What Is Curated Content? Tips, Best Practices, And Tools

It’s not always easy to create original, unique content.

You’d have to research, ideate, and create captions, graphics, etc.

And with the myriad other tasks you need to manage as a social media manager, things can get overwhelming.

That’s why leveraging curated content is one of the go-to strategies of social media marketers.

Using curated content allows you to publish content quicker while providing TONS of value to your audience.

Incorporating curated content into your clients’ strategy can enhance their social media presence while sparing you from the fatigue of constantly creating original posts.

What you will learn

• What is curated content?
• Why should you use curated content? 
• Why should you use curated content? 
• What are the best practices and tips for curated content?
• What are the best tools for a curated content strategy?
• Ready to level up your social media game with curated content?

What is curated content?

Curated content is hand-picked externally created content shared across a user’s blog or social media page.

In social media, curated content can be any material created by another creator or user, such as User-Generated Content (UGC), that you share with your clients’ followers. 

Curated content can be the entire piece or just elements of it, and it is usually shared through infographics, images, and other visualizations. 

Curated content: What it is not

Curating content goes beyond simply reposting or sharing another user’s or source’s post. 

It’s also not a filler when you run out of original social media content ideas or a shortcut to fill the gaps in your clients’ content calendar. 

[Must read: 6 Months of Social Media Content Ideas in Under 60 Minutes]

And it’s definitely not about flooding your clients’ social media audiences with random, irrelevant content. 

To make the most of curated content, share the relevant content that amplifies your clients’ content strategy and aligns with their objectives and brands. 

Why should you use curated content? 

Let’s be clear: curated content shouldn’t replace your clients’ original and unique social media posts.

However, you can leverage curated content to supplement your clients’ social media posts. 

Curated content also offers the following perks.

• It saves you time since sharing and reposting social media content takes less work hours and energy
• It helps reinforce specific topics or facts that are shared across your clients’ social media pages
• It helps your clients build relationships with other content creators, expanding their network and opening more opportunities to work with collaborators
• It helps reduce content creation costs since you’re not creating your clients’ posts from scratch 
• It helps your clients jump into trending topics or content to boost audience interactions and engagement

What are the best practices and tips for curated content?

Check out the tried-and-true tips and best practices below for leveraging curated content in your clients’ social media strategies. 

1. Balance original and curated content 

Your clients’ social media content strategies shouldn’t rely solely on curated content. It should only supplement your clients’ original and branded content.

[Must read: How to Use Instagram Branded Content]

For instance, if your client posts daily, only one or two of the seven posts should be curated from another creator or source. 

Including too much curated social media content can reduce the credibility of your clients’ brands. 

The lack of original and unique content can make it seem that they can’t form their opinions or create their own content. 

Too much curated content can also potentially redirect your clients’ traffic to the original creator or source, hurting their conversion and sales opportunities.    

2. Know what your audience needs

Remember that you’re not just sharing curated content so your clients have something to post. 

You want to share curated content that engages audiences and helps your clients reach their social media marketing goals. 

To do this, you must know what content types appeal to your clients’ target audiences.

One way to understand target audiences is to know what they discuss on social media. 

Use the social media management platform Vista Social. 

It lets you set up Listeners to track and pull conversations around specific topics and keywords across your clients’ profiles. 

The social media listening tool helps you gather valuable insights into customer sentiment and interests, which you can use to inform your clients’ content creation and curation strategies.  

3. Share curated content from reliable sources

The online world is overflowing with information, but not everything is reliable or true.

Filter and curate content only from reputable sources, such as blog posts from industry experts or articles from well-known websites and publications. 

For example, you can share curated real estate content from popular realtors’ blogs for your clients who work in the industry. 

[Must read: 5 Real Estate Content Ideas to Get New Clients]

4. Add a personal touch

Don’t just share the link to the original content and call it a day. 

Customize the post by adding a short blurb in the caption or description before sharing it across your clients’ social media feeds. 

Vista Social’s AI Assistant can be the perfect tool since it instantly generates or suggests improvements to your post descriptions and taglines. 

Customizing curated content also gives the impression that your clients are not just mindlessly sharing content. It helps strengthen their credibility and position them as industry thought leaders. 

5. Include proper attribution to your sources

Credit the sources or creators by tagging them in your clients’ shared curated content posts. 

For example, if your client runs a car dealership, include a link to an automotive company CEO’s article when sharing a snippet of the content on your client’s Facebook page. 

[Must read: Engaging Automotive Social Media Content Ideas]

Tagging the blogger, publication, user, or journalist also helps your clients’ build relationships with them. 

It can expand your clients’ networks and set the stage for future collaborations or projects. 

6. Plan curated content publishing

Any content that’s part of your clients’ social media strategies should be planned, including curated content.

This way, you won’t need to spend too much time and energy finding and deciding which content to curate and share at the last minute. 

Use Vista Social’s content calendar to plan and manage your clients’ curated content. 

The content calendar helps you post, organize, and publish curated content efficiently. 

It also helps you avoid posting duplicates or sharing too much curated content. 

7. Track and measure curated content performance

The best way to determine whether curated content shared on your clients’ social media channels is paying off is to analyze its performance.  

Tracking and measuring curated content performance can tell you if it resonates with audiences and drives engagement and conversions. 

Leverage Vista Social’s social media analytics feature to easily track and measure curated content performance. 

The feature lets you generate, customize, and schedule reports for seamless analysis, allowing you to gain quick insights into what’s working or needs refining.

What are the best tools for a curated content strategy?

Check out the top tools for implementing a curated content strategy below. 

Vista Social

Finding and sharing high-quality curated content is quick and easy with Vista Social. 

The platform offers a Smart Publishing feature that helps you find curated content and schedule them to auto-publish in bulk. 

The feature can pull content from the latest news, including Instagram hashtags and users. It can also find videos, GIFs, and images.

Enter the keyword in the designated field to find news on a specific topic and select Create a post.

You’ll be directed to the social media publishing feature’s interface, where you can customize the post and set an optimal auto-posting schedule.

Vista Social’s Smart Publisher allows you to share articles, blog posts, and other third-party content on your clients’ social profiles by adding an RSS feed URL.

You can also filter the keywords in the search results under Filtering Keywords to ensure the tool only pulls the content you want.

Vista Social offers more handy tools, from a hashtag generator to a social media engagement feature with a smart Social Inbox. 

Google Alerts

Google Alerts lets you set up notifications that automatically send you emails when it finds new results, such as newspaper articles, scientific research papers, and web pages, that match your specified search terms. 

The tool can find news stories or materials from various sources that you can weave into your clients’ content curation strategies.

What are the curated content FAQs?

1. What is the difference between curated and created content?

Curated content is gathered from reliable sources relevant to your clients’ brands, campaigns, or industries. 

Created content is produced from or within your clients’ company. 

Most businesses use a mix of created and curated social media content. 

2. What are the common content curation channels?

The most popular channels for sharing curated content are social media platforms, websites, and email newsletters. 

Including the three channels in your clients’ curated content strategy is best to maximize their reach and boost engagement. 

3. What are the most reliable sources for content curation?

Some of the most trusted sources for curating content include industry journals, news publications, blogs, and the writings of industry leaders and experts. 

Ready to level up your social media game with curated content?

Using curated content can be an effective strategy to save time on creating original materials while engaging audiences and establishing your clients as industry leaders. 

Follow best practices and tips and use reliable tools like Vista Social to incorporate curated content into your clients’ social media strategies effectively. 

Create your Vista Social account now.