Are You A Content Creator or Content Curator?

What side of content do you prefer to play? Are you a content creator or content curator?

Content Curation has become hot lately which is probably due to every Tom, Dick and Harry telling you that “content is king” and you must provide “value-added content” for your website visitors to trust you. They are right. Providing content that your audience wants is going to make you valuable in their eyes and make them come back for more. Providing content they want is going to turn a website visitor into a fan and possibly an evangelist for you!

Today, I read an article by David Meerman Scott about how content curation is a poor substitute for original content. While I agree with it somewhat, the article stops there and does not elaborate. It was like the joke was told, but it stopped at the punchline.

Let’s define content curation. As David Meerman Scott notes, content curation is “pointing” to someone else’s work. Is it appropriate to do so? My comment is, it depends. If you are referencing something, yes. If you are copying, no. If you are lazy and do not want to create original content and you just want to have a blog post for today, that’s not good either. However, a middle ground could be if you do not have a lot of original content, you give credit to where it is due, and you comment about the content, it is acceptable. Why are you linking to it? Do you agree with it? How does it help your audience? Are you asking your audience thought-provoking questions such as do they agree with it?

It is always better to create original content, especially if you are a blogger, because people are reading you for your voice and for your opinions. They view you as value for their day. So, give value to them. Earn your “thought leader” title by thinking up new, original content and do not regurgitate old content. Now, content curation is acceptable if you are doing it for the right reasons – and the questions you should always ask with any content you provide are “does this benefit my audience?” and “how does this help my audience, prospect or customer in their lives?”

So, are you a content creator or content curator, or somewhere in between?