If there’s one marketing tactic for trust building, boosting engagement, and improving conversion rates, it’s content curation. It works because there’s science at play. With no dearth of choices, decision fatigue often takes a toll on consumers, leaving them overwhelmed and unable to make a purchase decision.

Got a closet full of clothes but nothing to wear? It’s a similar feeling.

This is why curated content works so well. It helps you create a one-stop destination for potential customers to learn about your products and services. And if it’s personalized to their taste and preferences, even better. No wonder 60% of consumers say they’ll become repeat customers after a personalized shopping experience.

Take Sephora’s Instagram page with tastefully curated influencer-generated content, for example—or Net-a-Porter’s editorial content showcasing trending styles along with shoppable product recommendations readers can add to cart quickly.

This curation practice not only reduces decision fatigue but also shows how much you care about consumer needs, offering a more positive shopping experience.

Let me show you how.

What is content curation?

Content curation is a strategic process of gathering, organizing, and sharing content—such as articles, user-generated content (UGC), podcasts, newsletters, and social media posts—from third-party sources that are relevant and valuable to your audience.

When done well, content curation is

• Audience-centric, focusing only on their primary informational needs

• Focused on gathering only the highest quality content

• A painstakingly manual process of discovery and selection by a human, not a machine

• Informed and elevated by multiple POVs and first-person perspectives

• always ongoing

For example, Jaskaran Saini’s The Social Juice is a weekly email newsletter in which he shares a roundup of the latest news and rising trends in social media culture, AdTech, and marketing.

He neatly organizes the news into easy-to-skim sections, offering 20,000+ busy marketers important marketing updates at a glance. Along with curated updates, he shares opinions, observations, and thought-provoking articles, establishing himself as a thought leader and a go-to resource for social media marketing.

What content curation is not

There are many myths surrounding content curation—from “It’s all about link collecting” to “It’s a lazy and unoriginal marketing practice” and then some. However, content curation is much more than just a “quick fix” to save time and resources.

It also involves finding, selecting, organizing, and editorializing the content with helpful commentary, annotations, and opinions to elevate its original value before sharing. As Paul Chaney, a veteran digital marketing consultant and Managing Editor at Contently, cautions:

“The concept goes beyond mere aggregation or collection, however, and involves taking the time to filter, organize, and select only the "cream of the crop" resources, and, time permitting, adding your own perspective in one or two paragraphs.

Types of Content Curation (with examples)

There are broadly five types of content curation practices, each defined by how the content is selected and presented to the audience.

1. Aggregation

Aggregation involves gathering the most relevant content on a specific topic from distinct sources in one place—sort of like a one-stop destination.

Reforge Artifacts, for example, offers a catalog of “real examples of work from any stage of a project” with special creator notes. This is truly a unique space where working professionals can share projects they’ve done successfully and showcase expertise.

You can access original templates, frameworks, and processes to accelerate problem-solving and build on your learnings. Reforge also sends out a newsletter to its users to promote newly added artifacts, driving traffic and awareness.

2. Distillation

Distillation is the process of identifying and curating only the most relevant and representative information on a particular topic or theme. It is usually in the form of a ‘best of’ list or ranking system designed to help the audience avoid the noise and focus on real insights.

LinkedIn News is the perfect example. Every day, they share a list of trending professional news and conversations selected by a team of editors.

Moreover, if you’re already a thought-leading brand in your industry or have a large volume of existing content, you can also curate “best-of” lists to drive fresh traffic. For example, Tem Ferriss celebrated the 10th anniversary of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, with a curated list of his favorite episodes.

3. Elevation

Elevation is the practice of identifying new, emerging trends and extracting insights from distinct thoughts, opinions, and data sources through in-depth analysis. It is often a time-consuming process as you gather, compile, and organize the information.

Most yearly industry predictions and reports are curated in a similar way. HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing and Trends report, for instance, is a comprehensive resource covering the top trends for the year.

4. Mashup

Mashup is the process of creatively merging two or more pieces of content covering a specific topic to create a third, new and unique point of view. Although mashups are typically associated with music, they also work well as a content marketing tactic.

Case in point: First Round Review’s articles often curate and consolidate expert opinions and voices to present an actionable hypothesis, such as in the article, Add More Rigor to Your Reference Calls With These 25 Questions.

5. Chronology

Chronology involves curating historical information on a specific topic, organized and presented chronologically to show its evolution. It’s a simple yet effective method of highlighting key events and development to understand the topic.

