In the world of digital marketing, content is king. Digital marketers spend endless hours creating and finding sources for new content opportunities. Mainly, there are two different types of content: content creation and content curation. We will explain both and help you find a happy medium for your marketing efforts.
The Advantages of Content Creation
Owning your Content
Unlike content curation, content creation is entirely original. It’s created, branded and marketed all by the same company.
- By creating your own content, you ensure that there won’t be any issues involving copyright or ownership like you might come across during content curation.
- With complete creative control over content, you have the ability to insert your unique company’s brand with logos, color schemes or taglines.
- When you’re able to add your branding to content, you guarantee that everyone who comes across it will also see your company’s distinctive branding symbols.
The above benefits will potentially help to increase online visibility, recognition and hopefully result in more leads.
Becoming an Industry Thought Leader
When you’re producing and distributing content that is solely your own, there’s a chance that, by directly appealing to the interests of your target audience, you can attract a dedicated following that depends on your content as a reliable source of information.
This is what happens when you become an industry thought leader. By circulating content that is relevant to a select group of people, you can become the go-to source for all things that relate to your industry. This can do wonders for your brand, traffic and lead generation.
The Impact on Traffic and Leads
According to Google’s advanced algorithm for ranking web pages, it tends to highly favor content creation over curated content in search results. Digital marketers tend to optimize their own content and web pages to be SEO friendly.
When you repost content from other sources, you lose the opportunity to create more web pages that you could possibly rank for. All traffic that comes from that piece of content will be attributed to your site when it’s your own. When you direct people to other sites, then they will see an increase in traffic.
Furthermore, when you’re optimizing and branding your own content, there are more chances for you to convert visitors to leads and, if all goes according to plan, eventually full-fledged customers.
The Benefits of Content Curation
Giving your Audience More to Work with
Curation involves posting content that your company did not create on its own. On the surface, that might seem like a slippery slope, but there’s actually plenty of advantages to it.
- First of all, it allows you to give your followers content that might be of use to them. Most of the time, content curation involves posting information that pertains to your industry. In this case, your company can still be considered a source for relevant industry knowledge.
- Also, when you share content from others, there’s the possibility of collaboration between your company and the original source.
- By sharing a different company’s content, they’re more likely to share yours. This can allow you to form a mutually beneficial relationship.
Saving Time
When you work in digital marketing, time is money and content is king. However, good content takes a while to create and you won’t always be able to spend days perfecting it.
When using curation, you will be able to share content quick and easy. When you have a lot on your plate, mixing in curated content with created content can do wonders for your schedule. It’ll save you time that you can put towards your other marketing efforts.
Content creation and curation are two great ways to build your brand by appealing to your target audience. Using everything you learned, try to find an equilibrium between the two.
