Ever since we started to work on Scoop.it, we’ve had this question: is it fair to use other people’s content for your own good: in other words, how ethical is content curation? Is it even legal? A quick look at history clearly shows that artists and scientists never created in a vacuum but have always leveraged pre-existing work to develop their own. And that’s for the greater good. Closer to us, there is a multitude of online media sites which embraced content curation as an alternative or a complement to the content they produce: the Huffington Post is a famous example but Upworthy and BuzzFeed are others and even the respected New York times started doing it. Of course, such an answer won’t satisfy your legal department or your own need to have a more pragmatic answer. So as we’ve now been arounds for several years and, more importantly, have seen millions of users publish more than 100 million pieces of content, we feel we can not only give you a recap of the facts that make content curation ethical but also back that out with data. Continue reading →
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
This is not just a recap of the facts that make good content curation perfectly ethical and mutually beneficial: I also wanted to give some data to back up these facts since we've now seen content curation become a mainstream practice with more than 2 million professionals using Scoop.it and embracing it as a key part of their social media and online publishing experience.
We've not only seen how we could help them make content curation impacting for their online presence and professional brands but we've seen how positive it was for content creators and how they reacted to it.
Don't be like that guy at parties who only talks about himself. Sharing third-party content will make your social selling more effective. We'll show you how.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
For companies, content curation is not just a marketing exorcize. In an age where everybody's spending a lot of time on social networks, sales people should embrace it as part of their social strategy.
NexGen LMS Grid for corporate market. Presented by The Craig Weiss Group.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
When we launched Scoop.it, we saw a lot of teachers and professors embrace the content curation. For educators, it's a no-brainer: acquiring new skills or developing expertise on a new topic start by discovering, reading and digesting existing content.
So it's no surprise that content curation is becoming a must-have capability for learning management systems in the corporate world as this analysis by Craig Wess of leading LMS vendors show.
While there are well over 1,300 systems (LMS and subsets including learning platforms, sales enablement platforms, reinforcement learning platforms, etc.) I decided for this debut to focus on 20 vendors. I wanted to provide the “Big Dogs” on the list, so that folks where aware of those vendors and their nextgen functionality and track record, which ties to growth.
Facebook is testing a new rocketship tab in its main app that's essentially a second News Feed for only videos and articles.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Facebook is reaching the limit of the single feed model and is testing a second feed to curate recommended content that's not coming from your friends. I'm curious to see how this will play out as attention is limited and checking two tabs might feel like checking two apps.
Content experts share their favorite content curation tips. Improve your content strategy and content marketing to increase budget effectiveness.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Heidi Cohen is a master curator herself and practicing what she preaches, she's compiled a great list of tips from expert curators which I was honored to join.
While content curation is now widely embraced as a social media practice - as shown by our study I shared with Heidi for this article - there are still untapped opportunities for content marketers to use third-party content:
- to ideate new blog posts,
- to create curated blog posts,
- to create engaging, non-promotional email newsletters.
These are just a few examples but the point is: if you're just sharing other people's links, you're already doing the hard work but you're missing out on a bigger opportunity to build an audience as a curator.
Curation implies more than just collecting resources into a folder or notebook. It assumes a level of thoughtfulness as the curator considers the value that each artifact possesses within the context of the overall experience.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
In the old days, knowledge was rare. Only teachers possessed it and to learn, you needed them to share it with you. For today's kids (and lifelong learners), access to knowledge is not an issue: the web offers unlimited knowledge to anyone with a web browser.
So as Beth Holland reflects in this post, learning changed.
And that impacts the old traditional method of taking notes to memorize and learn which also has to evolve.
She describes a system where note taking is combined with content curation to have students not simply go through the motions of learning but reflect on what they learn.
In the old days, knowledge was rare. Only teachers possessed it and to learn, you needed them to share it with you. For today's kids (and lifelong learners), access to knowledge is not an issue: the web offers unlimited knowledge to anyone with a web browser.
So as Beth Holland reflects in this post, learning changed.
And that impacts the old traditional method of taking notes to memorize and learn which also has to evolve.
She describes a system where note taking is combined with content curation to have students not simply go through the motions of learning but reflect on what they learn.
In the old days, knowledge was rare. Only teachers possessed it and to learn, you needed them to share it with you. For today's kids (and lifelong learners), access to knowledge is not an issue: the web offers unlimited knowledge to anyone with a web browser.
So as Beth Holland reflects in this post, learning changed.
And that impacts the old traditional method of taking notes to memorize and learn which also has to evolve.
