With content curation you could create a cohesive story powerful story. Or you could miss your mark completely with content that doesn’t connect or make sense.

A common mistake is to assume that anyone can do content curation successfully. The reality is different. A content curator needs to have both excellent research skills and the ability to weave an engaging story. As any museum curator could tell you.

Here are 5 magic tricks the best content curators use.

Magic trick 1: Know where to find the good stuff

Great content curators know where to find great content. They know reputable sites in their industry. And they know how to sort the credible sources from the inaccurate ones. They know how to critically examine the source deeper than face value to preserve future reputation.

Tip 1: Make a list of all the reputable websites in your industry.

Tip 2: Sign-up to industry newsletters or email lists.

Tip 3: Search for recent research, statistics, and white papers in your industry. Every 3–6 months is a good timeframe for most industries.

Tip 4: Listen to your competitors and your customers. And be proactive about how you do this.

Great content curators use tools to make finding the good content more efficient. Google Alerts, Feedly, and Flipboard are all great places to start because they’re free and easy to use.

If you’re looking for more advanced tools, there are many platforms out there that allow you to search multiple websites at once. Creating customized alerts based on keywords or topics you’re interested in.

Magic trick 2: Make it relevant

Content curators are people who have a vast knowledge base on a specific topic or industry. They know how to select the most relevant information for their audience. They know what will engage. They know the pain points of their audience and what content will help solve them.

A good content curator knows how to sort and organize information in an easy-to-digest format. Whether that’s video, email newsletter, social media updates, or a blog post. They experiment with how their audience prefers to consume content. They take complex topics, break them down into parts. Then communicate these parts in a way that makes sense to their audience.

Tip 1: Get to know your audience.

Tip 2: What are their pain points? Are they aware of them? What don’t they understand?

Tip 3: Find and curate content that helps solve these pain points.

Tip 4: Experiment, measure, and improve.

Magic trick 3: Everything has a purpose

Content curators are ruthless with cutting out the nice-to-know content. If the content is interesting but makes the same point as another, or if it isn’t relevant to the exact point, it won’t make the final cut.

Great content curators use relevant images. They don’t use random images that have zero relation to what they’re sharing. They supporting images and media help explain a point and draw in the audience.

Tip 1: Know what problem you’re solving.

Tip 2: Be ruthless in shifting and selecting content to solve that problem.

Tip 3: Remove duplicates.

Tip 4: Constantly ask ‘what value’ each piece of content brings.

Tip 5: Use complementary images and media.

Magic trick 4: Get your flow right and present it

Your content needs to tell a story. Re-organize it. Try different storylines. Different orders. Test it with others. And when you’re happy present it in a way (or several ways) that are meaningful.

Tip 1: Organize, and tag your curated content (UX researchers know how to do this).

Tip 2: Group your content in different ways.

Tip 3: Select your final story.

Tip 4: Choose a meaningful ways to share with your audience — video, infographic, image, podcast, blogs, emails, or a combination of different methods.

Magic trick 5: Make it interactive and continuous

By interactive I don’t mean pushing buttons, or moving sliders. Although that can work too. By interactive I mean that it engages the persons mind or heart in the content. They put themselves in the story. This can be a multi-sensory experience. Or by simply asking questions or asking for opinions.

By continuous I mean your audience’s experience goes beyond the content. Your audience can see how it relates to them, their work, community, or even their future. Even better if you can move them to do something different and make a positive changes.

Tip 1: Show how the content is relatable.

Tip 2: Provide an activity or opportunity to interact personally with the content. Questions are the simplest and quickest.

Tip 2: Use a call-to-action. Give the audience direction on what to do with the content. Change it from just consuming, to interacting and action.

Do you have any magic tricks of your own that I haven’t covered? I’d love to hear them!

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Want to talk more? Or want help with your content strategies? Reach out to me on LinkedIn.