Nate Riggs: Social Business Strategies; communication, social web strategies, & passion in Columbus, Ohio.

This is a damn cool collection.

Looking for an idea for your business or marketing department to explore?  Ready?

Curation.

This new buzz word is floating around the web and signifies a trend that’s growing at lightning-quick speed.  It’s pretty easy to see why.  From a content perspective, there’s just so much to keep track of these days.  In the web of five years ago, directories were the thing.  They organized websites and provided resources that made it easier to cut through the noise.

Directories were an earlier form of curation.  The problem is that we humans quickly learned how to game that system too.  We always do. But what does curation mean today?  And how does it related to your content marketing strategy?

By Wikipedia’s definition:

Curator (from Latin cura, care), means manager, overseer.

Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, or archive) is a content specialist responsible for an institution’s collections.  The object of a traditional curator’s concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections. More recently, new kinds of curators are emerging: curators of digital data objects, and biocurators.

The Collection

On the social web, curators are humans who are masters of collections of online objects.  The human part in that equation is essential.  Humans vet the objects that are collected.

Still, questions remain:

1. What is the collection about?
2. Who does it help and how?
3. Why would a certain group of people be interested in the collection?

What’s even more interesting is that anyone can truly become a good curator.  You don’t necessarily have to be a marketer or salesperson, or even be client-facing.

For instance, Peter Urbanski is a curator.  He curates a collection of Twitter lists – one of which was good enough to get picked up in Mashable’s stream yesterday.  That’s how I learned about Peter and why I now follow him.  His lists are valuable to me.

Many Types of Collections

Curation is not limited to Twitter lists.

For instance, CMI might be considered a collection of content marketers (humans) and their ideas.  These contributors are curated by Junta42.  Similarly, Tyler Durbin curates a collection of young professionals over at Gen Y Journey.

Sharing your company’s Google Reader listening post is a form of content curation.  Even your YouTube channel is a tool that businesses can use to curate video content that might help their target customers.

The Point is This

You want to get a leg up in content marketing, right?  Well, build a collection of online artifacts, objects and content that’s valuable to your customers.  Then show them your collection.

• If you sell high-end cameras, curate a list of bloggers that share helpful tips on things like shot composition.
• If you’re in the hotel industry, curate a list of local hotspots that your guests should visit when they stay with you.
• If you’re a co-working space, curate a list of other co-working spaces that your tenants can check out when working on the road visiting clients.

Get the idea?  If you curate the list, people remember you because you’ve been helpful and valuable.  They pay attention.  They bookmark.  They follow your collection.  Heck, if you’re lucky, they might even share your collection with their friends.

It’s that simple.

What say you?  Can you think of any lists you could curate that would help keep eyeballs on you and your business?

Photo Credit:  Kris Wise

nateriggs

I advise mid-sized & large organizations on how to adopt and use social media to market through organizational culture and better serve their clients. I'm also a blended family dad who enjoys music, photography and distance racing. When I'm not writing here, you can find me writing over at the Content Marketing Institute. Like what you've read so far? Then why not subscribe HERE?

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