When it comes to publishing material as part of your content marketing strategy, do you CREATE original material or CURATE by collecting and re-posting the works of others?
I read a lot of material generated by companies and individuals involved in the document business. Most of the newsletters, blogs, and social media posts that I see are of the curation variety. That seems to be the path that most companies are taking these days to fulfill their desire to do content marketing and social networking.
That's fine I suppose, if that is all you can manage. At least it shows your customers and prospects that you are aware of what is going on in the industry. And certainly if your publication is the only one that is compiling information about a particular niche then you are providing a valuable service to your audience. This uniqueness is rare.
With all the communication channels available to us, it is highly unlikely that your publication will be the only place your readers will see these stories. By the time your publication is distributed, some or all of the curated stories may be old news. Unless the recipient of your publication can determine there is something new of value in just a few seconds, they may not read your newsletter or blog at all. And with one-click unsubscribe, they can be off your distribution list in a heartbeat. Then you've lost them forever. Repeating very popular news items can actually set you back.
Content Curation Gone Bad
Here's a recent example. Let's take the September 30th Postal Regulatory Commission's denial of the USPS exigent rate increase request. I'm sure you read about it. That was an important story and all mailers needed to be informed. But how many times did you read about the PRC decision before you just started skipping by articles, emails, or posts on the subject? Of the stories you did read how many of them gave you any new, useful information? How many of them interpreted the facts and related them to your particular area of interest? Sadly, I saw very few articles that did little more than repeat information that was in the original PRC press release.
By the third day after the announcement, I didn't want to hear about it anymore. I wouldn't even click on a link unless the subject line or title indicated a new angle, new information, or an interesting opinion. Just to show you how bad it can be I received an e-newsletter today, four weeks after the PRC announcement, with "PRC denies exigent price increase" as the lead story and the subject line of the email. And this from a major postal hardware/software vendor! Something like that could keep people from even seeing the other great articles in that issue.
Curation Plus!
We advise our PMC Writing Services clients to take it a step further. Curation can be an effective strategy as long as there is some original content that goes with the re-published parts. Tell your audience what the story means to you, or what it could mean to them. Summarize the major points instead of just copying the entire piece. Or tie the news item to your company's products and tell your audience how you will react to the news. Do SOMETHING that helps your audience see you as an expert resource, not just another news feed. We make sure that everything we write for our clients includes this type of perspective, whether it is re-posted content or all original.
Also, fair is fair. If you are going to re-post someone else's content, please give credit to the originator. Cite the original source and provide a link back to the original article. I've published hundreds of articles and I've never had a case where someone re-posted without giving me credit. That's all I ask.
Some other authors allow the redistribution of their material only if it includes a specific attribution/advertising paragraph at the end. If you don't want to include that text then you'll have to write your own original content. Remember that your readers may be subscribed to the same sources as you. They may recognize an unattributed cut-and-paste effort and you'll lose the confidence you've been working so hard to establish.
So curate if you must, but create something that works for you as well!
This article was inspired by a post written by Amanda Maksymiw. Read her original post in the Content Marketing Institute blog HERE.
Sincerely,
