One of the hottest topics in internet marketing today is content curation. The beauty of this technique is, if done correctly, it can help you build influence with your readers and help you appear to be an authority. Other positive results can include gaining more followers and fans as well as increase your online income, if that's one of your main goals.
There are a few different techniques to curating content but one of the more "professional" ways is to not only find content related to your topic or niche, but to comment on other authors' content or share resources of related content so your readership gains greater insight into the topics you write about.
One example of commenting on curated content may be taking an excerpt from a news story and sharing it on your blog with your added comments. Or, sharing a tweet on your Facebook page whilst adding your own thoughts. By sharing this curated content in the social media space, your readers can then comment and share their perspectives whilst once again adding more unique content to your web properties.
Sole internet marketers as well as professional content creators now have a valuable technique for adding content from as many sources as they like while providing an expanded perspective into whatever topic is being discussed. It's not just about "new" content but content that provides value, additional information, opinions, and so on.
If done correctly, the result of your curated content (including of course your own uniquely written comments) should be something your audience wants to share, which can go viral and bring in more visitors than before.
Just remember to always keep your readers in mind and provide the best content possible. This way, everyone wins!
One of the most common questions about content curation is...what does it really mean? Are we copying the content of other people and trying to get credit for it? Is it really that simple and if so, what about copyright infringement, etc.? Will Google and other SEs penalize our sites for curating content?
These are all valid questions and important ones because I'm sure some of the lazier and less savory folks may think it's that simple.
The idea behind content curation is to cut out the clutter of noise in the online publishing space and produce more informative "chunks" for your readers to review.
For example, let's say you have a blog or website about fishing. You may have a passion for this niche and could write articles all day long. This is great but, not a particularly good use of your time. By grabbing content and provding links to other resources/sites that are relevant to your topic, you are providing your readers more information in one location...YOUR site!
If content is curated successfully, meaning you are genuinely providing additional information and sources that support your topic then you can quickly be seen as an authority, not only by your readers but by Google. This can have a huge impact on your earning potential and longevity in the search engines.
By the way, you are NOT stealing other peoples' content. Some webmasters may only provide a link to "other similar stories" while others may provide excerpts or short descriptions about another writer's work and of course provide a hyperlink to that source for the reader to follow if they want to read the full story, etc.
If used correctly, content curation can help provide a huge amount of original content to your website helping you get more traffic, earn more money, and hopefully stay on page one of Google for your niches no matter how many new algorithm changes Google decides to make in the future!