Take a peek at Moz’s genesis story here. It walks us through the SEO giant’s growth journey, from its founding story to its acquisitions. Rand Fishkin, Moz's co-founder, also uploaded a brilliant slide deck on Slideshare chronicling the journey.

Benefits of content curation: How curating content drives engagement and influences sales

As a content marketing practice, content curation offers multiple benefits.

• Topical authority: If you consistently curate high-quality content with expertly added opinions and perspectives, you’re likely to become the go-to resource for your industry peers. And naturally, become an authority on the topic.
   

• Diversify content: Every once in a while, your content marketing engine will lose steam. Instead of solely relying on content creation, you can use a mix of curated and owned content to avoid burning out while still sharing thought-provoking content online.
   

• Build relationships: When you begin curating content as a marketing practice, you’ll be citing and linking to the works of fellow marketers, industry experts, and influencers for a long time. As a result, there will be many opportunities for networking and relationship building.
   

• Spot emerging trends: Staying on top of industry-wide trends and predictions will help you spot upcoming trends faster, pivot strategies in a timely manner, and get the first-mover advantage.

However, the above outcomes aren’t quick wins or truly bottom-line-driving benefits like sales. If you want to stand out against competitors, you must rethink the curation practice—especially social media content curation—from a different angle. Or shall I say, angles?

Here are three of them.

1. Curate UGC to build social proof

Social proof (aka informational social influence) is one of Robert Cialdini's seven principles of persuasion. It highlights a simple truth about humans (read: consumers): People are deeply influenced by what other people are doing.

This is a great premise for community marketing, so GoPro, the leading action camera technology provider, invests heavily in influencer and fan-generated content.

They understand the social (media) circle of influence very well and have been curating and sharing user-generated content on social media platforms. GoPro also goes one step further and uses Flockler to feature the winning shots and videos of its always-on contest on the GoPro Awards website.

To drive participation, they also incentivize with GoPro gears and cash prizes worth $100,000. This not only drives higher engagement but also boosts conversions and sends positive social signals, strengthening GoPro’s brand image.

2. Curate reviews and testimonials to improve conversions

Genuine, unfiltered reviews (specifically when accompanied by user-clicked photos or videos) can offer a more contextual understanding of the product and influence buying decisions. In fact, 80% of the consumers who read reviews are influenced by it.

This is why customer reviews feature prominently on product pages, including OpusClip’s. Tuning into the principle of social proof (10,000+ creators) and authority bias (reviews from top creators), OpusClip, an AI video clipping tool, has been curating a “Wall of Love” on its website. Powered by Flockler, the wall displays authentic customer reviews and testimonials from creators and brands on YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms.

This curated space is also a brilliant example of UGC marketing.

• You’re building social proof and trust by collecting and showcasing positive reviews from both freshly minted and top creators.

• Such a “shout out” from OpusClip encourages users to share testimonials on social media, improving engagement and media value for the brand.

3. Curate social media feeds to drive engagement

There’s a common belief in marketing: People don’t buy products; they buy better versions of themselves. If you can provide value, people will buy from you, even if you’re a new business on the block. However, conveying genuine value and earning the buyer’s trust is tough.

UNDRDOG ATHLETIX (UDX), a sports apparel and athletic wear brand, faced a similar challenge. Competing in the highly competitive athleisure space, they wanted to drive sales by bringing a sense of authenticity to their webshop. The answer came in the form of Instagram feeds.

UDX uses Flockler’s quick moderation and embedding feature to select, curate, and share a feed of owned content and content created in partnership with influencers and sporting idols—directly from its Instagram page.

This carousel of UDX’s Instagram feed sits on its homepage, helping the brand showcase its products in real-world scenarios. It also makes the brand look authentic and relatable, paving the way for community building.

Introduction to content curation strategy

Your content curation strategy isn’t separate from your overall content marketing strategy. You plan for content curation the same way you plan for content production.

• Define the objectives for content curation

• Decide the type of content to curate

• Design a content curation calendar

Begin by defining what you want to achieve with curation. Thought leadership or boosting visibility? Attracting traffic or increasing sales? While the options aren’t mutually exclusive, choosing one outcome at a time will streamline what type of content you select and present to your audience.

For example, if you’re aiming for thought leadership, curating tasteful opinions, advisory, caution tales, and other types of content by leading experts and industry veterans will make sense.

