Every Sunday at 3 PM, US Eastern time I publish “Leadership Reading to Start Your Week.” Every Friday I publish my “Writing Edge” selections. They’re two of the curation posts I do every week for myself and for clients.
A curated post gives you a way to deliver high quality content to your reader without having to compose a new post. Some bloggers comment on each item in the post, others don’t. I do both.
To create a great curated post you must know your reader and do an efficient job of creating the posts. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve found what works for me. Here are three steps to create great curated posts.
Curation Step One: Find good stuff
A curated post should point your reader to material he or she thinks is valuable, but might not find on their own. That means you must review a wide range of sources, including some that are off the beaten track. My “Leadership Reading” posts include pointers to fifteen posts or articles every week. Most weeks they come from twelve or more sources.
Automate some of the process. I use Feedly to catch the RSS feeds of blogs that offer good content.
Ritualize some of the process. I use several bookmark lists to scan publications for good material. I work through those lists every week, assigning lists to a specific work day.
Customize some of the process. Spend a little time every week searching for articles on the topics you cover. This is a good way to discover publications you want to review regularly.
I capture all the possible posts using Evernote. That sets up the third step.
Curation Step Two: Pick out the best
The whole idea of curation is that you will pick out excellent bits to share with your reader. I’ve found that sharing the same number of pointers every time makes the process work better. For most of my curated posts that’s five pointers, but the Writing Edge is two.
There are two ways to do the selection. Some bloggers collect all the relevant posts and then review them all at once. Bloggers who do this think it’s efficient and gives them a good overview of the possibles. That doesn’t work for me.
I get better results if I review the posts I’ve found several times during the week. I try to keep this list of possibles to the number I will ultimately list. I suggest you try both methods to find what works for you.
Curation Step Three: Publish
Publishing your curated post is the final step. I like to use a standard format so that the publishing process is routine.
Bottom Line
Curated posts can help you develop your expertise and your reputation. They’ll deliver the best results if make the publishing workflow a set of routine activities