Are You Sharing Other People’s Content? Here’s How to Do it Right

Let’s face it — continuously coming up with new and fresh content to keep your email readers, followers, and fans engaged isn’t easy.

It may be part of the reason why you skipped sending your latest newsletter, or why you haven’t made the type of commitment to a site like Facebook or Twitter that you’d had hoped to.

But what if there was a way to ease some of your content burden, and still get awesome results?

This is where content curation comes in.

What is content curation?

To put it simply, content curation is the process of finding existing, relevant content and sharing it with your online audience.

This means that rather than creating every new newsletter article, blog post, or social media post yourself, you can add other people’s content into the mix.

You’ll save time and also experience added benefits by:

• Demonstrating your expertise


• Offering your readers something valuable


• Building relationships with others in your industry


• Supporting your brand and getting your business in front of more people

Not too shabby, right? If you’re ready to give content curation a try, here are four things to keep in mind:

1. Make it easy to find the right content

With the abundance of articles published every day, you might feel like sorting through and finding the right thing to share is the hardest part.

Make things easier for yourself by using a tool like Feedly. Feedly is an easy-to-use content curation tool that sorts through content for you.

Which means that rather than visiting sites individually, Feedly displays all content in a layout similar to your Facebook newsfeed. You can categorize the content easily and even download the app version to sort through articles from your mobile device.

Here’s an example of what my “Marketing” feed looks like:

2. Offer your perspective

Even when you’re sharing someone else’s content, you can still make it personal by offering your own perspective.

There are a few different ways that you can do it:

Ask a question: Instead of just sharing a link to an article or blog post, add a question to help engage potential readers.

Here is an example from Constant Contact Solution Provider, Dudley & Nunez Communications:

Highlight a quote: Pick a quote from the content you want to share and use it to highlight why you think it’s a good read.

Here’s how we did it on the Constant Contact Facebook Page:

Summarize: Don’t just hit share and hope people will want to read it. Add a few lines explaining the main idea or pointing to a key takeaway.

Here is a great example from Ladimax Sports and Fitness:

3. Give credit where credit’s due

Sharing someone else’s content can be a great way to start a relationship. Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Make sure you’re giving the original author or source credit by mentioning them whenever and wherever you’re using their content.

Be sure to include the Twitter handle of the site and/or author that originally published the post. You can do the same on sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, just by adding the ‘@’ symbol before the source’s name.

No matter what social media network you’re sharing from, mentioning the source means they’ll get a notification. When people see you’re using their content, there’s a much better chance they’ll interact with you!

Here’s how The Bridge Cape Ann did it on Twitter:

4. Encourage others to share

The great thing about sharing is that it’s contagious. Your readers will appreciate you’re sharing more than your own content – and they’ll perceive your business or organization as more trustworthy because you’re focusing on more than just self-promotion.

Be sure to ask others to share your curated content. That way you’ll get in front of an even larger audience and you’ll generate more views for the original source.

A simple call to action can make all the difference. In the example below, letyano encourages their followers to retweet a curated article on small business marketing.

Hopefully these four ideas will come in handy as you begin to curate more content.

Keep at it; set a goal for yourself, even if it’s just sharing 3 posts a week. Striking the right balance between original and existing content will strengthen your online presence and help you build long lasting, loyal relationships.

Soon when people are on the lookout for existing content to share, they’ll be visiting your page for ideas.

Share something with us! Have you used content curation before? Tell us in the comments below what types of benefits or challenges you’ve experienced.

Are You Sharing Other People’s Content? Here’s How to Do it Right