This is an article “How to Plan and Curate Content” by Marc Primo Warren
The digital space is endless and creating your online presence can be a real challenge if you don’t know the first thing about content and curation. Algorithms change daily and the competition for top ranks on SERPs are also increasing. So how can you ensure that you have your fair share of engagement online? Feeding your target audience with content that can help them is the first step in increasing your online traffic, but curation gives it the power to really make a difference.
Creating interesting content for your audience is easy enough. The problem for most online content creators is coming up with unique and original materials that will appeal to their target audience. And that’s the first thing you’d want to accomplish in your content management. This process will require creativity, money, and of course, time for meticulous proofreading and review. However, even when all that’s done, there still won’t be any assurance that you can climb the search results ladder and ensure recall among your audience.
To help you understand how online content works, here are a few things you may want to review before you go ahead and start drafting your plan.
Build your audience
One of the most important things in building an online audience is identifying them and plotting out the journey you want them to tread via your website or blog. This means that you are going to have to align your content with what your target audience needs using the ‘hero’s journey’ formula that’s commonly used in storytelling. This involves calling them to a new adventure, feeding them new ideas, making them realize what changes they need, guiding them through the transformation, and finally introducing them to their new selves. You may use the hero’s journey formula in gathering insights to what your target audience needs or what they are looking for online and effect fulfillment in the process.
Draw your plan
Many people ask what the fuss is all about when it comes to content. For starters, 90% of consumers find customized content useful, 78% of readers believe that brands who use relevant content are genuinely determined to build audience relationships, and 73% rely on content to get a good idea about the brands they follow.
Drafting your content plan involves documenting your strategies and tweaking what needs to be improved. Start off by creating categories which you think your target audience needs then find out the right keywords you should integrate with your articles. www.kwfinder.com is a free online tool you can use to look for both exact and long-tail keywords.
Once you have determined your keywords and have listed down your articles per category, plot an editorial calendar so you can easily focus on which ones to research and draft while on a timeline.
Curation
When you finally have a large amount of content, you are now ready to curate your work to be able to present the best posts to your audience in a more organized and cohesive fashion. When curating content, you’ll notice that you are able to build value by reviewing comments, being able to update your articles, and share them with the right audience.
When curating your content, use the 70/20/10 Content Pie formula to identify which posts are proven to gain audience traction (70%), which ones are considered premium content or those which can be shared as guest posts and features (20%), and which ones are experimental or those that attempt to draw audiences further down your marketing funnel (10%). This formula is useful in building your reputation and becoming a good source of valuable content.
Content curation should also allow you to stay on top of current industry trends, increase your chances of becoming a legitimate influencer, and cut down your cost, not to mention create for yourself a deeper engagement with your audience. If you want to find out more about Marc Primo Warren our services or just say hi, please reach out here.