Social Media
If you’re struggling with producing enough content, as well as knowing what kinds of content your audience is most interested in, content curation can be a powerful addition to your strategy. It allows you to fill your content calendar and learn what your audience responds to best while remaining time and resource-efficient.
In this blog, we will be discussing everything you need to know about how to successfully integrate content curation into your marketing strategy, including best practices, what kinds of content to share, and where to source your content.
Content curation is the process of sourcing material that is relevant to your audience and sharing it through your various communication channels.
Not to be confused with content creation, curation does not involve generating original content. Instead, content curation can be as simple as sourcing insightful blog posts, clever tweets, or engaging video content and sharing it with your audience.
A recent survey of over 500 content marketing managers found that 64% of respondents have insufficient time or resources to effectively execute their content strategy. As well as this, 70% are unable to measure what is or is not effective content. It’s unsurprising that these issues were reported with similar frequency, as it's easy to see how these two problems can feed off each other.
Consistently producing content at a high output allows you to measure what is working, and what isn’t. If your team is struggling to produce enough content, being able to measure the efficacy of what content you are able to produce becomes increasingly difficult, which, in turn, makes it difficult to know how best to use your time and resources.
If you are one of the 64-70% of content marketers in this position, content curation, done correctly, can be an excellent way to solve both issues by allowing you to post content more often. With a higher content output, you can collect more data on what your audience engages with, which can be used to create more effective original content.
Of course, content curation is not a replacement for creating original content, though incorporating content curation into your existing strategy is a great way to increase your output and use the feedback as a guide for your original content. It’s important to curate content thoughtfully to ensure that the strategy works best for you. With this in mind, we have compiled the following guide to help you get started.
While content curation can be an effective addition to your content marketing strategy, it’s important to note the following.
Sharing content from a third party implies that you align yourself with that third party in terms of your values, mission or ethical standards. For this reason, it pays to do your due diligence on the business , teacher, board or thought leader whose content you’re sharing. Sharing content that appears relevant, but is, in fact, from a disreputable source has the potential to do damage to your brand. On the other hand, curating content created by a reputable, ethically responsible, and authoritative source reflects these qualities onto you, and readers will begin to associate these qualities with your brand.
Simply re-sharing without building upon, or adding your voice may get some engagement, but mostly your audience will be engaging with the author of the content, and not you. Weighing in with your expertise or your take on the article encourages engagement with your brand and what you have added to the content, rather than the content itself.
Not everything you share needs to be directly relevant to your audience. If you can take the key points from an article from a different industry, or content that is aimed broadly and re-purposing it to make it relevant to your audience, you are in a unique position to create value for your audience by exposing them to a broader range of content.
For example, if you’re wanting to share a blog from another school on managing online homework, you might want to use the content as a starting point and tailor it to the needs of your audience, explaining how to use your board's specific tools to accomplish the same goals.
Or, if you’re feeling more creative, you can take content from an entirely different industry, break down its key points and demonstrate how the ideas also apply to your own.
Your audience is coming to you to better understand their school, their children's education and how to better support their learning. Find new ways of thinking about their needs, and being able to cross-pollinate ideas from separate disciplines, or make connections your audience hadn’t seen before makes for captivating content, and positions you as an innovative thought leader.
Scheduling and planning your content is essential to an effective marketing strategy. Using integrated dashboards like SchoolBundle, or Hootsuite can streamline your content strategy by allowing you to plan, schedule and post content across all of your communications channels, simultaneously.
As we mentioned, finding and sharing content from reputable sources is key. Here are some of our picks for the best places to find content:
Edutopia provides video and written content geared toward improving learning in K-12 education. Founded by George Lucas (of Star Wars fame), Edutopia’s mission is to not only improve outcomes in formal education but to build the skills necessary for life-long learning. Edutopia creates content about social/cognitive development and how it affects learning, integrating technology into the classroom, and blended learning.
Examples:
LinkedIn is the go-to platform for sharing business news, trends and thought leadership content. By following leaders of organizations and subscribing to industry newsletters you will find no shortage of insightful and engaging content of all kinds that may be shared with your audience.
Examples:
SchoolBundle is committed to providing a scalable communication solution intended to meet the needs of staff, students, parents and guardians based on three core values: innovation, listening and powerful simplicity. To build and design better solutions, their approach is focusing on their users and the needs of the education industry. SchoolBundle’s blog is dedicated to sharing the latest insights, and strategies for marketers in education.
Examples:
CACE-ACACE is an association of professionals committed to encouraging excellence in education communication. They offer webinars, virtual training and networking opportunities for their members across Canada. CACE shares news about upcoming events and training webinars about improving communications in the field of education.
Examples:
NSPRA works with education professionals to develop skills in strategic communication to help build trust and form positive relationships with their school communities. They offer a range of professional development services to assist their members in improving their communication efforts. They post content relating to public relations for schools and how to communicate effectively as an educator.
Examples:
Edsurge is a media outlet dedicated to covering the ideas and tools shaping the future of education from K-12 and above. From their news website to their weekly podcast Edsurge cover a range of topics that parents and teachers need to know to stay informed. These range from personalized learning to digital learning in higher ed.
Examples:
Edtech: Focus on K-12 is an online publication that explores the tech-related issues that IT professionals and educators face in the field today. With content for school districts members and teachers alike, Edtech is a go-to source for all things educational technology. Topics range from educational software to how to use social networks effectively.
Examples:
K-12 Dive provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping K-12 education. Covering topics ranging from leadership to professional development K-12 dive is a leading publication in the K-12 education space.
Examples:
If you are sharing highly relevant content from reputable sources, building on the content with your own subject matter expertise and using the right scheduling and planning tools, then you are in an excellent position to create value while using minimal time and resources. With a higher output of content, you are also able to gain a better understanding of what your audience is looking for so that you are more able to tailor original content to their needs.
Join our List
Sign-up for our email list to get exclusive access to content, sneak previews, updates and more!
Zero spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
