Creating great content consistently is no small task.
While original ideas are essential, they’re not the only way to deliver value to your audience. Content curation—the art of sharing insightful, relevant pieces from others—can keep your customers engaged without requiring you to start from scratch every time.
Think of content curation as being the editor of a magazine: you carefully select what your readers will find interesting, useful, and worth their time. By blending curated content with your original work, you can offer a well-rounded content marketing experience.
In this guide, we’ll explain what content curation is, why it matters, and how it can help you share quality insights while positioning your brand as a trusted resource.
Let’s see how curated content can save time, boost your strategy, and keep your audience coming back for more!
What is curated content?
Curated content is a collection of the best content gathered from trusted sources. The content curating process consists of searching, organizing, and sharing valuable content with your audience.
Rather than producing all your content from scratch, you leverage other resources—such as articles, videos, podcasts, or industry news—that align with your users’s interests and your brand’s voice.
Curated content focuses on providing your audience with valuable information on a particular topic by sourcing and delivering the most insightful pieces across the web. You act as a guide, handpicking content from trusted sources and presenting it through social channels, newsletters, or blog posts.
For example, if your audience follows social media trends in sustainable fashion, curating the top articles or research on eco-friendly fabrics positions you as a go-to resource.
This approach has become increasingly important for businesses looking to maintain a strong content mix. By integrating curated pieces alongside original content, you can offer consistent value while showcasing your knowledge of relevant trends. Sharing the best content gathered from across your field can help you establish yourself as a reliable source for useful, current insights.
Curated content can include:
- Industry news updates
- Insightful blog posts and articles
- Informative videos and podcasts
- Social media highlights
- Case studies and reports
The benefits of curated content
Content curation offers several significant benefits for businesses and content marketers:
1. Saving time and money
Creating original content takes significant resources.
Content curation allows you to deliver value by sharing high-quality content already created by others, saving effort while maintaining consistent output.
While we’re on time-saving tips, learn how to write blog posts faster and optimize your entire content strategy.
2. Providing a fresh perspective
Sharing others’ content offers new ideas and perspectives and keeps your users interested and engaged. It diversifies your message and positions your brand as thoughtful and well-rounded.
3. Building relationships and lifting others up
Content curation is a way of collaborating with other businesses and organizations in your network. When you share and highlight someone else’s content, you’re building connections and showcasing their work.
You can even agree on collaboration terms and share each others’ pieces!
This helps foster goodwill, nurture professional relationships, and add value to your audience by pointing them toward trusted, insightful resources such as yourself.
4. Enhancing your brand’s credibility and thought leadership
You can demonstrate your awareness of industry trends and your ability to spot valuable information by consistently curating high-quality content from trusted sources.
Over time, this establishes you as a thought leader and helps you build credibility and trust with your audience.
5. Showcasing your expertise
While you may not create every piece of content yourself, curating the best content relevant to your industry highlights your expertise and reinforces your ability to guide readers toward meaningful, insightful resources.
Content curation vs. content creation
While both content curation and content creation are crucial for providing value to your audience, they serve different purposes:
- Content curation is the act of finding, organizing, and sharing existing quality content from other reliable sources. You’re not producing the content yourself, but curating the best content available from blogs, news outlets, and other media. The focus is on adding value by guiding readers to trusted sources and helping them stay informed.
- Content creation involves producing new original content tailored to your audience’s needs. When you write web content you can create blog posts, infographics, case studies, or produce videos and podcasts that showcase your unique voice, expertise, and brand story.
Why do both content curation and creation matter?
A strong content marketing strategy includes a balance of curated and created content:
- Created content demonstrates your originality, expertise, and brand voice with your own content.
- Curated content helps you provide consistent value, saves time, and engages target audience.
This content mix allows you to maximize resources, maintain a steady flow of content, and achieve your social channels’ goals without burnout.
A well-planned balance ensures your users always finds something valuable and worth engaging with.
See our article on how to write content for a website!
Best practices for curating quality content
Below, we have a couple of tips that will help you expertly curate content as a part of your broader content strategy.
1. Use content curation tools to streamline the process
Content curation is only efficient with the right tools.
These platforms help you discover, organize, and share high-quality content quickly:
- StriveCalendar.com: This powerful tool for WordPress is excellent for planning and organizing curated blog content alongside your own in a content calendar. It helps you maintain consistency and balance between created and curated pieces.
