In our last post, we looked into how to easily find topics for your blogs or social media. Here’s another important part of content marketing: sourcing and sharing others’ publications, known as third party content. We also call it curated content.
Curated content can include a blog article, a story about your destination from a major publication, an infographic (an image that explains a topic), a descriptive picture, or some research or data points from other sources.
Why should I find and share content from other businesses?
- How can you possibly produce your own content every week? When you have so many other things to do in your business, sourcing content from others is a great alternative to original content that keeps you in touch with your readers.
- You don’t always want to promote your own content, especially on social media. When you support others by content sharing, it gives you credibility and an unbiased perspective.
- With more facts, opinions, and recommendations, sourcing others’ content can complement and support a topic that’s important to your business. It can also benefit your website – read below to learn how.
When you share someone else’s content, a cool thing can happen, too. See, people love having their work shared and featured, and this ‘approval’ of their work can have a positive impact on you and your business, like having your content shared with their audience as well.
Let’s say I shared a link to a source on a blog I’ve written, that link is valuable for them (especially if it’s a do-follow link). As well of I share it on social media or blogs, I tag the source or send them a quick email to thank them for the excellent content. Guess what happens? They share it to their audience (in most cases) so your article has now been exposed to more people, which leads tomore social sharing, future collaborations, and even sharing of our posts and pages and earning a backlink to your site.
What’s a backlink? It’s when another website links to a page or post of yours. The more relevant your backlinks are, the higher you rank on major search engines like Google. (Read more about backlinks and website health on our blog)
Rules for Sharing 3rd Party Content
- Don’t plagiarize and rip off someone else’s content. It shows poor integrity, and bad business.
- Give the source credit when you use their content. This is a good business practice, and it prevents any personal or legal issues with someone.
Here are some good businesses practices for content sharing:
- Include the blogger/publications name in a social media post.
- Send a note, or a @share to thank them for the good content
- Comment on their Facebook page or in their blog comments section
- Quote the source of quotes and data facts
How to Find Good Curated Third Party Content
- Do a quick Google search. Google is a great place to find good content, so be sure to explore beyond page 1. Good content isn’t always found on the first page.
- Travel writers and bloggers have written posts about various topics relevant to travelers, including where to go, things to do, how to pack, you name it. They are a great resource, and when you share content and thank them for using their article, you have a bigger opportunity to get your social post or content shared with an audience of travelers you may be seeking. Who knows it could lead to a collaboration or a new client who eyed your post. Pinterest is one of the best platforms to search for travel related content because it goes beyond the first page of Google and its visually easy to find something that works for you. Also search travel industry news sites to find articles relevant to your content.
“But I don’t want to promote my competitors…!”
I hear this from tourism operators sometimes. My view is that the travel business industry is all about connecting and collaborating to survive. You may share a link or a post about your destination or type of business, and a competitor or an online travel agency may be featured on it. If you feel strongly about not using content from certain businesses or competitors, take them off your list to share.
“How to organize curated content and use them later?”
Once a week, I review content from other sources. When I find a relevant article for my audience, I add it to a Google sheet with its title and link. When I use it, I cross it out on my list. You can schedule to share content you curated once a week, on a given day of the week, or whatever schedule that makes sense to you.
Curated content sharing is another valuable tip in your content marketing tool kit. For more marketing tips, you can find them all here.
Do you have any tips to share about how you source your content not just third party content. Please hit reply and tell us!
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