When it comes to your content marketing strategy, think of it like a rock star, argued Curata Inc. CEO and Co-Founder Pawan Deshpande during his lunch and learn session at Content Marketing World yesterday. It shouldn’t be high reach, low quality for example; just think of the recent Miley Cyrus debacle at the VMAs he explained, eliciting laughter. Nor should it be low reach and high quality, like singer Susan Boyle was pre-American Idol.
Conversely, it needs to strike a balance of being both high quality and high reach. “We know content marketing works,” Deshpande explained, “but only if it it’s done right.”
So what’s one of the most common mistakes that marketers make? Being too ego-centric or, in other words, tailoring all their copy and content to be self-promoting, self-indulging and company-specific. Having content “all about you,” though, precludes you from establishing your thought leadership and emerging as a trusted expert in the space.
To avoid being eco-centric then, Deshpande argues, striking a balance between created content, or content that your own company organically produces, and curated content, or third-party content that your business aggregates from across the feeds and shares with your audience.
There are five steps when it comes to bringing your content curation strategy to life: identify, find, curate, share and analyze. And, when it comes to sharing content from other experts and industry analysts, always remember to find the most relevant, highest quality content on a topic that pertains to your audience. Here’s a more in-depth look at each step:
1. Identify: Before you can even begin embracing a content curation strategy, you must first identify a topic on which to curate content. “Find topics your audience, not your brand, cares about,” Deshpande advised. “Hopefully, you can find one that appeals to both groups.” Then, take a look at the competitor landscape and those covering the same topic as you and figure out a way to bring everything together in a way that hasn’t been done before.
2. Find: After you identify a topic to curate on, it is time to figure out from where to source content. Browse newsfeeds, industry analysts, trade publications, RSS feeds, Google alerts and news sites, among others. And don’t forget, Deshpande reminds, social media is paramount in terms of content curation.
3. Curate: When it comes to curation, “wear your librarian hat,” Deshpande suggests. In other words, categorize, index, and archive your content once you have it up. Make it findable for your readers. Be advisors for them, recommending the next “book” for them to read. Then, take the critical time to add value to the content. Abstract it, re-title it, quote from it or paraphrase from it, Deshpande suggest.
4. Share: Make sure to get your curated content out there. Leverage your social media platforms, blog, mobile platform and eNewsletters to get the news out there.
5. Analyze: When it comes to evaluating the success of your content curation strategy, consider the following metrics: sales, leads, shares, and consumption. You will want to keep tabs on everything from the deals you close to the leads you generate to the retweets you receive to the Google search ranking you achieve.
At the end of the day, Deshpande summed up, it is imperative to “think beyond your own brand.” Become a respected thought leader and subject matter expertise, aggregating the most important articles from all across the feeds and adding your original commentary to each curated piece.
In closing, Deshpande reminded, “Create and curate, but never pirate content.”
Edited by
Brooke Neuman
