To Create or Curate, that is the question!
To Create
If you’re just a virtual flowing tap of great stories, helpful tips and other valuable information for your customers, then you’re awesome and you’ll do well in content marketing.
If you’re like the rest of us, sometimes you just don’t have anything to say, but you still want to generate content in order to keep your hungry readers on the line.
A couple options:
- Make yourself write something, even if it’s not that valuable or interesting to anyone (not a good way to go).
- Repeat a topic you’ve already coverd (this is really not a bad idea, as some ideas are worth repeating. Maybe it didn’t sink in the first time it was read, and very likely they’ll be someone who hadn’t heard that information yet)
- Curate other’s information
To Curate
The web is a never ending resource of valuable and useable information on any topic you through at it. Just because you can’t think of anything to say today, there’s a sure bet that someone else has put out information that would be valuable to your clients.
You can harvest this information to repost on your blog in a few different ways.
- First of all, plagiarism is a no-no. Don’t just cut-and-paste and take credit for it. (booo… hissssss)
- Take in the info that you read from another source and run it through your filter. Rewrite points you like, but in your own voice and maybe in a way you think might be more helpful to your customers and clients.
- Write a blog post discussing what you had read in the other post. Give your thoughts and recommendations. It’s always good form to reference the other article, it’s author and even a link to it. Don’t worry, you won’t lose customers by doing this. If you’re doing things right, you’re customers will trust you and look to you as a resource of information, even it’s by curation.
- Some authors even give permission to use their posts in their entirety. Usually credit and a link back to the article or author is usually required, and just good karma. 🙂
Don’t worry that curating the work of others will send your customers into the arms of another blogger. Think of the major news websites. They don’t create the news, the broadcast it. These sites are major curators, and they’re very successful sites because people know they can count on them as a good resource of information.
If you do lose customers to other bloggers, it’s probably an indication that you might be doing something else wrong and you might want to take a look at why your customers would be leaving. Curation is a way to bring customers back again and again, and it helps to establish trust. If you’re curating valuable information they know you care enough to share.
