own site, of course) you can bring that promised value to your readers.  And keep them on your list.

The best benefit of all?  Subscribers become trained to open your emails much more often.  They love your content.  So the next time you send an email on a product update or an affiliate offer, your open rate will be high, as well as your trust factor, and you will make more sales and get more clicks as a result.

Try curating a killer newsletter together for your list this week and see what the reaction is!

Related articles

• Email Marketing Case Study: How I Generated $40,000 In Sales Without Annoying My Subscribers (entrepreneurs-journey.com)
• What Are You Putting Off Doing Today that Could Significantly Improve Your Blog Tomorrow (And Beyond)? (problogger.net)

Image by ToniVC via Flickr

They say misery loves company.  And there’s never a shortage of fellow time-strapped content marketers who are willing to commiserate with you about how little time they have to get everything done each day.

It’s one of the easiest conversations to strike up on social sites, Skype, or at meetups.  And when we find a fellow content publisher we glom onto each other like long lost friends for the opportunity to talk to someone who understands what we go through to practice our craft.

Check the list below and see if it seems familiar to you.

A day in the life of a content publisher:

1. Wake up thinking about how to engage, entertain, or inform your market today.
2. Sit down to check email, or feeds, or whatever tools you’ve pieced together to deliver you the latest news in your market.
3. Search for a trend, a theme for the day, something interesting to publish that will be news to your readers.
4. Gather your thoughts, come up with a post idea, and get to work.
5. Publish, then get to work on syndication.
6. Update your social networks.
7. Reply to comments on-site and around your networks.
8. Start thinking about the next post.
9. Answer emails.
10. Schedule interviews.
11. Network and maybe get a guest post nailed down for this week.

There are countless little things that go with each of the above tasks.  And there are many more specific tasks individual content publishers undertake in a day.

So, if we find anything at all that has an inkling of a chance to save us time, we get pretty excited about it.  We content marketers also typically belong to scores of sites which promise to help us be more effective and efficient with our time.  The biggest promise of software is time savings.  The most popular software on the planet is always something that saves us time.

How to be a Time Bandit

Curation is a tool used mainly to 1)  save time, and 2) create even better, more engaging content for your readers at the same time.  Think about how you can curate to save your most precious commodity while giving your readers more of what they want.  It may seem like saving time and creating better, more engaging content would be at odds with each other.  Yet both outcomes are possible.

It’s time well spent to periodically reflect on the processes you use to do your job.  Often the biggest productivity gains are found by tweaking your process and keeping up on new tools to help you automate.

Related articles

• What’s the thing you dislike the most about content marketing? (curationsoft.com)
• 6 tips on making content marketing fun! (curationsoft.com)

Image via Wikipedia

When was the last time you can remember blogging or writing an article being fun?  It’s almost a silly question.  But personal satisfaction plays a huge part the success or failure of the content marketer.  In the blogging world we talk all about geeky, mundane tactics for more traffic, how to make more money from blogging, how to rank in the engines, how to write great content.

But when was the last time, if ever, that you expected content marketing (blogging) to be fun?  To be fulfilling and satisfying?

Most people have a short shelf-life doing something that feels too much like a job.  We’re on the web because we’re different from people who don’t seem to mind going to work for others every day.  Living by other peoples’ rules.

But it is all too easy to slip into “job mode” with our content production.  As if, after awhile, it isn’t as thrilling to have a reader to comment on how helpful or interesting your last post was.  That thrill should never go away, no matter how common it becomes to get multiple comments on your posts.  A comment is a vote for you to continue living the internet lifestyle.  It means you’re doing something right and won’t be going back to the factory any time soon.

But with all the technical junk we fill our minds with (SEO, keyword density, link building, social marketing tactics, etc.) just to keep our content publishing businesses thriving and growing, it is no surprise when we feel less-than-thrilled with the job of content marketing.

Blogging, reporting, and curating should be fun!  You’re allowed to have fun in this business even if it seems like you’re getting away with murder for enjoying the freedom of working online.  Don’t feel guilty about that and start looking at it as the same thing as your old job.  It’s not.  One day back in the “real” world will teach you that lesson.  But don’t forget that you should always be looking for new ways to create and publish valuable content that get the job done while also making your job easier and more enjoyable.

If you’re not looking back through your latest post just before you publish it and feeling 100% satisfied with what you’ve created and what you’re about to deliver to your readers most of the time, then there’s something wrong and you need to fix it.  Because if you don’t, you’re headed to burnout-ville and your life depends on you being happy with what you’re doing.

How to keep content marketing fun and gratifying:

• Try new tools for curation (hint hint)
• Check out new ways to stay caught up on the news and things you like to track which make their way into your upcoming posts.
• Try out new services that pop up which promise to keep you informed and make research more entertaining for you.
• Start a group on Facebook or a hangout in Google+ to connect and network with fellow publishers to bring a sense of reality to your virtual life.
• Have people to talk to who understand your online work; the good and bad things about content publishing, so you don’t feel like the lone wolf no one around you understands.
• Be on the lookout for new plugins and apps that can help you with things that get boring and repetitive.

Related stuff…

• The 5 Must-read Books for Bloggers in 2011 (problogger.net)
• 4 Biggest Blogging Myths That Lead to Bloggers Giving Up (tjantunen.com)
• Art of the Blog (twoshipspassing.wordpress.com)