13 Content Curation Marketing Creative Ideas From the Pros

How would you like to be able to build content curation marketing creative ideas so interesting that people can’t help but be drawn into reading your subject?
content curation
Content curation.
It’s every marketer’s dream – to hit on something that’s both entertaining but also refreshingly honest.
Feelings have a critical role in the way customers are influenced. David Freemantle
When content says the thing people want or need to hear, magic happens, doesn’t it?
How about a great example?   In 2013, H&R Block, with their agency Fallon, responded to something they heard while interviewing consumers. What people seemed to care about most was getting taxes done right and getting every dime they are owed back.
The creative bomb that went off birthed the now famous, “Get Your Billions Back America” campaign, which launched at the start of 2014.
It was a message consumers heard, understood and were instantly captured by.   The genius of the campaign lies in what isn’t stated. There’s no reference to Block’s size and the number of locations.
No mention of total refunds they’ve secured for their customers. No detail about their processes, services, prices or the proficiency of their accountants. It was not about selling H&R Block, was it?   No noise, interference or distractions.
Sure, these things matter. But every accounting firm markets around the obvious things that make them great. Block took an alternative route and marketed around what people want – a message that gets them what they deserve.
Although very few of us can claim to fulfill such a tall order on a consistent basis, there are companies out there who have completely revolutionized how people see them – so that they’re no longer just another “me too” player in a crowded sphere. Wouldn’t that be great to join that crowd?
Related: Word of Mouth Marketing Examples … 11 Effective Ones to Study
You already know that content is important. Smart marketers are using quality content to build brand awareness and drive traffic to their sites. Many content creators dream of their content going viral.
Here are 13 content marketing creative ideas to become the best you can be: 

Content curation … customers start here

Before you begin curating, take a moment to identify your target audience. It is difficult to get people to share your content if they don’t care about it, so figure out who your target audience is and cater your content to them.
All you need to do is ask some basic questions. 
   Who: Are you targeting?  
What: What does your target audience need? Create something that will help them.
 When: When is your target audience online? Publish with those times in mind.  
Where: Where do they live, work, and play?  
Why: Why is your audience online?
How: How does your target audience experience the internet?
catch the eye
Can you catch the eye?

Catch the eye

 First impressions are essential. It doesn’t matter how good your content is if no one bothers to read it.
There are many different ways to write an engaging headline, but here are a few tips to get you started.

Include a promise in your title

Numbers let your reader know what to expect

Ask questions to stimulate curiosity

The Ever Popular “How To” article

Content curation examples … creatively different

 The internet is infinite, so the odds are high that someone else out there has already written about the topic you have chosen.
What can you add to the conversation? Maybe you have a distinct voice, a funny perspective, or a unique example—whatever it is, bring something original to the table.

Don’t worry about length

Don’t believe those people who say that younger generations are lazy and have no attention span.
Younger people value their time and won’t stick around if you waste it, but if you are providing high-quality, engaging content, you can make it long and detailed.

Content marketing creative ideas … aim for emotions

Are you inspiring a deeply emotional reaction? It is the key to evoking emotions with your website blog. When people respond to something emotionally, they are often compelled to share it. Jonah Berger and Katie Milkman co-authored a paper called “What Makes Online Content Go Viral?”
They shared a lot of interesting insights, but the biggest takeaway for me was that content that evokes “high-arousal emotions” is more likely to go viral. The study specifically cited emotions like awe, anger, and anxiety.

Practice storytelling

Put your ideas and messages into a story and use the story to produce the stickiness. When things are on the complex side, stories have a way of helping people understand and remember.
When talking about the story, it acts as a trigger.
social currency
Focused on social currency?

Social currency

The key to social currency? Peer popularity of your thoughts and ideas. People love to talk about the things that make them look good. Give your audience a way to feel special.
When done well, they will spread the word about you along the way. Special care is the heart and soul of word of mouth marketing, the most valuable type of marketing.  

Watch trends

Use current trends and recent news events as inspiration when you are creating content.
This makes it easier to think of new ideas, and using trending topics and current events mean that you have a built-in audience who is already interested in your content.

Triggers

Triggers are the daily reminders of ideas and thoughts that shape:
  • Choices consumers make
  • Things that people talk about
  • Products or services customers choose
  Want your initiatives to be more successful? It can be as simple as linking your ideas and messages to relevant triggers.

Be visual

People process visual content faster than text. Visual content is also more engaging and more memorable. Smart businesses are incorporating more visual content into their work.   Gifs and infographics are increasingly popular.
Twitter added Vine for looping videos. Facebook recently made images bigger.

Provide something useful … what people want

Content that recognizes and solves problems is also more likely to be shared. Although an article about fixing your bathroom sink may not seem very interesting, it is a common problem many people have to deal with.
If someone finds your content helpful, they will share it with others who face the same problem.   If you run a business that sells clothes, write a blog post with ideas about how to accessorize an outfit.

