Have you ever met someone who only ever talks about their own interests, qualities and successes without showing any concern whatsoever for your input?
It’s not always the most engaging conversation for both parties, and by the end of it you’ll likely think of them as a self-centered and arrogant individual whom you would do anything in your power to avoid.
The same idea applies to businesses that use overly self-promotional advertisements, or create content that points all fingers back in their direction.
You don’t want to be stuck with absolutely no chance of being seen either.
The trick is to find a balance between how much of your content should be curated, and how much should actually be original content.
First, let’s get a better understanding of the difference between content creation and content curation.
Content Creation
According to Curata, content creation refers to “… the original creator of the content, either the author, illustrator, researcher or whomever is the original source.”
Content creation is necessary for influencers and marketers to position themselves as thought leaders within a particular area of marketing.
However, content creation can be extremely time-consuming, and crafting content that stands out requires a lot of research.
Content Curation
Content curation is similar to content aggregation (i.e. collecting a bunch of articles or references on a particular subject), except that this content is handpicked by the author.
This is a great way to take existing ideas and either provide an opinion on them or simply provide your audience with a selection of refined resources that you recommend.
So how do you find the sweet spot of content curation and creation?
Convince and Convert did some great research on how well an article performs based on where your outbound links lead to, and how frequently you should lead to your own work.
The following infographic by Venngage visually summarizes just how you can find the content curation and creation sweet spot.
This infographic was made with the Infographic maker Venngage.
