PracticalDermatology

Content creation has traditionally been the backbone of online marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Most dermatology marketers, however, tend to overlook the potential power of content curation, which is a lesser known form of content development. Curating the right type of content, tailoring it for the target audience, and adding value to it in the form of comments and opinions can produce excellent SEO benefits for your dermatology website.

Content Curation Overview

Content curation is the process of discovering, gathering, and sorting through large amounts of digital content and presenting it in a concise, cogent, and cohesive manner around a specific subject matter. While many marketers still believe that content curation is the new buzz word in the SEO industry, for some nimble-footed movers it is already becoming a marketing staple to boost their online presence more effectively.

Watch it Now

What are author tags, how do they work, and how do they protect your content? The Ekwa Marketing team explains in this Ekwa.com educational video. Watch now: dermtube.com/video/authority-tagsprotecting-your-content/

One of the defining features of content curation is analyzing the demographic profile of your website traffic and curating content that is appropriate to their needs. Their response to the curated and shared content should be constantly monitored to make the curation strategy more effective. Content curation does not mean simply sharing content created by others. It involves restructuring of the entire information to make it relevant and shareable.

Professional content curation is all about selecting and polishing the most outstanding content and serving it up to your target audience, while giving due credit to the originator or creator of the content.

Need for Content Curation

Every day a staggering amount of fresh content is being generated and shared via websites, social media, blogs, and online forums. Excellent knowledge and information is embedded in this content, but it can become useful only when someone applies their time and skill to curate such a vast amount of information in a meaningful form and present it succinctly before their target audience who are seeking it.

Content curation makes information easier to digest, and in the process delivers great value to the readers. Creation of original content is important, but sharing top quality, relevant content created by others can also serve the larger purpose of educating your readers. There is no rule that says that the wheel must be reinvented each time just for the sake of being original. The bigger goal must be to deliver value to your site visitors by using every tool in your toolbox.

Focus on Quality and Customization

With an unwavering focus on quality and customizing the content for the target audience, it is possible to support brand building, inbound link generation, and reader loyalty through curatorial techniques. Increasing improvisations in search algorithms by Google and other search engines are ensuring that using content curation in a degenerative form for instant gratification and short-term visibility in search results are activities of the past.

A systematic, customized content curation approach and a sharp eye for quality, relevant content gets received favorably by the search engines. The content curator should be able to sift through large volumes of content and identify valuable nuggets of information from diverse sources ranging from Facebook postings to in-depth white papers and e-books.

Content Curation Tools

A number of innovative tools are available to make the task of content curation automated and more efficient.

It is time to ask yourself: “Is my practice geared up to be a part of a new, connected patient’s purchase journey from the search engine or mobile to my practice door?”

Download Free Workbook

Download this self-help workbook to gain new insights into how to market your practice, build your brand, and win new patients. This workbook is currently being offered free of charge, exclusively for the readers of Practical Dermatology®. Get it at PracticalDermatology.com

GetPocket.com If you are new to content curation, Pocket is a good place to make a start. You need not maintain a long list of bookmarks, links, or notes about the relevant content you wish to curate. Pocket will enable you to organize all the required articles, graphics, photos and videos in a single place.

It will allow you to tag and group the articles and you can find them later easily with its built-in search function. You can download the Pocket app on your phone and install the Pocket button on your Internet browser for smooth and easy curation.

Newsletters A handful of leading newsletters are doing excellent work in content curation. You may subscribe to these newsletters and receive great content via email.

• MediaRedefined.com: The former co-president of MySpace and one of the top social media pioneers, Jason Hirschhorn, runs this newsletter that offers some of the best curated content online.
• QZ.com: The daily newsletter from Quartz offers a variety of daily news and content. The newsletter is primarily text based, and avoids heavy images. It will load efficiently on your mobile devices and laptop and reads well across all screen sizes.

Scoop.it This tool offers a hybrid of social media and content curation with a user-friendly interface. You can choose your topic of interest and the tool will search the latest and most relevant articles on that theme to read and share. The tool will also provide you with other topics that complement your theme. It will send daily updates on the topics of your interest so that you can share new and compelling content every day.

Storify This increasingly popular content curation tool that will let you browse, search or create stories from various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram to follow or tell a story. Many professional users broadcast their latest product launches, seminars, and other events via Storify.

Tools of automation will make it easier for you to make sense of incredible amounts of online information and leverage it for your dermatology practice marketing. Content curation is not the same as content marketing or content creation. However, the goal remains the same, which is to provide greater value to your readers and give them a reason to visit your website or blog regularly. n

Naren Arulrajah is President and CEO of Ekwa Marketing, a complete Internet marketing company which focuses on SEO, social media, marketing education and the online reputations of Dermatologists.

With a team of 130+ full time marketers, www.ekwa.com helps doctors who know where they want to go, get there by dominating their market and growing their business significantly year after year. If you have questions about marketing your practice online, call Naren direct at 877-249-9666.