Curated Content

0366-GFS-3/22/2012

Providing Value with

Curated Content The goal of your social media strategy should be to create connections to spur conversation. For financial industry professionals, social media presents an opportunity for clients, potential clients and critical contacts to familiarize themselves with you and your business. Creating new content is the easiest way to differentiate your social media conversations from other conversations, but creating new content is also the most time consuming method of starting a discussion. To cut down on the time you spend with social media while maintaining your goal frequency, you can adopt a content-curating strategy. Below we will discuss how to curate content as well as how to make your content stand out. What Makes Up Curated Content Content – The first item you need is the original content. This could be a new article, press release, infographic, quote or anything else you come across that you can comment on and is relevant to your target audience. Your Point of View – Next, develop your point of view regarding the content. Do you agree? Disagree? Think it’s too soon to decide? Then support it with some analysis of the current situation or discussion of historically similar situations. You could also offer your thoughts and predictions for what the near future holds for your chosen topic of discussion. Introduction – Now you need to bridge your point of view to your original content through an introduction. A valuable introduction will allow the reader to quickly see what it is you are talking about. You can provide some context and a brief summary of the article or highlight the main point. You might also consider asking a key question. In a blog post, this can be done in the title of the post. In sharing an article on LinkedIn or Twitter, your introduction will be the status update preceding the link. Tips to Make your Curated Content Stand Out Content Variety – To encourage your readers to continue reading, include a variety of content sources and types. If your reader wanted to read all Wall Street Journal articles, he would simply go to the Wall Street Journal web page or social media pages. Other items you can discuss and share are case studies, presentations, webinars, industry blogs, or white papers. Follow various outlets that provide these items so you are aware when new items are published. Quality – Quality breeds quantity of readers and returning readers. Ensure your content sources are of the highest quality so you are providing the best information. Doing a little bit of due diligence on the pieces you are discussing and sharing will bring your readers because they know you provide only the best pieces on a given topic. Add Value – Add value for your reader through your analysis. Don’t simply aggregate a list of case studies on a specific topic; your reader can find that on Google. Remember your goal is to encourage conversation, and a simple “I don’t think so” or “This is awesome!” will not encourage your readers to add their opinion. Attribute – Be sure to attribute credit to the authors and creators of the original content you are discussing. You can easily do this by providing a hyperlink to the original content. Your attribution adds value by giving the reader complete context of the item and easy access to the original.

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