What type of content to curate?

Ask yourself: What type of content should you curate to provide maximum value to your audience? What are their informational needs? To find out, use the following criteria.

• It should be relevant. Your audience should find the material interesting and engaging enough to keep coming back.

• It should be thought-provoking. Your audience should feel challenged, inspired, and compelled to consume the content. This is why expert-authored content usually shines.

• It should be credible. Whatever content you curate (audio, text, or visual) should come from a reliable source. Is the content creator someone you’ll go to for advice? Do they have a successful track record? After all, your credentials back the claims you make.

• It should offer variety. To keep things interesting, switch up the content formats every now and then. Try experimenting with fresh formats like expert interviews along with regular blog posts.

This will help you understand the quality of content you want and start actively (or passively) curating.

With the goal(s) set, start building the publishing nuance. Decide on frequency and distribution. For example, what should the ratio of owned content vs. curated content be? You can go for 6:4 or 5:5, depending on how your audience responds to each type.

3 steps of the content curation process

To simplify, we can break down the content curation process into 3 steps:

🔎 Discover content

✍️ Editorialize content

🚚 Share content

1. Discovery

There are two ways to go about curating share-worthy content.

• Active curation: You’re proactively searching for relevant and shareable content.

• Passive curation: You’re only curating and sharing content occasionally when you come across something interesting.

You can use a dedicated content curation tool to discover and bookmark content. Feedly, BuzzSumo, and Scoop.it are often recommended by seasoned curators. But if you’re working with a limited budget, try sourcing content from:

• Influencer newsletters and blogs. These are usually best-kept secrets.

• Set up Google alerts for your chosen topics

• Aggregate UGC and relevant social media posts using specific hashtags (Flockler is the go-to tool for this)

• Subscribe to well-performing podcasts in your industry that bring in new guests for every episode. You’ll naturally get tons of new ideas and content sources for curation.

Subscribe to platforms dedicated to curated posts. For example, Marketer’s Milk is a daily marketing blog aggregates content on various topics, from email marketing to conversion rate optimization.
You can bookmark the content sources using Pocket (freemium) or keep a record in your project management software. In fact, even a spreadsheet would work well.

2. Editorialization

Found thought-provoking, interesting content? It’s time to filter and editorialize the curated resources by adding your own spin on the subject.

While it’s tempting to simply share the original source links, take time to thoughtfully add fresh takes, opinions, anecdotes or commentary to the content. Your audience isn’t dense. They can see through the “lazy” marketing very well.

This will not only elevate its overall value but also establish your thought leadership. For example, when Animalz, a B2B SaaS content marketing agency, sent out the newsletter covering the Google Leaks, they also curated and shared a list of additional sources on the topic.

3. Sharing

How will you showcase the curated content to meet business goals? Choose the content format based on the distribution channel you’re targeting. Remember: Every channel is different in terms of character limitations, so you’re working with limited space on X as compared to an email newsletter, for example.

Here’s what’s working for different channels, according to data from HubSpot and Buffer.

• Document carousel posts for LinkedIn

• Videos, UGC, and link-only posts for Facebook

• Infographics for social media and blog

• Text-only and link-only posts for newsletters

• Investigative, long-form content for a blog

• Reels, shoppable content, and UGC for Instagram

• Humorous, relatable content like memes for social media channels

With Flockler, your marketing team can aggregate and embed social media feeds directly from Instagram, Facebook, RSS feeds, Google Reviews, and more. Connect your social media profile, curate a feed, set up the layout (grid, carousel, slide, or gallery), and simply embed on websites, webshops, or any digital platforms.

Here’s a quick video (0.52 seconds only!) demonstrating how to use Flockler to curate and display Instagram feeds from any Instagram business account.

Before you go, a few final tips to consider

• Always track how the curated content is performing. Based on your business objectives, track metrics like clicks, pageviews, shares, conversions, leads, or sales.

• Always decide on the content mix well in advance. This will allow you to allocate the resources better and plan ahead, whether for content creation or curation.

• Always give due credit. Make sure to tag and mention the original content creator clearly. This not only shows goodwill but saves you the embarrassment of being accused of stealing.

• Always verify information, even from a credible source. Mistakes happen all the time. The last thing you want is to cite/share the wrong or controversial dataset.

• Always focus on the audience’s informational needs. It’s never about what you find interesting and always about what your audience will find valuable and relatable enough to share.