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Content curation: A poor substitute for original content

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

You may have noticed that content curation has grown very quickly as a way for people and organizations to publish on the Web.

Sure, there are some benefits to this effort. But as a strategy for generating attention for yourself or your business, content curation is nowhere near as powerful as generating original content.

Content curation

Unlike writing your own blog post or shooting your own video, content curation simply involves pointing to others' work.

Services like Scoop.it and Paper.li have sprung up to make it easy for anyone to publish an online magazine by linking to anything on the Web.

Yes, there is value in pointing to others work. But that is the point – it is other people's work, not your own.

Many organizations use guest writers to create content, which in my mind is another form of content curation. Nothing wrong with having a guest blog post now and then, but if you never showcase your own peoples' ideas, I think it is a mistake.

Original Content: The focus a successful marketing

The best way to generate attention is to create original web content including text based information (sites, blogs, a Twitter feed), video content, photographs, infographics, and the like.

You brand yourself as an organization worthy of doing business with. Done well, an added bonus is that the search engines rank the content highly and people are eager to share the content on their social networks.

And hey if you generate some interesting stuff, then the content curators will link to you!! Wouldn't you rather have the links come in?