Buzz buzz content marketing buzz buzz.  Seems all we hear about these days is content marketing.

It's not really a new idea.  At the core of this "marketing trend" is the notion that most of us prefer not to be sold by flashy advertisements (although a bit can be clever, or inane...), but by insight into our pain, our problems, and potential paths to solutions.  I know there are those who would howl at this characterization - but content marketing is a smartening up (and a dumbing down) of  key messages that will support our brand. 

Content marketing is supposed to address every point of the buying cycle.  It addresses different personas differently.  And it is distributed through a range of channels.

Big problem, of course, is that most of us can't afford a dedicated staff to write new content that covers the breadth of our sales hourglass.  So, we make half-hearted attempts to write a white paper here, an infographic there, some web content, a guest blog post, etc.  And still, it really doesn't seem to do much in the short term.

Well, some - myself included - would argue that content marketing is a long-term game. In fact, I usually argue social media is a long-term game as well.  How can you stick to it over the long-term if content marketing is going to be a part of your marketing and sales toolboxes?

Content curation is the answer.  I've heard various definitions, but it became crystal clear to me when I had the recent pleasurable opportunity to participate in a demonstration of the content curation platform Curata.  Blew me away!

Curata is a SaaS sold on an annual subscription basis, and comes with a basic or essentials platform, and a series of helpful "upgrades" which incrementally affect your implementation budget.  It isn't a low-end solution, and so the price tag that it comes with can make a SMB blanch... but it sure has its place, and it sure is sweet technology.

In short, Curata is a smart platform that looks for content that matches terms of interest to you.  It uses natural language processing to find content that it believes is a good fit - and learns from your curation efforts.

Curation in Curata allows you to review all content it has found - and indicate whether the content is a good fit or not.  Curata learns from how you process, evaluating tags and keywords in content, and allowing you to refine these over time.  It progressively increases in relevance as you work within the system.

It provides elegant means for the user to modify or amend the incoming content - allowing users to add their own editorial comments, viewpoints, explanations of relevance, etc.  Then, through provided links to common web CMS platforms and/or through its available API (enabling links to a proprietary CMS), it allows the user to push curated content from the user's account to another web platform. 

Intellectual property is respected by full attributions to the source material, through enablement of article/content augmentation, and because content is typically presented in small abstract form.  Essentially, you are not doing a "copy and paste" - and you are not pawning content off as your own. When a user pushes content from Curata to her/his own website, the content can be rebroadcast or the website visitor can be linked to the original source of the material on the web.

If content marketing - providing helpful information relevant to your organization's prospects and clients - can drive business or sustain loyalty, and if you are struggling to generate enough to feed the content monster, then Curata might just be the panacea for your ill.  Seek a demo.  Tell them Todd sent you.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.curata.com

DISCLOSURE: No commercial considerations were received for this blog entry.  I volunteered it! It was that good!