She describes a system where note taking is combined with content curation to have students not simply go through the motions of learning but reflect on what they learn.
In the old days, knowledge was rare. Only teachers possessed it and to learn, you needed them to share it with you. For today's kids (and lifelong learners), access to knowledge is not an issue: the web offers unlimited knowledge to anyone with a web browser.
So as Beth Holland reflects in this post, learning changed.
And that impacts the old traditional method of taking notes to memorize and learn which also has to evolve.
She describes a system where note taking is combined with content curation to have students not simply go through the motions of learning but reflect on what they learn.
With the amount of content that is shared on the Internet every minute, it’s no surprise that many people feel overwhelmed by the quantity of information out there. This is why content curation is becoming an essential digital literacy skill for teachers and students.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Content curation is becoming an essential skill in the content-rich digital world. What's noise, what's relevant: we all need to make micro decisions all the time. Here's the approach of one educator to teach this to students to develop critical thinking and communication skills.
Content curation is certainly an important digital literacy skill, very useful for citizenship as a whole. An awesome tool to increase the current level of critical thinking.
More than anything else, content curation helps you achieve a more engaging level of relationship with your audience.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Beyond the 6 very good reasons Anna Rodriguez gives in this blog posts, her title highlights a very important point: content curation can easily be dismissed as something tactical among the variety of publishing strategies that exist today.
As an example, I frequently hear people telling me they're curating content when what they really mean is merely tweeting links they have more or less read. But as I've said before, if you're simply sharing links, you're missing out.
Missing out on the opportunity to add contexte and value to your audience.
Missing out on the opportunity to add to your content hub and derive traffic through SEO or reshares.
Missing out on the ability to convert your audience by driving them away from you and not to you.
Missing out on the ability to generate rfesh content by building on top of existing one.
Missing out on the credibility that third-party validation brings to your message.
Missing out on relationships you can build with influencers you curate content from.
By integrating content curation within a borader scope, you can make it the backbone of your publishing strategy.
- help me analyze my audience and identify their main interests - filter and suggest content based on my business goals and relate it with my audience main interests - identify influencers and field experts (...) - allow me to personalize my message and the way I communicate with the audience - provide me insights of how my content curation strategy is going and what could I do to improve it - make it simple, quick and effective
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
This is an interesting recap of how content curation helps brand development and what is needed in a curation tool.
This was meant as a spec for Groupiest, a tool that unfortunately shut down on June 30 after it's initial lack of traction. But regardless of what happened to this tool, the premises on which it was built still stand And are what you should look for in a content curation tool.
These requirements can actually be grouped in 3 main areas:
1. Content discovery: at Scoop.it, we've built a semantic search algorithm that helps you discover content from an infinite number of sources (not just the RSS feeds of the sites you know) by simply entering keywords. We also strongly believe that no algorithm is perfect. So we not only improve these results by taking the actions of other Scoop.it users on that content into account but we ultimately let users decide what to publish. Discovery is automated but not publishing as it's the opportunity to add value and exercise judgement and this is what will create a bond with your audience.
2. Content publishing: this step is not just about hitting publish, it's also about editing your post. Beyond simple formatting, it's about adding your own message to your own voice: your insight as we call it. Bringing context to your audience adds value and helps establish yourself as a thought leader.
3. Analytics: getting a feedback loop is extremely important to anything you do that you'd like to improve over time. Understanding how your audience responded not just through views but also reactions and conversions is extremely important for us.
Making this content loop - discover, publish, analyze - easier and faster for themselves is what efficient professionals and marketers should look when trying to streamline heir content curation process.
This is an interesting recap of how content curation helps brand development and what is needed in a curation tool.
This was meant as a spec for Groupiest, a tool that unfortunately shut down on June 30 after it's initial lack of traction. But regardless of what happened to this tool, the premises on which it was built still stand And are what you should look for in a content curation tool.
These requirements can actually be grouped in 3 main areas:
1. Content discovery: at Scoop.it, we've built a semantic search algorithm that helps you discover content from an infinite number of sources (not just the RSS feeds of the sites you know) by simply entering keywords. We also strongly believe that no algorithm is perfect. So we not only improve these results by taking the actions of other Scoop.it users on that content into account but we ultimately let users decide what to publish. Discovery is automated but not publishing as it's the opportunity to add value and exercise judgement and this is what will create a bond with your audience.
2. Content publishing: this step is not just about hitting publish, it's also about editing your post. Beyond simple formatting, it's about adding your own message to your own voice: your insight as we call it. Bringing context to your audience adds value and helps establish yourself as a thought leader.
