Curated Content: Time Saver, or Dangerous Proposition?

If you’ve been paying attention the past year, you know that every company is becoming a media company. Period. End of story. Whatever industry you are in, you should attack it by creating interesting and engaging content through video, writing, whatever tools you have at your disposal.

But during this whole process, one thing you want to be cautious of is the often used tactic of curating content. Essentially, curating content means you pull articles or videos from other sources and media companies, then post them to your own social channels as a way of producing more content in a day.

Makes sense, right? Not only can you put together a great group of content, if you’re a brand, it can be very tempting to constantly use content created by fans of your community or members of the community as something to post on your pages. Even brands at my agency VaynerMedia have played curated content to see how it tests.

In general, I think curating content can be a very successful tactic. If you do it right, it can be a great benefit to your social and online presence.

But my biggest issue, and the reason I tell people to be cautious with it, is this: if you’re curating it, you’re endorsing it. A hundred percent. If you decide to take a piece of content and post it to your own pages, which is absolutely an endorsement, you need to have time to go down the rabbit hole and ensure that everything this person says, you are completely okay with.

Let me use another example. Often, I will be asked to give a quote for a book before it launches. Someone will email me a quick description of the book

If your name’s on it, you are endorsing it. Plain and simple.

So, if you do want to get into curating content, go for it. Maybe you’re not even looking for posts related to your brand. Maybe you want to curate a page with the best posts about hot topics in your industry. But the same still applies. When you attach your name to someone else’s, especially in the social age we live in, it can be very difficult to backtrack on that.

Make the commitment. If user content fascinates you, make time to go down the rabbit hole.