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Content, content, content. If you work in marketing for an equipment company, it's likely all you hear about these days. As a public relations professional who spends a good share of my time writing content, that suits me fine. I enjoy creating useful content that supports our clients' sales and customer service efforts.
Positioning our clients as their industry's experts is my job. But sometimes it makes sense to point to another company or an industry media outlet that has covered a topic well and speaks to what a client's customers need. That's where content curation comes in.
Share content that helps your readers, and give credit where it is due.
It's marketing speak for finding existing, relevant content and sharing it with your audience. Simple enough.
Just like the research papers you wrote in school, it isn't plagiarism if you don't copy the piece word for word and you credit your source. When I come across a compact-equipment article that fits one of my clients, I read it, write a short summary of the key takeaways, maybe pull a quote or two, give proper attribution and link back to the original. The client shares quality content with its customers and readers are encouraged to go read more from the original author.
Everyone wins.
There have been times I liked an article enough to want it on our own website, so I asked the author for permission. There's no harm in asking. I have yet to hear no. If you do, accept it and move on.
If you've shared someone else's content and they ask you to remove it, apologize and take it down immediately. Then figure out why. Start by asking whether you plagiarized it. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that's the reason.
If you didn't, the author may simply prefer to control where their work appears. You aren't going to change their mind, so move on.
Amber and I use a set of apps and tools to find strong content and client-related news every day. Rather than walk through every step, I'll curate here: the article "How to Curate Content: The Secret Sauce to Getting Noticed, Becoming an Influencer, and Having Fun Online" lays out a detailed process for discovering, reading and sharing curated content.
And if you have questions on the subject, let us know. We're always happy to talk.