- Hootsuite: A popular platform for scheduling and sharing curated content across your social media channels. Hootsuite also helps you monitor trends and discover quality content from trusted sources.
- Feedly: A content aggregator that collects RSS feeds from different sources and lets you follow blogs, news sites, and industry updates in a single, organized interface.
- BuzzSumo: Identify trending content and top-performing pieces in your industry, ensuring what you share resonates with your audience.
As for your own blogs, see the best content writing tools on the market right now!
2. Know your audience’s interests and needs
Take the time to identify preferences, challenges, and what kind of content resonates most with your audience. Focus on their pain points, goals, and the trends they follow to ensure you’re curating valuable, relevant material.
Your audience’s preferred distribution channels are just as important as the content itself. Some readers may prefer browsing social media channels or curated blog posts on the internet, while others engage more with content delivered through email newsletters. Knowing where your users consume content ensures you reach them on their terms.
Tip: Pay attention to the days your audience is most active. For example, sharing curated content on a certain day—like Mondays for professional audiences or weekends for casual readers—can boost engagement significantly.
Understanding your audience’s interests also means paying attention to the industry leaders they admire. Who are the thought leaders, blogs, and media sources they trust most?
3. Source content from trusted, reputable sources
Quality content curation relies on sharing content from trusted sources that provide accurate, insightful, and up-to-date information.
Sharing low-quality or unverified content can harm your credibility, so it’s essential to verify whether a source is reliable before curating:
- Check the author’s credentials. Look at the author’s background to see if they have expertise in the subject matter. Are they recognized industry leaders or contributors to well-respected platforms? Whoever created the content you’re sharing needs to be into thought leadership, active on social media and be relevant in their world.
- Evaluate the company website or platform. Recognized, established websites or publishers are reputable sources. Look for platforms that are known for producing high-quality, well-researched content. Check for indicators of authority like publication history, reader engagement on social media, and editorial standards for blog articles and other relevant content.
- Look for data and references. Articles that link to research, case studies, or authoritative resources demonstrate thorough research and accuracy.
- Cross-check with other resources. If you find a piece of content that you want to curate, see if the information aligns with what’s published by other reputable sources. If it’s a one-off claim or contradicts widely accepted insights, verify before sharing.
- Pay attention to reader engagement. Reputable sources often have strong reader engagement through comments, shares, and discussions. While this isn’t the only indicator, high engagement (on social media posts, for example) suggests that the content resonates with and is trusted by its audience.
4. Mix different content formats
Content curation isn’t limited to blog posts or articles: share a variety of created content formats that cater to different users.
By diversifying your curated content, you make your content feed more dynamic and appealing; you can include:
- Videos: Short YouTube tutorials, expert interviews, or webinars.
- Infographics: Visuals that break down complex ideas into digestible insights.
- Podcasts: Audio discussions for those who prefer to listen on the go.
- Case studies and reports: Data-driven insights that establish credibility.
- Social media posts and highlights: Share a relevant tweet, LinkedIn article, Instagram reel or other social media post that provides value.
5. Add your unique perspective or commentary
Simply sharing a link without any context makes your curation feel impersonal. To stand out and provide extra value, always include your own insights, commentary, or takeaways.
Adding your voice positions you as an active participant in the conversation rather than just a middleman:
- Summarize the key point or insight and explain why it’s worth reading.
- Highlight a specific section that stood out to you or aligns with your audience’s interests.
- Share your opinion or experience related to the topic.
For example: “This article on content curation strategies offers great tips, especially point #4 on balancing curated and original content. We’ve implemented a similar approach with excellent results, and you might find it helpful too!”
There’s always a content refresh option: update your old content for new times and reshare it!
Conclusion
Curated content is a powerful way to deliver consistent value to your audience while complementing your created content. By sourcing high-quality insights from various sources, you showcase your expertise, save time, and keep your audience engaged. Adding your own voice to curated pieces helps align them with your brand identity, ensuring you remain authentic and trustworthy.
Balancing curated and created content allows you to build credibility, share diverse perspectives, and position your brand as a go-to resource in your industry. Whether shared on social media, your website, or via email, curated content provides undeniable benefits—from growing your audience to strengthening relationships.
If you’re ready to streamline your content strategy, plan curated and created posts, and manage everything seamlessly, check out StriveCalendar.com.
Start organizing your content and stay consistent with ease!