When managing social media and doing social media marketing, it’s important to strike a balance between creating vs. curating content. These are two very different things, but they can both make a big impact to your social media platform!
Content Creation vs. Curating Content:
Creating content…
- Is when you write the materials yourself.
- Can take a significant amount of researching, writing, and editing time, on top of the marketing component.
- Enables your particular voice to shine through.
- Gives you the opportunity to put your thoughts to paper.
- Allows you to showcase your expertise in the field.
- Provides you with the chance to write what you want to write about, and share that with the world: you can fill in the gaps that are missing in other articles!
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Curating content…
- Is when you find content that has already been written, and compile or share that on social media.
- Can take a similar amount of time as creating content (depending on a number of factors, such as the topic and your own experience with the subject) but involves much more research and reading than writing and editing.
- Enables you to bring a broader range of ideas and perspectives to the mix beyond your own.
- Gives you the opportunity to reach out and connect with other brands and businesses.
- Allows you to learn more about the issues at hand.
- Provides you with the chance to share a great deal of knowledge and ideas with the rest of the world.
Why do you need to have both?
A combination of content that you created and content that you curated will enable you to have to do less writing yourself, as well as to provide a broad range of perspectives on the issues. Curating content is also fantastic for helping you to showcase brands that you like and want to support, and to spread the word about them.
Of course, if you only focus on curated content, you run the risk of losing your status as an expert in the field, as well as the opportunity to share your unique perspective on the issues (not to mention, creating content also helps to improve your own writing skills and critical thinking skills!).
That’s why we need to have a balance between the two. Every niche might need more content creation vs. curating content, so you will have to find the right balance that works for you (which will probably evolve as time goes on!)—take the time to think about what you want to see on social media related to the issues at hand, as well as how you can best engage and share with the community, and create or curate based on that.
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