Content Curation = Marketing Credibility

We're about half-way through this year's SXSW, and one word I've heard a lot so far is "curation." It seems there is a problem with content on the Web, and a lot of people feel like curation is the answer.

The problem is information overload. We envision the flow of content online as a stream or a river — flowing peacefully by. In reality it is more of a disorganized scramble to consume as much crap as we can. And most of the content out there is, in fact, crap.

Just as we need a museum curator to help us sort out the masterpieces from every day art, content curators can help identify the small percent of content out there that is worth consuming.

As it turns out, this is exactly the role that FeedMagnet provides for marketers.

Finding the needle in a haystack

If you take all the content out there talking about a brand or product, most of it is crap. A lot of it is just people being stupid or not saying anything meaningful. Of the intelligent posts, some of it is negative, some is neutral, and some is positive. Those positive posts are a gold mine for marketers.

Curators add value to a community by distilling a large set of items down to just a few that tell a cohesive story. As a marketer, you have a very specific story that you want to tell about your brand or product. By curating the social mentions of your product, you can tell a story about happy customers and the fans of your brand — which is exactly what FeedMagnet was designed to do.

Trust and tapping in to your fan base

It is important to note that the marketer's role here is curator, not deceiver. People already have a hard time trusting marketers. We don't want to trick people into thinking only positive things are being said. Instead, we want to replace glossy marketing messages and fake plastic testimonials with something more authentic.

Even polarizing brands like Microsoft have plenty of people who love them. Rather than trying to build a sense of brand loyalty with images of people saying "I'm a PC," Microsoft could show off real posts like the one below - leveraging the love for their brand that is already out there:

Curation of brand mentions lets you show unedited, unsolicited posts that link back to the original source for authenticity and transparency — all of which can go a long way toward building credibility with marketing.