3. Analytics: getting a feedback loop is extremely important to anything you do that you'd like to improve over time. Understanding how your audience responded not just through views but also reactions and conversions is extremely important for us.
Making this content loop - discover, publish, analyze - easier and faster for themselves is what efficient professionals and marketers should look when trying to streamline heir content curation process.
That’s the exhilaration that comes with curation. Imagine the web as millions of pages. To make your magazine, you tear out any of those pages you fancy, explain why they matter, and push the button. Bingo! You’ve shared a link to the content and your take on it.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
@Jay Cross gives a detailed and clear use case of how collaborative content curation can save millions to large organizations as it saves employee time while involving them in the process.
He also explains his content curation routine that he sees as a mandatory skill to be trained by modern employers.
He makes a great job at connecting two sides of content curation:
- the fact it's saving people's time to look for meaning in information overload themselves,
- the fact it's rewarding for content curators as it helps them build their professional brands.
@Jay Cross gives a detailed and clear use case of how collaborative content curation can save millions to large organizations as it saves employee time while involving them in the process.
He also explains his content curation routine that he sees as a mandatory skill to be trained by modern employers.
He makes a great job at connecting two sides of content curation:
- the fact it's saving people's time to look for meaning in information overload themselves,
- the fact it's rewarding for content curators as it helps them build their professional brands.
@Jay Cross gives a detailed and clear use case of how collaborative content curation can save millions to large organizations as it saves employee time while involving them in the process.
He also explains his content curation routine that he sees as a mandatory skill to be trained by modern employers.
He makes a great job at connecting two sides of content curation:
- the fact it's saving people's time to look for meaning in information overload themselves,
- the fact it's rewarding for content curators as it helps them build their professional brands.
@Jay Cross gives a detailed and clear use case of how collaborative content curation can save millions to large organizations as it saves employee time while involving them in the process.
He also explains his content curation routine that he sees as a mandatory skill to be trained by modern employers.
He makes a great job at connecting two sides of content curation:
- the fact it's saving people's time to look for meaning in information overload themselves,
- the fact it's rewarding for content curators as it helps them build their professional brands.
Here are some specific examples small content can make more sense than a thousand-word opus.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Where's the Web taking us in terms of content length? What's the ideal length for your own content?
Tom Demers has some answers for you in this post, one of which is to "link liberally to meatier resources and let your readers chose their own adventure”.
Some more observation on my end:
1. We live in a short-attention span world.
2. Long form only adds value if it's really really good.
Where's the Web taking us in terms of content length? What's the ideal length for your own content?
Tom Demers has some answers for you in this post, one of which is to "link liberally to meatier resources and let your readers chose their own adventure”.
Some more observation on my end:
1. We live in a short-attention span world.
2. Long form only adds value if it's really really good.
3. Content curation is a great way to create short blog posts that have impact.
What really separates curation from filtration is context — specifically a curator providing the reader the necessary context within which the filtered content should be consumed in order for it to make sense and have value to the reader.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
In the age of information overload, content has little value without context. It became a commodity which we're seeing a huge amount of flowing on our news feeds. This is a problem but also a great opportunity to show expertise: to explain, connect the dots, add value by positioning content in the context of a relationship with au audience.
As this post's author Tom Martin highlights in this post, the logical conclusion is that this presents a challenge:
How can you add context and value in 140 characters on Twitter? How can your 200-word explanations compete with LOL cats on Facebook?
By using a content curation hub.
What do we mean by that?
Instead of sharing links and limiting your context to whatever fits in your tweet or focusing on grabbing attentions on Facebook, you can publish your curated content as a post on your blog (or if you don't have one, a Scoop.it topic page) which gives you plenty of opportunity to elaborate.
There are several benefits with doing that:
1. By sending your social media audience to a page where they can show your curated content with added context and value, you can build that trust with your readers and show your expertise. And therefore what Tom Martin calls the content curation challenge.
2. Readers can easily see related content which will engage them more and reinforces your importance to them.
3. Your curated content can now be rediscovered in the future, in particular through search engines.
4. You can add conversion hooks and call to actions to get in touch with your company, buy your products, etc...
The key to success in a myriad of web content that may drown us in 2015 is to curate content. The whys and hows are explained in-depth inside this article.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
It's interesting to see that content curation is evolving from an opportunity to a necessity as communication shifts from traditional methods (PR, advertising, old-style SEO...) to new ones (content marketing, inbound marketing, social media...). In this new world of communication many things have changed and professionals or companies who want to get heard need to consider this question:
Do people listen to you because they have to or because they want to?
