By sifting through content and finding the stuff thatвЂ™s actually valuable, you do your audience a very valuable service. Part of curating content is searching for the right nuggets. (If youвЂ™re simply sharing the same content the original creator put out, you might as well just give your readers a hyperlink and tell them to click to find out more.) 5. This makes it unique and gives you a reason to curate. While there are times when you can curate and share a piece of content in isolation, the general best practice is to provide some sort of context and original commentary. It gives them exposure and backlink вЂњjuice.вЂќ In fact, if you share a backlink, most savvy business owners and bloggers wonвЂ™t care what or how much of their content you curate. A failure to do so is rude (at best) and illegal (at worst).Д«y citing the original source, you show the original content creator that youвЂ™re acknowledging their status as the owner. Always Cite the Original SourceДЄlways, always, always cite the original source and provide a backlink where possible. By spreading things out, youвЂ™re less likely to be seen as вЂњstealing.вЂќ Instead, youвЂ™re seen as an authoritative voice for your community. Good content curation requires a variety of sources that you pick and choose from. YouвЂ™re just using their content and passing it along to your audience. If youвЂ™re only curating content from a specific blog, youвЂ™re not really curating.

And when you do curate, make sure youвЂ™re pulling content from a wide variety of sources. Be Selective in What Content You CurateДonвЂ™t blindly curate anything and everything. (This coverage will help protect you from lawsuits initiated by someone who accuses you of copyright infringement.) 2. If you donвЂ™t already have one, nab a general liability insurance policy that offers personal and advertising injury coverage. However, this is a great time to remind business owners and marketers of the importance of having the proper safety nets in place to prevent misunderstandings or mistakes from creating harm. When content curation is approached correctly, you have very little to worry about. Now that weвЂ™re clear on what content curation is not, letвЂ™s go over a few practical tips you can use to safely and legally curate content to generate the best possible results: 1. Tips to Safely and Legally Curate Content Instead, you have to work within the rules and curate in a legal and ethical manner. There are very few situations in which youвЂ™re able to copy and paste someone elseвЂ™s content into your own digital channels without express consent. Like any other creative work, digital content is protected by certain copyright laws. Just because youвЂ™re able to find a piece of content online, doesnвЂ™t mean you can legally use that content. That includes a blog article, image, video, or anything else that somebody created.вЂќ вЂњIf youвЂ™re copying somebody elseвЂ™s work and placing it on your website as your own, that is illegal by any legal standard. вЂњFirst, content curation isnвЂ™t plagiarism, scraping, or copyright violation-or shouldnвЂ™t be,вЂќ entrepreneur Tim Parker writes. In order to be successful with content, you have to understand what content curation is not.

But as you might guess, there are some rules and potential complications that come with curating content that you donвЂ™t own. WeвЂ™re living in an editorial age where content curation is king.Д¬ontent curation is basically the act of finding existing content thatвЂ™s already being shared online and bringing it to your own audience. Whereas the worldвЂ™s most profitable websites and brands were once content creators, todayвЂ™s leading sites вЂ“ like Buzzfeed and ViralNova вЂ“ tend to err on the side of content curation. And this makes it nearly impossible for people to sift through trillions of words of copy, billions of videos, and millions of blogs to find the information they need. In fact, the vast majority of all content ever created by mankind has been produced in just the last three years.

The sheer volume of content thatвЂ™s being created and published online is enough to overwhelm the billions of users who access the internet on a regular basis. And if you want to be successful with content curation, you need to make sure youвЂ™re staying on the right side of that line. Curating content removes much of the heavy lifting that needs to be done in order to produce original content, while still engaging your audience and populating your social and content channels with valuable messaging that educates and nurtures.Д«ut as with most content marketing strategies, thereвЂ™s a fine line between whatвЂ™s legal/ethical and whatвЂ™s not. If youвЂ™ve spent any time on this blog, you know that content curation is the main focal point вЂ“ and for good reason.

How to properly cite sources in a blog