Speaker 1: Curating content for your social media channels is a great way to consistently stay active on each channel with less content, demonstrate industry thought leadership, and to build a community, all while saving time. So what is content curation? Content curation means gathering content that's relevant to a particular topic or area of interest and then sharing it with your audience. It doesn't mean passing off someone else's content as your own, so make sure you're linking back to the original author's content and giving them credit for creating something that was so good you wanted to share it with your community. So why should you include content curation in your social strategy? For one, content curation saves time and money. You know as well as we do that creating your own content takes a lot of time. But when you turn to your community to see what they're sharing and what they're writing about that relates to your own business, you'll discover an entire world of existing content and ideas that you can share on your own channels. Secondly, content curation builds industry connections. When you shine light on other people's work by retweeting them or linking to their blog posts, you're showing them that you appreciate their content and you think it's worthy of sharing, which is a great way to build your network. Building industry connections through content curation can also help you extend your social reach. Let's say I'm a really big fan of a certain brand. If I find that your brand posts content from the brand I like so much that I might check out your brand to see what you're all about. This will lead to increased social influence too. Sharing curated content also enables you to post a bigger variety of content. So let's say your own brand tends to publish and share a lot of blog content, but not as many videos. If you can curate and share some really great videos from other brands alongside your own blog posts, you'll be giving your audience more variety. So they aren't just seeing the same types of stuff from you time and time again.

Speaker 2: We do like to share, whether it's a retweet or if we're co-hosting an event on Facebook, if we leave comments on Instagram, we really like that interaction. If it's something that we feel perhaps an author or another bookstore has said it better, we want to share that voice and just let them speak it. If it's already been done perfectly, we don't want to try and change that in any way. But for us it is also part of building relationships. It's that interaction, whether it's with a community member, a customer, or if it's an illustrator who's happened to stop by and is trying to promote their work. We really do try to just pick things up as they come. We don't plan any retweets or any reposting. But if it comes up and we feel like it's definitely worth saying and worth getting out to an even bigger audience, we're more than happy to try and help that along.

Speaker 1: Speaking of variety, if you're sharing content from others, then your social feeds are going to appear more diverse to someone scrolling through. For example, if I know that your brand not only publishes quality content that you create, but that you also publish industry news and other quality content in the industry, then I'm going to start looking to you as someone who really knows what they are talking about. That's right, content curation shows your diverse knowledge as a thought leader. I'll see you as the kind of brand that posts on social to create value for your audience, not just to promote your own brand. So what are some tips to curating content effectively? First of all, make sure you establish a good mix of promotional content and curated content. People get tired of brands endlessly promoting their own products, which is exactly why progressive brands think beyond products and features. The relationship customers have with brands today goes beyond the product itself. So when you're posting on social media, we recommend an 80-20 mix. Only 20% of your social media content should promote your own brand. The other 80% should be dedicated to content that really, truly interests your audience and engages them in conversations. For the most part, curated content will belong in that 80%. Try to be consistent with how many times you publish curated content versus your own content on a day-to-day basis too. To figure out what content you should actually curate, keep your buyer persona in mind. What industry thought leaders do they admire? Which publications do they trust to stay up to date on industry news? What other brands that aren't your direct competitors do they follow and want to hear from? Use surveys and other methods to understand your customers. The best thing to do is to get on the phone with some of your customers who represent an ideal buyer and ask them who they follow and who they want to hear from on social. Knowing who your audience is interested in learning from will give you some great ideas for whom to keep track of and curate content from. Pulling from a consistent set of sources will also help you save time, but make sure you spread out the posts from the same sources. There are a few content curation tools out there that can make things easier. I've included a list of good ones here. Make sure you screenshot it and check them out for yourself. Before you choose the content curation tool you'll use, make sure you really understand the role content curation will play in your social media strategy. A one-person marketing team should start simple. Begin with the free options. And then as your business and team grow, content curation may play a larger role and require more powerful software. By now you should have a solid understanding of the role content curation can play in helping you demonstrate industry leadership, post consistently, and build a community across all your social channels.