🚩 Curate - TRUST-able #32 - May/Jun 2024
Curation to build trust. Curation key benefits. Curator evaluation criteria. Why do I curate. What to curate. Great content curators.
Hello,
welcome to a new edition of TRUST-able.
This newsletter focus is on how to build trust. What are the strategies and actions that can help you build more trust?
The focus of this specific issue is on *curating content* to build trust.
My thesis is that content curation, differently than simply writing, news reporting, sharing opinions, story-telling is an activity that leads to increased trust from readers as the activities / task / responsibilities the curator needs to carry out to curate, are natural trust-builders.
Trust is vital for building a successful healthy business, because people tend to buy and get service from those who have been recommended to them or that they personally know and trust.
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I hope you will find the contents of this issue, stimulating and useful.
If so, please allow me to continue this work by supporting this newsletter with a paid subscription, or by placing a like or a comment at the end.
Robin Good
In this issue: *Content Curation*
Why Curation Is Key In Building Trust
Why To Curate - Key Benefits
Why Do I Curate Content?
How To Recognize a Good Content Curator
.Great Content Curators
(Premium subscribers)What To Curate - 20+ Topics with 50+ Examples
(Premium subscribers)
1) Why Curation Is Key In Building Trust
Curating content is a uniquely powerful strategy in trust-building because it transparently showcases the true skills, intentions and ethics of the curator.
As curation requires carefully selecting, organizing, and presenting content or information in a way that adds value for a specific audience/need, the content curator automatically positions himself as a trusted guide, taste-maker and impartial evaluator.
Here below the key traits (actions and strategies) that seamlessly and synergistically conjure in building trust toward content curators.
Let’s analyze them one by one:
Focus
Curating content consistently in a specific area where one keeps building strong knowledge can definitely help to build a reputation as the go-to expert/person in a chosen niche.
.Insight
Adding your own analysis, insights and context to the curated content shows that you understand the material deeply and can offer valuable perspectives beyond merely sharing links.
.Breadth
Bringing together different authors, ideas and concepts to make a point, shows that you are not there just to peddle your own ideas. It shows you curate to surface ideas, trends and perspectives that give greater depth to those interested in your field.
.Source Uniqueness and Variety
Aggregating and reviewing many different and varied sources demonstrates the ability to search and to identify alternative authors and viewpoints, showing ability to monitor and explore, while uncovering new trends and insights.
.Context
Explaining why the curated content is important, how it fits into the larger picture, and which are its key takeaways are key in building trust as they demonstrate the curator’s understanding of the subject and his ability to guide others in understanding new, difficult or complex topics.
.Crediting and Referencing
Clearly attributing sources, citing and linking original authors as well as providing links and references allowing those interested to dive in deeper builds trust and reinforces authority while showing integrity, intellectual honesty and transparency.
.Filtering
By acting as gatekeepers, by ensuring high standards of accuracy, credibility, and relevance, and by filtering out low-quality, unreliable content, curators build increased trust from their readers.
.Alignment
Selecting the most relevant news and stories on a specific topic shows a curator competence and ability to identify what is of real value for his readers and his alignment with their key needs.
.Transparency
Clearly communicating selection criteria, methodologies, and any potential biases or conflicts of interest allows readers to evaluate the credibility of the curation process and to increase their trust in the curator. Such transparency generates a sense of openness and accountability, which strengthens trust.
.Consistency
Curating consistently over time, while maintaining high-quality standards, communicates professionalism and reliability, two key factors in building trust. Consistency in providing fresh and relevant information demonstrates also an clarity of vision and an ongoing commitment.
.Use of Data and Research
Including data-driven insights and research findings inside curated content referencing credible studies and statistics can increase the authority and credibility of the content being curated.
.Trends Spotter
By curating content that identifies and analyzes emerging trends and developments in a specific area of expertise positions the curator as a forward-thinking authority.
.Collaboration with Other Experts
Including content from other recognized experts and, if possible, collaborating with them on curated projects can enhance credibility and trust by associating you with already established authorities.
2) Why To Curate / Key Benefits
(for the Content Curator)
Becoming a content curator can be a rewarding endeavor, allowing you to:
position yourself as a trusted authority,
provide value to your audience,
keep on learning and understand better your field
stay always informed about industry trends, and
potentially create new professional opportunities and revenue streams.
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Truth is that, to this day, most people have a very superficial and foggy understanding of what content curation is.
In their eyes, curation is nothing else but cutting and pasting citations or excerpts from other sources, making sure they belong to a common theme and adding some comments and filler sentences in between them.
If you ask them what is the real value that curation brings to readers or which are the unique benefits that curating content lends to curators they will stumble and suggest that curation is a time-saver in producing content as well as a simpler way to generate value without having to write anything.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The reality, for those who have spent the time to inquire, research, ask questions and to experiment for themselves is quite different.
Curation is a way to collaboratively learn while demonstrating one’s own expertise in any given field.
Content curation is an art form that explicitly and transparently builds on the work of others, by taking their discourse one step further.
Content curation is an endeavour that greatly benefits the readers, by bringing together for them diverse perspectives, ideas, viewpoints and resources on a common thread.