As my friend Steve Rosenbaum, author of Curation Nation, puts it in his latest book, Curate This, we can't rely anymore on captive audiences. Consumers filter out spammy messages which is why, to be heard, we have to curate or die.
The proposed laws, which could have required the likes of Reddit to filter content and forced a so-called link tax on firms including Google, have been sent back to the drawing board.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
This rejected law project targeted to amend copyright law in a very restrictive way at the request of copyright owners and publishing groups. Among its most controversial points was the limitation of the right to link to a web page - a complete nonsense in my opinion which would have been going against the very nature of the Web.
But apparently some people still have common sense to resist lobby groups at the European parliament. Which makes it another victory for content curators as well as a sign that online content curation is more and more established as a publishing practice.
When it comes to finding 1837 Ohio weather reports or blueprints to build a guillotine, millions still prefer asking experts at the public library. ‘There’s no really stupid question.’
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Public libraries are still busy according to this WSJ article. Is this a short-term phenomenon or the sign that even though the web is full of knowledge, its not curated enough yet?
Curated content. Most marketers are familiar with the practice of sharing other people’s content on social networks. There are other curated content formats
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Because social media makes it easy to share other people's content, there's been a lot of confusion historically on what curated content can be beyond the simple act of sharing links.
This blog post by Julie recaps the various formats of curated content you can use and what they bring to the readers and the publishers.
There's a fine line between content curation and plagiarism and content creators are unwittingly sabotaging the influencer relationships they hope to build.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
As I've written here on the Traackr's blog, content curation is a great first step to build influencer relationships. In short, by curating their content the right way, you not only bring them traffic but you also enrich the conversation and engagement around their content. You give before you get which makes them more likely to respond to your future requests to collaborate or getting help with sharing content.
But as @Erika Heald points out in this great post, this type of curation is not for the lazy marketers who just want a shortcut. There's a right way of doing it and mistakes to avoid (which by the way is one of the reasons to use good tools as they'll act as gatekeeper for doing ethical content curation).
It's ok to want to be efficient: actually it's probably a must. But being lazy and efficient are not the same. So here are 5 great things to have in mind when curating content to build influencer relationships.
Here are three tactics to ensure that your content curation efforts are noticed, appreciated, and rewarded
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Content curation is a lot more than simply sharing links. Sure, sharing other people's content is nice... But, as explained by Ross Hudgens in ths post, there's a much bigger opportunity around content curation: on top of finding the right content to share, great curators also supplement it with their own insights, bringing value to both their readers (through added context) and original content creators (by extending the lifetime of their content and continuing the conversation). And by bringing value, they build relationship with their target audience and influencers authors in their fields.
Did you miss this week's #ContentWritingChat? Check out our recap featuring guest host, Guillaume Decugis, for tips on content curation in 2016!
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
This is the write-up by ExpressWriters of the tweet chat they invited me to join as a guest host last Tuesday.
ExpressWriters is a great platform of writers, ie content creators and it was refreshing for me to see how much the debate around content creation vs curation has changed.
5 years ago when we were starting with Scoop.it, a lot of content creators were concerned about content curation: some felt it was theft, others noise. A French blogger even wrote that content curation was "de la merde" (shit in English, if you'll excuse his French).
Every innovation brings fear and concerns: just look at the many fights between taxi drivers and Uber. Most of the time for a lack of understanding as well as a resistance to change: some bloggers who had built an audience through great effort didn't want to change their habits or acknowledge that there were other ways to add value than creating 100% original content (who create 100% original content anyway? We all build on top of other people's idea and have always done so...).
Since then, many have demonstrated that you could build a large audience by adding value to other people's content. And content curation has become an accepted practice. So it was great to see such a great community of writers embrace content curation during this vibrant tweetchat!
This is the write-up by ExpressWriters of the tweet chat they invited me to join as a guest host last Tuesday.
ExpressWriters is a great platform of writers, ie content creators and it was refreshing for me to see how much the debate around content creation vs curation has changed.
5 years ago when we were starting with Scoop.it, a lot of content creators were concerned about content curation: some felt it was theft, others noise. A French blogger even wrote that content curation was "de la merde" (shit in English, if you'll excuse his French).
Every innovation brings fear and concerns: just look at the many fights between taxi drivers and Uber. Most of the time for a lack of understanding as well as a resistance to change: some bloggers who had built an audience through great effort didn't want to change their habits or acknowledge that there were other ways to add value than creating 100% original content (who create 100% original content anyway? We all build on top of other people's idea and have always done so...).
