Best Content Curation Practices: Annotation
Best Content Curation Practices:
Don’t Just Curate … Annotate!
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Quality Curation Adds Value Through Commentary And “Annotation”
The best content curation practices do involve some work. As the practice of curating content has grown in use and acceptance, a lot has been made about the “time saving” advantages experienced by bloggers and content marketers who no longer need to create all their own content, but can “curate” the content of other authorities in their field. This benefit is real and valuable. However, the act of creating “quality” curations is not as simple as throwing up a lot of content willy-nilly, and requires a good amount of time and effort in other areas.
Here at Curation Works, we teach that the best Curation Practices demand that we “add value” to the curated content through our own editorial comments and observations. In this way we are “moderating” a conversation … or, one might say, “annotating” the curated content. This is a great concept to keep in mind for the blogger or social network content curator.
Here’s a really great blog post from Pawan Deshpande, the Founder and CEO of Curata, that goes into detail on this subject and provides some GREAT guidelines:
6 Content Curation Templates for Content Annotation | Curata.com
Curata.com Aug 13, 2013
“… content curation continues to grow in popularity year over year. Given that, just like you there will be others who are curating the same content as you are to their audience. To standout from the rest, adding thoughtful commentary is important to demonstrating your expertise in a subject and sharing your point of view.” …
Read More Here: http://www.curata.com/blog/6-content-curation-templates-for-content-annotation/
Use A Template … Incorporate Several Styles Of “Annotation”
As outlined in the article linked to above, there are several forms of annotation you can use. All of them are valuable. Some add more value to your presentation while some add less. Some have more SEO value, while others bring less rewards in that respect. This is one of the reasons we’ve developed the “Curation Works Post Template” the way we have. It’s a simple, easy to understand, template for a curated post that leads the user, comfortably, into creating a well-curated, well-annotated post, that delivers all the components of “best curation practices”, while providing ample opportunity to “annotate” the content and really add value. This post you’re currently reading was formatted using that template.
Whether you make use of our template or create your own, it’s vital that you “add value” by using some of the “annotation” methods outlined in the Curata article. Adding your own value while keeping the amount of directly quoted content down to “teasers” only, will insure you aren’t simply posting Duplicate Content. In that case, Google will love you and the creators of the content you’re curating will love you as well.
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The paralleling idea is an interesting one. I haven’t thought of this as a way to curate. Do you have any examples of sites that are doing this effectively? I’d love to check out additional examples. Thanks!