According to findings from the High-Impact Learning Organization study by Bersin by Deloitte, employees find it most difficult to learn, NOT because there isn’t enough content, but because there is TOO MUCH of it, and they cannot find what is valuable.

This is where content curation comes into play. 

Many future-focused organizations have adopted content curation as one of their L&D strategies. It is time you did too! 

In this article, you’ll learn what is content curation, and why it is critical, now more than ever before. Learn how to be an effective content curator who makes life easy for learners and the various strategies for curating content.

If you have never curated content before, then this post is your one-stop place to learn all about it. 

What is Content Curation?

As Bersin by Deloitte defines, content curation is both an art and a science. It deals with identifying the most relevant information for a specific group of target audience and contextualizing and organizing it before presenting it to them.

It is an effective way of mining information that makes relevant data readily available to learners. Learners are spared the need to hunt around for content or read through mountains of irrelevant information to find what they need. 

 If you’re curating content well, you’re adding your own value to it. 

Content Curation Strategies

Like all other methods of the trade, content curation too is most effective when you follow some proven success strategies.

Here are some that work:

Let learners take the lead. 

Let your audience do all the legwork; give them the power to rate or vote content based on relevance. Create a framework where the most-voted or the highest-rated content has the greatest visibility, so more people get to know about it. You can incorporate nifty “social” features like providing learners with the ability to build communities around shared interests or follow each other and check out what others are excited about. 

Turn your course into a portal that opens to a world of information. 

You can create an eLearning course that actually works like a content management system and guides learners by linking to a database of curated content, organized according to the subject, job responsibilities, and department. 

Consider creating a curated “Resources” page. 

A Resources page at the end of the course can direct learners to additional information. These links can be both internal and external resources that you trust will deliver valuable content, consistently. Ensure that you describe briefly what each link is about, so learners know what to expect. However, if you are not too comfortable with the idea of placing links within your course, you can link to a separate Resources page on the intranet.

Evolve continuously.

 As an eLearning designer, you know how critical it is for you to keep learning, growing, and innovating. As a content curator too, you have to keep refining your strategies. Take cues from learner feedback. Pay heed to evolving business needs and changing training requirements. Stay on top of marketing, multimedia, and content management, and delivery trends so that you can offer engaging and valuable content to learners.

Conclusion:

Content curation is the process of finding, organizing, and sharing content from other sources on the web. It can be a great way to find content for your blog or social media accounts and help you build relationships with other content creators.

When done correctly, content curation can also boost your SEO efforts. To be successful at content curation, follow some best practices, such as giving credit to the source, combining it with original content, and scheduling your content in an editorial calendar.

Content curation can be a valuable addition to your content marketing strategy with the right approach.