5 Ways to Become the MacGyver of Content Curation
MacGyver could build a trap with a toothpick, a bobby pin and some duct tape. Crazy, right? The thing is - he had a knack for consolidating items and repurposing them to serve whatever his current needs required. He was totally the first survivor man - resourceful, creative and all-around awesome!
The process of curating content to aid your marketing endeavours requires you to adopt a MacGyver-esque mindset. Here are 5 steps to help you get started on your way to becoming the MacGyver of content curation:
If you don’t know what you’re trying to solve – how are you going to fix it? You need to begin by identifying what your audience wants to read about; and what questions and concerns you can help them address.
The purpose of content curation is to gather existing, relevant content from the web and share it with your online audience. Your first step is nailing down that single dilemma that you and your business hope to help your customers resolve.
Like MacGyver, you need to canvas your surroundings and know the lay of the land within your industry. Monitoring your social media news streams - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter – allows you to see in real-time what your customers are talking about and what they are searching for. You should read and subscribe to the thought-leaders in your industry, their blogs, case studies and articles.
Your readers need to see you as a go-to resource for information and look to you as the MacGyver who will get them out of a bind when they need the best of the best information on the net about their industry.
Now you gather. If you know the pain points you’re trying to help your readers resolve; you come to the rescue by consolidating that information for them in one place. Remember to discern, discriminate and be selective.
Be mindful of the authors that write the work and link back to them, giving credit where credit is due. What you publish is a reflection of your business, and you don’t want to repost for the sake of publishing. MacGyver didn’t rock a gun because he didn’t need one – if an article doesn’t serve your end, you don’t need it.
This is the fun part. Now that you’ve got your tools, it’s your time to shine and jury-rig a piece of content all your own from the parts that you’ve collected. Get your MacGyver on and reframe the content by adding your own spin, thoughts or comments. Whether it’s a list of resources that you’ve curated, such as the best blogs for cooking (supposing you’re in the food industry) or curating great free writing tools on the web – it’s up to you to make it your own.
Now go spread the word. Your intention for curating the content was to solve other people’s problems – right? Well, now that you’ve done so – you need to get the word out there. Publish to your social media networks to get your link juice flowing and garner greater exposure.
While you may not be a troubleshooting, secret agent like MacGyver, you can definitely be a rocking resourceful content curator by mimicking his vibe. Now go save the day for your readers!