Since then, many have demonstrated that you could build a large audience by adding value to other people's content. And content curation has become an accepted practice. So it was great to see such a great community of writers embrace content curation during this vibrant tweetchat!
This is the write-up by ExpressWriters of the tweet chat they invited me to join as a guest host last Tuesday.
ExpressWriters is a great platform of writers, ie content creators and it was refreshing for me to see how much the debate around content creation vs curation has changed.
5 years ago when we were starting with Scoop.it, a lot of content creators were concerned about content curation: some felt it was theft, others noise. A French blogger even wrote that content curation was "de la merde" (shit in English, if you'll excuse his French).
Every innovation brings fear and concerns: just look at the many fights between taxi drivers and Uber. Most of the time for a lack of understanding as well as a resistance to change: some bloggers who had built an audience through great effort didn't want to change their habits or acknowledge that there were other ways to add value than creating 100% original content (who create 100% original content anyway? We all build on top of other people's idea and have always done so...).
Since then, many have demonstrated that you could build a large audience by adding value to other people's content. And content curation has become an accepted practice. So it was great to see such a great community of writers embrace content curation during this vibrant tweetchat!
“Content curation” is a powerful tool for marketing. By sharing someone else’s relevant, helpful content, you prove to your audience that you care about helping them—not just boosting your own site traffic.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Finally a (great) opinion from a lawyer on fair use and content curation!
Kerry O'Shea Gorgone is not just a great content writer: she's also a lawyer. So far from being cryptic or overcautious, her post on Mark Schaefer's blog is not just well argumented: it gives concrete examples highlighting how and when content curation constitutes fair use.
If you're still in doubt about what to do, this is a must-read.
And to understand how you can stay safe in your daily publishing work, you can read our own addition to the debate on our blog.
Content curation is an ideal way to attract targeted traffic to websites.Content curation can be an excellent piece of content marketing services campaign.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
As this article testifies, content curation is becoming a mainstream practice for digital marketers. Not just because it's saving them time enriching their content output across all channels, but also because it adds credibility and third-party validation to their brands.
Hi there, Twitter user. Thanks for favoriting my latest tweet! But I have to ask: did you read the article I shared? I received 10 favorites and zero clicks. So what’s going on? I guess you favorited the tweet without reading the article. That’s OK, because I didn’t read it either....
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
The above scenario is one we've seen many times. And few of us can actually say they've never been guilty of the "share-without-reading" crime.
In this post on CMS Wire (to which he asked me tro contribute), Dennis Shiao gives a refreshing analysis on what the value of sharing content actually is and how genuine content curation enhances it to deliver much more value.
Let's admit it: social media puts pressure on us to try to be everywhere and fill all the newsfeeds we can. With a bit of organization and the right tools, it can be done and we can alleviate that pressure. But if we apply rules mechanically, we run the risk of losing sight of the big picture. The more content is created and shared, the more we have an opportunity to be selective, apply judgement and add value.
Beyond the argument on the flaws of the study, it's interesting to see Facebook acknowledge the filter bubble problem, a term coined by Eli Pariser referring to the fact that algorithms are bad at content curation as they tend to serve you more of the content you already like leaving you unaware of uneducated about challenging views. Human judgement is still highly needed in content curation.
If you’re limiting your content curation to sharing third-party content on social media, you’re missing out. Content curation is also a great way to enrich your blog or website: don’t just list great resources on your home page, turn them into curated posts.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Content curation is about adding value to content. So how can you efficiently add value to content?
- not on social media as space is too limited and it's hard to connect the dots on news feeds which you don't control;
- not by aggregating a few links here and there on your website without annotating it with your own context.
To really add value, you need to turn your curated content into curated posts. Here's an infographic that details what we've observed as efficient strategies to do that.
7 Content Curation Tips from those in the Know. What they call annotating the piece, Scoop.it calls adding your "Insight" to the shared piece of content. I like to address the WiiFM factor, so the reader knows what's in it for them by opting to open and read the piece.
I believe one of the single greatest skills any of us can learn is how to become better curators of ideas – and I think there are five essential habits to learn in order to do it.
Guillaume Decugis's insight:
Where some initially saw plagiarism and an easy way out, @Rohit Bhargava - Speaker | Author | Blogger | Professor was one of the first to see in content curation a noble, necessary and value-creating activity. In this post, he describes 5 traits of highly effective curators.
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You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.