Make information easy to scan

There is a LOT of information online. When people are reading online, they skim the page to see if the content they need is there. If a reader doesn’t find what they are looking for at your site, they will move on quickly. Here are a few tips for making information easier to scan:
Use headings and subheadings to clearly identify your topics
 Write short paragraphs
Use straightforward language
Use images to illustrate your points
Use white space. Giant blocks of text are intimidating.
 

Turn needs into content

Answer questions; create tutorial videos, walkthroughs and other types of easily consumable content that provide direct answers and explanations.
Notice how the videos above don’t sell – but entertain.   In the same vein, if you can use your content to inform, help, inspire and motivate – the result will be two-fold.
You’ll create brand recognition and credibility along with having a desirable product that matches the customer’s expectations.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 

More reading on social media design from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:  

Creative Tips for Stunning Infographic Design

6 KLM Airlines Marketing Examples for Winning Campaigns

 Facebook Design … 8 Secret Factors for Most Successful Marketing

 

How Content Curation Is a Form of Creation

Curation has always been an underrated form of creation.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles is one of the most frequently visited museums in America – and started as a private art collection from one man (J. Paul Getty) who had a passion for art. Aside from a few well-known examples like this one, however, the term content curation has rarely been used outside of the world of art … until now.

One of the hottest trends in social media right now is content curation – thanks in no small part to the leading efforts of several thought leaders actively promoting the idea. Joe Pulizzi is a “content marketing evangelist” who speaks and writes often about content marketing publishes a list of the best content marketing blogs across the web.

Steve Rosenbaum just published a book called Curation Nation looking at the rise of content curation in the business world – and a recent post on the Psychology Today blog even declared that “content curation is the new black. “

What Is Content Curation?

Back in 2009, I published a blog post that predicted that content curation would be one of the fastest-growing and most important jobs of the future. I would stand by this prediction today, but also I shared one potential definition for content curation:

Content Curation is a term that describes the act of finding, grouping, organizing, or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue.

It is such a powerful idea because curation does NOT focus on adding more content/noise to the chaotic information overload of social media and instead focuses on helping any one of us to make sense of this information by bringing together what is most important.

The 5 Models of Content Curation

Over time, the idea of content curation has felt like more and more of a catchphrase that is really encompassing many smaller activities that are adding structure and insight to the cacophony of information being published online. What if we could define not just content curation as a macro activity, but look at how curation might be applied in very specific situations?

This post shares 5 potential models for content curation as a starting point for discussion:

Aggregation

There is a flood of information online and Google can only give you the best guess at the most relevant, but there are millions and millions of pages returned for any search result.

 Aggregation is the act of curating the most relevant information about a particular topic into a single location.

Often taking the form of catalog-style blog posts that list “27 Great Resources For Small Business” (or similar aggregations), this is the most common form of content curation. Volume is not typically an issue when it comes to aggregation, so in this case, you still may have hundreds of pieces of source material – but just the fact that it is in a single location and not millions of pieces of information has a high value for people interested in a particular topic.

Distillation

The idea behind distillation is that adding a layer of simplicity is one of the most valuable activities that someone can undertake.

Distillation is the act of curating information into a more simplistic format where only the most important or relevant ideas are shared.

As a result, there may be quite a bit of additional content that is lost for the sake of simplicity – however, the value comes from the fact that anyone digesting this content no longer has to contend with a high volume of content and can instead consume a more focused view of information.

Elevation

The smaller ideas that are often shared online in 140 character bursts or pithy mobile phone images may point to a larger societal trend or shift.

Elevation refers to curation with a mission of identifying a larger trend or insight from smaller daily musings posted online.

Encompassing much of what many trend-focused websites do, this can be one of the hardest forms of content curation because it requires more expertise and analytical ability on the part of the person or organization during the curating. The benefit is that it can also be the most powerful in terms of sharing new ideas as well.

Mashup

A term often used in the context of music to describe the growing trend of taking two or more pieces of music and fusing them together – there is a wider implication for mashups in relation to the information.

Mashups are unique curated juxtapositions where merging existing content is used to create a new point of view.

Taking multiple points of view on a particular issue and sharing it in a single location would be one example of this type of behavior – and could be used to describe the sort of activity that takes place every day on Wikipedia. More broadly, mashups can offer a way of creating something new while still using content curation as a basis for it because you are building on existing content.

Chronology

One of the most interesting ways of looking at the evolution of information is over time – and how concepts or our understanding of topics have changed over time.

Creating a Chronology is a form of curation that brings together historical information organized based on time to show an evolving understanding of a particular topic.

 Most useful when it comes to topics where understanding has shifted over time, this can be a powerful way of retelling history through informational artifacts that exist overtime to prove how experiences and understandings have changed.

The bottom line

Content curation is certainly an emerging space and one where more and more thought leaders will continue to share their voices. This is simply a contribution to the curated universe of discussion on this topic – as well as an option invitation to others who have thought deeply about content curation to sharing their own visions for what the future may look like.