Content curation is the science of uncovering rare, unique, hard-to-find content that would be otherwise lost, and to showcase, archive it and preserve it for infinity.
Curation gives extra learning powers to curators, by leading them to do in-depth research, analysis, while finding connections, parallels and patterns that may be visible only to those - like them - who have been exploring and evaluating a great quantity of content over time.
Content curation aids in building personal and brand authority. It does so by providing a tangible demonstration of superior knowledge within a certain subject-matter area.
Content curators benefit immensely by being exposed to so many different resources, viewpoints and perspectives.
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Content Curation Key Benefits (for the Curator)
1. Establish Thought Leadership
Content curation is an opportunity for any individual (or company) to create value while making his voice, opinion and perspectives be heard.
Rather than resorting to marketing and sales messages, or leveraging shallow content articles and blog posts, brands can curate specific information spaces by finding the best and most valuable resources on a topic and providing valuable commentary and perspective on them.
2. Build Authority and Credibility
By consistently curating high-quality content from authoritative sources, you demonstrate to know the experts and authorities in your field, enhancing your credibility.
But beware: Curation confers trust and authority to those, who are able not only to find and share relevant news and resources, but who can add value by explaining the why and how these have value and usefulness within a specific context (interest + audience).
The trust arises from the fact that curators help others gain a better understanding of something they do not fully comprehend.
3) Continuous Learning
Content curation is in my experience the most effective approach to learning and mastering any subject. It stands in sharp contrast to the classical school methods.
Curation helps to learn and to “know”, as it requires the curator to question, investigate, explore and experiment to construct a personal understanding of any subject.
Curation is the natural approach that an individual takes in an ideal situation to learn anything he needs. He goes out to find and interrogate all of the experts, he reviews their work, tests and verifies their claims, to arrive at his own conclusions and understanding of it.
“From Teaching to Diving: Memorizing Facts Is Not Good Enough”,
Robin Good, 2017“Organizing and Curating Content on a Subject May Actually Be the Best Way to Learn It”, Robin Good, 2012
4) Creating Unique Value for Your Audience
Curating valuable and informative content saves your audience time and effort by filtering through the noise and presenting them only with key info useful to them. For this reason it is essential that there is a very strong match between readers / audience needs and what gets to be curated.
5) Staying Up-to-Date with Industry Trends
Content curation requires a curator to continuously scan and monitor various sources, keeping him informed about the latest trends, developments, and best practices in his field.
6) Expanding Professional Network
One of the positive consequences of curating content is the natural development of relationships between curators and those being curated. By citing, referencing and mentioning other authors, a content curator signals his presence, appreciation and viewpoint to them. In turn, this helps individuals highly interested in the same topic, to discover and to connect to each other while peer reviewing each other’s work.
7) Developing Critical Thinking Skills
Content curation helps to develop a critical thinking approach by forcing the curator to explore, vet and evaluate personally what is of relevance.
To curate means to critically think. To critically think means being able to question reality and to have the skills to analyze and scrutinize any type of information.
Curation trains the naturally curious to explore with a more systematic approach, while maintaining a skeptical, investigative attitude.
This is why curation is an excellent method to develop a personal viewpoint and to become an insightful and critical observer.
8) Monetization Opportunities
Successful content curators can create opportunities to monetize their efforts in many different ways including sponsorships, ads, affiliate marketing, or by offering premium content or services to their audiences.
The other newsletter I publish,
, catalogs and analyzes such successful endeavours and the strategies that support them.9) Increasing Visibility and Reach
Curating helps being more visible inside major search engines. As long as it includes original commentary and credit/links to the original sources, curated content helps search engine optimization.
Source: Bruce Clay - SEO-friendly content curation
10) Community Building
Content curation is a strategic communication approach in the development of communities of interest, as it provides the core content, news and discussion subjects that can attract and hold a community together.
As a content curator researches, finds and brings together valuable content from different sources that is of keen interest to a particular audience, he and the public outlets where he shares his curated work, become meeting points for all those interested in that space.
Curation helps to foster interaction with a community of people who share specific interests.
References:
“Is Content Curation the New Community Builder?”, by Eric Brown, Social Media Explorer, 2011
“the job of curation is to synchronize a community so that when they’re all talking about the same thing at the same time, they can have a richer conversation than if everybody reads everything they like in a completely unsynchronized or uncoordinated way”
(Shirky 2010) via Ten10’s Blog.“Serve It Up: Frameworks for Curating Content in Communities”,
Michaela Hackner and Leah Stern, 2013.
Warning: Don’t get fooled. Although curation can save very significant time to those who benefit from it, it positively does not save any time at all to the curators who exercise it. It does instead save very significant time to those who benefit from it.
To know more about content curation benefits please see:
The Key Benefits of Content Curation (Robin Good - 2017)
3) Why Do I Curate Content?
Sometimes I myself wonder, how did I fell so deeply in love with *content curation*?
What is it, that gradually, but ever more intensely has captured my interest and has kept me fascinated for so long with this?
