Content Creation vs. Content Curation

Content creation and curation are cousins yet distinct concepts that work effectively when synergized. As a digital marketer or brand manager, you should employ a mix of tactics from both content creation and content curation.

With excellent content, you can improve your reputation, attract more people to your blog or website and ultimately score more leads. Your content can work with social media marketing, email marketing even paid adverts building value for your brand.

Content creation vs. curation

What is the difference between content creation and content curation?

Content creation is the creation from scratch of new pieces of content. These could be a written piece or info-graphic. These are original works created specifically for your brand strategy to be shared in a number of ways.

Content curation is the process of finding existing content and modifying it for your brand. Depending on your goal and objectives and type of content this could mean sharing someone else’s content on your social media platform, adding your own commentary to someone else’s blog post or even cultivating testimonials from your customers.

Advantages of content creation

• Originality. Creating from scratch makes your content original. Your audience will appreciate this content for being first or unique in nature and you. Content creation is invaluable if you’re interested in creating a better brand reputation.
• Uniqueness. As you create, you have the opportunity to craft a well researched piece of marketing communication that speaks to your target audience directly. Your brand content will be highly targeted content and not a generic piece. This is important for persuasive or sales communication pieces.
• Control. As a creator you maintain control over which content you share and publish. It’s a chance for you to create whatever you want unlike content curation where you won’t have control over the core of the message.

Advantages of content curation

• Least possible time. One benefit of content curation is that you won’t need to spend as much time writing a new article from scratch especially if you’re creating something that requires in-depth research. Using an existing piece and adding a few pieces of commentary and edits won’t take much time at all, by contrast.
• Extending networks. Curating content can also be a way to beef up your network, meet new influencers and build better relationships with them. You can share research highlights by a trusted authority in your industry and use it to stir a conversation with them. In future, you can collaborate on a new creative piece together and share each other’s work cross-pollinate your audiences.
• More options. You can find anything on internet, with more than 1.7 billion websites and 600 million active blogs theres a wide choice of external content you can find in your field. When curating content you can find articles and opinion pieces that fit your brand.

Creation + Curation; Using both strategies

Relying exclusively on both curation and on creation will yield you superior results compared to using only one strategy. These strategies enhance each other’s positive effects. The more you create original content, you will develop a stronger reputation as an authority in your space; with this, you’ll find it easier to reach out to other content creators and collaborate.

All aboard

If your brand uses content as a centerpiece of your online marketing strategy, take the time to discover the merits of both content creation and content curation that work for your brand. Curating content exposes you to different perspectives and opinions, which you can use as research to fuel your own creations.

Creating content puts your brand front and center as a thought leader attracting new and interesting audiences —use both strategies as integral components of your campaign. Remember the balance between creation and curation will look different for every brand, but almost any brand can benefit from them.