Share Better Content by Thinking Like a Museum Curator

The Great Deluge of Content is real, and the rains are not about to abate.

We’ve talked about this before. There’s just too much content. Whether it’s Netflix, Youtube, blogs, emails, webinars, whitepapers, or whatever other channels or forms of content you have handed to you daily, there is simply too much to consume.

Every minute an unimaginable amount of content is created. Every 60 seconds 277,000 tweets are produced, 216,000 new photos are posted on Instagram, Yelp users post 26,380 reviews, Pinterest users pin 3,472 images, and 72 hours of new video are uploaded to YouTube.

But what among it is worth consuming? What among it is valuable?

It can be very easy to “like” or “share” a post or a link on all the social channels we’re exposed to and imply that it has value. It’s a click away, after all.

If a post is liked a thousand times, does that mean you should share it? Does it mean it is readable? Does it mean it provides value? Not necessarily.

Actually consume the content you share

While it might seem like an obvious thing to do, there is one critical action that has become an afterthought in recent years, and that is simply reading and watching the content we come across.

One LinkedIn post can point us to a potentially relevant piece of content based on an attractive headline alone. But how much does that headline actually resonate with the audience at hand? How much value do we find it has in our careers and in our lives?

This is where we need to apply a degree of scrutiny in our evaluation of shared content. Further, it brings us to a point where we need to be sharing content that is not necessarily simply popular, but also interesting and unique.

How many time have you liked a Facebook or LinkedIn post that has been liked or shared by hundreds of others simply because it was shared or liked by hundreds of others?

1. Share what people aren’t talking about

A thousand shares. Ten thousand likes. Trending supremacy. It is what we all seek. And it is what we cultivate when we facilitate when we post and repost some of the most newsworthy and timely content out there. Sometimes it is about the biggest news in politics. Sometimes it is about some superstar’s most recent public gaffe. But what builds legitimacy for your personal and corporate brand is your capacity to share and promote the stellar content that no one else is talking about, before anyone else.

There are tools out there that do this, like TrendSpottr, which anticipates trending topics and articles before they go mainstream. But if you want to be seen as a thought leader and on the forefront of innovation, you need to display that you are on top of trends in this regard, and that means sharing great content before anyone else.

Aggressively find the outside-of-the-box content in order to share prime material your follower base will love to read about.

2. Separate the wheat from the chaff

We need look no further than trending tools and Google’s suggested articles to find out what is ranking as top-trending news content on any given day. Discriminate conventional content from what hits the top of Google news trending topics in order to find content niches that will serve your community or audience in a better way.

Is there a local sports event that is being ignored? Are local or regional figureheads not being acknowledged appropriately? Where is the gap in news coverage? And what is getting too much attention? 

Judiciously separate what is noteworthy and under-recognized from what is overhyped and overplayed in order to curate a stream of content that is worth consuming.

3. Become a Museum Curator

It is easy to share and promote trending content because it reflects what is happening at one particular time, but it is quite another thing to share content that has a degree of permanence and timelessness to it.

Of course there will always be a role for timely, up-to-date, breaking content, but what will help enshrine your role as an excellent curator of content is your capacity to find and share insightful content that goes beyond the status quo and equips readers with knowledge they can use today and well into the future.

Think of it like being the curator of a museum. You wouldn’t just put any “5 tips to” post on display for visitors unless it offered real insight and long-term value. Post and share content that readers and viewers will genuinely benefit from consuming and remember as worthwhile information, especially within an age of content saturation.

Want to learn more? Get a headstart on excellence in content curation by downloading The Quick Guide to Killer Content Curation.