Great post from Tyler Shears who reminds the extremely important, often discussed and much evolving relation between SEO and Curated Content (and how the latter contributes to the former).

Tyler also highlights the main motivations, rules and benefits of content curation beyond SEO:

1. Establish Authority With Your Audience
2. Build Meaningful Relationship
3. Increase Your Relevance
4. Keep Content Fresh
5. Add Your Own Thoughts
6. Stay Informed
7. Create a One-Stop Content Shop

We at Scoop.it totally subscribe to this list.

The Number 5 ("add your own thoughts") has been an uphill battle for some time, since adding your own thoughts is time consuming; initially, some people had thought or expected that Curation would be automated. It's not. Curating a piece of content is less expensive (time consuming) than creating an equivalent time, and therefore adding curation to a content strategy yields measurable ROI: but Content curation does require skill and time: time to search and, as explained here, time to enrich. Glad Tyler points this out.

I'm also particularly interested by number 7 ("one-stop shop"). We in Scoop.it have been advocating this notion of content hub too. Most people use content curation to feed their presence and audience on existing media (Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc). This is indeed an important value of Content curation. However, keeping your themed, curated content in an dedicated content hub is also very important, for a number of reasons, including:

• what happens on Social media is perishable; your content hub is time-proof
• what happens on Social media is not seachable; your content hub is searchable
• your presence on Social media is often "multi-topic" (you may post on a variety of subjects); your content hub can be focused and organized per topic, depending on what you want to be recognized - and found - for.

My thoughts on what the combination of marketing automation, content marketing, consumerization of IT and social media mean for companies and organizations.

Let's be honest: video content is tough.

It's not easy to produce, not is it cheap if you need a quality level that reflects the professionalism of your brand.

And if you still think your video might go viral by some random chance, think twice.

Now, video can also be very powerful: we do live in a world where images make a longer lasting impression than words. While never cheap, producing a video can be done in a lean way and also brings other benefits such as forcing you to streamline your message. 

If you're going to use video (and YouTube) for your content marketing, this is an excellent and very complete guide put together by Camilla Hallstrom.

I particular like the one on SEO: don't believe the so-called old-style SEO experts who tell you they can land your site in the first page of Google through backlinks. This doesn't work anymore.

But great content published consistently will get you there. 

Matthew Capala put together this great toolbox compiling tips and tools to get started with Content Marketing and avoid losing time re-inventing the wheel.

He has a way of putting it simply that makes this worth a read even if you've already experimented with Content Marketing. 

Great resource!

Simple and actionable recommendations that you can implement on your blog easily and that will have an seo Impact while also helping your readers (note: both objectives are actually more and more the same one).

Note also that if you're using Scoop.it as your content hub, #1 is built-in since each Scoop.it content permalink also shows in the background the related content you've chosen to curate on the same topic. And through our premium versions you can customize your templates to add popular content links (tip #3) or even have them show through the lead generation slider.

Interestingly launched on iOS - and not Android... - this App aims at closing the gap "between rookies and marketing pros". 

And yes, it has a Content Marketing section: clear sign that it's going mainstream? 

What exactly is a media hub? 

In the context of marketing, it's a place where various types of content - articles, videos, images, etc - exist for the purpose of engaging audiences and spreading knowledge and information to current and future customers.

As Daniel Newman explains, we're no longer living in a time where brands can simply publish content about themselves and successfully connect with their audiences. Newman puts it perfecly when he says today's world of marketing "is more about sharing and collaborating and with that generosity comes interest, loyalty, and commitment to a brand."

While the example in this article is American Express, a company that most of us have heard of and is probably a little bit bigger than the average SMB, having a media hub is equally important for the mom & pop businesses who are trying to grow their brands online.

Creating a media hub doesn't only apply to large businesses, and it also doesn't have to take a lot of budget and/or time.

The tips in this article, like beginning to blog and create visual content, building community, and getting social, are great for getting started with your media hub. Once you've begun putting your knowledge out there, your community will start coming together and your audience will have a place to go to interact with you and your brand.

But, one question still remains: how do I actually organize all of this activity without having to create my own website from scratch?

The tips provided by Newman in this article are a great starting point, and having a place for your media hub to live is the next step of the equation. There are many tools in existence that brands can use to discover content, to organize content, and to distribute content, and there are also some tools that serve as all three. At Scoop.it, we've divided our content hub based upon the different demographics that we'd like to reach and the different areas of our expertise that are aligned with each of these demographics.

By having an organized content-filled page for each of the areas of expertise of the company, we're able to engage different audiences in different ways while still maintaining the overall media hub feel. 

Are you ready to get started with your media hub? Get a demo of Scoop.it Enterprise and we'll get you on your feet!

They're actually more and more the same thing: here's why.

Not everything in content marketing boils down to a cool headline and a blog post that will be read in a few seconds: thank god! As this well articulated post shows, there's still room for well articulated pieces of content that takes time to read... and also time to create.

And because you can't be good at producing everything nor can you find the time and resources for that, you might be better off focusing your content creation efforts on these hard-to-produce unique insights that only you can publish while relying on content curation for the daily content. 

Jay Baer observed last week that there could be no market for content marketing software for SMBs. This is my response and attempt at defining what SMBs need in terms of content marketing tools based on observing thousands of them which are Scoop.it customers. 

Feel free to add your own thoughts! 

SEO has changed and we now live in a world of long-tail keywords. Backlinks don't help much and it's likely you won't win short-tail (and short) keywords or keyword expression such as "lawn mower". But what you can and should is find ways to own the long tail keywords expression combining longer keyword combinations such as "lawn mower home for amateur gardeners".

The problem then becomes: how do I find or imagine these long-tail keywords?

Neil Patel gives a great way to identify some of these beyond Google's own tools. 

Two tips related to that:

- To build and automate on #2, you should try out http://keywordtool.io/ as it's based on the Google autocomplete and allows to batch copy/paste all the results which is great to set up adwords (SEM) campaigns quickly. 

- Setting SEM campaigns with small budgets (eg $10/day) is a great way to validate your keywords assumption before investing in content related to these keywords for SEO: check the volumes and the click rates you have.

- Once you have your keyword list, content curation will help you naturally build content pages which will natural combine these keywords in a way that provides value for both your audience and Google. On Scoop.it, you can add your targeted keywords to your content suggestions to source related content and optimize this process.

This post rocks. It should be referenced every time you write a new piece of content.

I specifically love the part about writing for the web vs. writing for print. 

How about you? What are your secret weapons to writing content that doesn't suck?

Understanding the evolution of SEO form keywords to semantic (and Google's Hummingbird). And how does it impact your Content strategy.

Bottom line: (good) content is king.

Some people still think that the only type of content that can demonstrate your expertise and show your thought leadership is the one you create. 

If you're still thinking that, think again as the data has spoken.

David Dodd used to be one of them and he explains in this article why he changed his mind after analyzing results from several research studies focusing specifically on B2B marketing. 

The research - based on an extensive of more than 400 B2B content consumers - highlights beyond any doubt that people simply don't trust vendor-created content. 

The solution is probably not to stop creating anything: you have opinions and you can create strong original content. But more often then not, you'll be more convincing if you can publish curated content that supports your overall message.

(Which is what I just did by the way so let me know if you feel more convinced).