As twenty-first century marketers, we know better than to underestimate the value of content. Some examples include social media, blogs, ebooks, webinars and videos. Planning and preparing this content are key to good marketing. Delivering it to your target audience is another piece of the puzzle. Your goals may be to raise brand awareness, improve trust and credibility, drive consumers to participate — and of course — increase revenue.

When used correctly and appropriately, content marketing can have sky-rocketingly positive results. An added bonus is that content marketing can actually be less expensive than traditional methods, by up to 62%. On top of that, content marketing can also generate close to three times as many leads compared to those traditional methods according to DemandMetric.

However, sometimes you don’t want to have to write up this content from scratch … what’s the solution? Take a break from being a creator and become a curator.

Curated content is content shared on social media that comes from other brands or individual people. Some examples can be links to articles, sharing a social media post, or organizing information from other places into one blogpost.

Allow us to break it down for you:

• Curated content is not content you created yourself — rather it’s content created by someone else that you are
• Content chosen to be shared has been selected carefully — to fit the needs of your specific audience to maintain their interest.
• This helpful content can be inspiring, educational, or simply entertaining.
• Content may have been repurposed into another format.
• Credit is always given to the source when sharing.

Here are some benefits to using curated content:

• Saves you time and money.
• Also saves your audience time.
• Improves trust and creditability.
• Creates a new point of engagement.
• Comes off as genuine, and not self-promoting.

When you don’t have the time or resources to create your own content, curating content saves you both time and money. It also saves your audience time because it will cut down the need for them to do their own outside research.

And, the more positive curated content they encounter from you, the better your reputation. This helps to build trust, credibility and reliability. Sharing content in this way encourages your audience to also share and build upon content they come across. While the content you’re sharing is likely similar or helpful advertising for your products, it won’t come off as a “buy now” offer to your audience.

Content curation is also a great way to highlight your brand’s values and support social causes. In one of our earlier blogposts (To Make Good, You Have to Do Good), we discussed how today’s consumers want to support companies that align with and support their personal beliefs and values. Curated content is an easy way to solidify where your company stands on issues, without actually taking a stand yourself through the process of creating content. Sharing “pre-made” content from someone else can be seen as just as genuine if done well.

Curated content can be a great solution to connect with your audience, reach new people, and build your network.