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1) I enjoy hunting
I am an explorer. I believe things are not what they look like at first. I enjoy uncovering what’s not immediately visible. In particular I enjoy searching beyond Google and finding rare, little-known stuff that few have noticed, but which, after inspection, I find of great value.
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2) I like to put things in order
Having to find categories, to identify threading themes, to put different stories, concepts and ideas in an order that offers meaning to the reader, are all exciting challenges to me and for which I feel I am naturally wired.
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3) I like to learn new things
Everytime I curate a topic, whether it be philosophical ideas, business opportunities or alternative tools, I come out with more knowledge and understanding. By researching, analyzing and vetting I get to look much deeper into things and to appreciate whatever many things that are not immediately evident.
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4) I feel as a participant in the discourse
I believe that we are all here to learn and that the best use of the Internet is for all to learn from each other while growing and evolving in different directions. For this to be possible, it makes a difference to see our contributions (what we publish) on the net as part of a larger conversation on the topic we have chosen to write about. The more we push this conversation forward, by curating different perspectives and ideas, the more I feel in tune with my mission on this planet.
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5) I am fascinated by the idea of creating value through curation
I like to confront myself systematically with the challenge of finding / extracting value where apparently there is none. If you take any of the individual pieces of a collection, of a newsradar or from a directory there is next to zero value in it. It is rather the collection, how it is organized, presented and what pieces are included in it, that determines its value for a specific audience / need.
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6) I like to do something, very few others do
Overall, there are still very few dedicated curators across all major fields of interest. Few have the talent, the interest, time and dedication to do it and fewer still really understand curation's true benefits. Overall, curation remains to this day, pioneering, experimental work done by little-known craftsmen, cultural artisans and information artists.
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7) I like to curate because I feel it keeps me ahead of the group
Yes, curating content forces me to study, read, research, analyze, compare. It forces me to ask a lot of questions and to make sense of the information I gather. Doing so helps me stay always on top of the fields I curate.
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8) Readers enjoy it and are willing to pay
For what I can see, readers enjoy curated work. They bookmark it, print it and they archive it among their precious stuff. The easier you make it for them to extract convenience and value from what you curate, and the faster they are willing to pay for it.
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9) I like to do something that AI can’t
I have tried. I have pushed AI to the limit but - for now - AI can’t curate. Its search and research abilities are for now, very, very limited. AI can do a great job of summarizing, synthesizing, identifying key questions to ask or structuring content. But it does not have the ability to find, organize and present stuff that is not already popular or well known. It gives me pride and joy being capable of providing value to other humans without delegating it to a machine. I love feeling like a craftsman, an artisan, a scholar.
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10) I enjoy seeing topics from above
I like to see things from above. When I get interested in something I seek a panoramic view. What I’ve discovered is that when I curate a subject, I get to see more of the panorama and less of the individual objects. It may not be the complete view, but it is much wider and richer than what I had before.
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11) I get to discover and know some very special people
By curating I bring together stuff and artifacts from other people. Many times these are not famous or highly popular individuals. Sometimes I reach out to them to ask for a permission or to get more specific info directly from them, and new valuable relationships are born.
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12) I keep on doing what I like the most
Curating and organizing resources are activities I have been enjoying (without being aware of it) since I was a kid. Classifying systems, organizing, visualizing. Collecting stamps. Curating music as a young DJ. All these experiences positively contributed to super-develop my taste-making analytical-critical circuits.
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13) I see opportunities and emerging trends
I noticed that by systematically curating specific topics over time, my sensitivity for how things evolve does increase as it becomes gradually easier to notice new trends as well as new interesting opportunities.
4) How To Recognize a Good Content Curator
How do you recognize a true content curator from anyone else?
What are the elements that characterize good content curation work?
How can you tell if someone is really good at curation or just boasting?
I thought about this, and if I was assigned to evaluate the work of a content curator, these 12 that follow, would be the criteria I would use to judge his work.
Clarity of Focus
Does the curated work have a clearly understandable focus, audience and need that it tries to inform, satisfy, answer?
.Context
Is the curated work properly contextualized so that the reader can rapidly understand its relevance, use, application?
.Insight
Does the curator analyze, comments, criticizes what he curates while providing non-obvious insights? Does he contribute unique perspectives or novel interpretations?
.Synthesis
Is the curator capable of distilling complex information into understandable summaries?
.Experience
Is the curator someone with extensive experience in the subject being curated?
.Accuracy
Is the curator personally vetting and verifying the content being curated?
.Sources
How varied, interesting, authoritative and unique are the sources of the content being curated?
.Value
Does the curator clearly explain why the curated work is of relevance, value or importance to him/her and possibly to the readers?
.Format
Is the curated resource organized, structured, packaged, presented and formatted in a way that allows the reader to comfortably explore and study it?
.Credit / Attribution
Does the curator fully credit the sources he has used?
.Language
Is the curator capable of expressing himself in a language and style that is fully understandable by his audience?
.Consistency
Does the curator show up consistently over time?
Other useful recommended reading resources:
In the Premium Section
Great Content Curators
What To Curate
20+ Topics with 50+ Examples