
By Michael Cohn
Content is definitely King! Without top-shelf content, you will not be successful at attracting prospective clients or keeping your existing clients engaged and wanting more and more of what you have to say.
The content options that you can choose
Content that you write yourself
Interestingly, the more great-quality content you share with your online connections, the more content of the same quality your readers will crave. With that said, you shouldn’t think that you must be confined by the types of content that you share with other people.
There is no doubt that people will want to read what you have to say. After all, if they are interested in what you are selling, they are probably also interested in what you are thinking. However, that does not mean that you shouldn’t leverage the wisdom of other people as well.
Curated content
Curated content, which is content that has been written by other people (including influencer’s in your industry and other people with valuable things to share), is also extremely effective and you should seriously consider presenting a mix of your original content and curated content as part of your content offering. If you decide to use some curated content, you will share the other person’s content and you will include your own commentary on that piece of content at the end of the article. Of course, it goes without saying that you must also have an attribution line to ensure that the original author get credit for his or her work. Otherwise, it is called plagiarism.
The concept of curation has been around for a very long time. Museum’s have been doing it for centuries with artwork. If it makes things clearer to you and you are able to wrap your mind around it more easily, think of the content as a work of art.
The benefits of using curated content
There are many advantages to using curated content (some of the time). First of all, it helps your readers out because they may not have the time or knowledge to grasp a particular subject yet they may be interested in learning about it. That is where your services come into play. You can supply your readers with valuable, educational information and that information will expand their knowledge base relatively quickly. Additionally, curated content can make a big difference in the number of people who you can attract online. After all, you should constantly have the goal of increasing your professional reputation and that is a really good way of doing that.
The use of content curation is becoming more and more common with marketers lately. Content curation offers relevant, appropriate, timely content to the readers and there is no doubt that it is a value-added service. It certainly has those advantages over original content, which requires a great deal more effort. When choosing curated content: