If you are not ready to create, curate
5 steps on how to start curating.
We are back from a wonderful week in Mauritius. Breaks away from your day-to-day life are so important for resetting your mind and energy. And they are game changers for the kids! Their excitement from the trip is still alive and they are so refreshed after a week away.
On to today’s topic.
The thought of ‘creating’ something can feel overwhelming, especially if you don’t work in the communications industry, or are not active online.
What shall I create? How do I create? I am not a writer? I am not a designer?
If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of ‘creating’ something, I have good news for you.
You don’t have to create anything. You can curate.
Content curation is finding, collecting and sharing useful content about a specific topic.
I’m sure you have curated content before.
If you have ever shared a quote, article, image or link to anything you liked, you have curated something.
You found it so valuable that you felt compelled to share it. And your followers are likely to consume that content and find value in it too.
There is so much noise online that people are drowning in it. You can help save their time by drawing attention to content that has value.
Even though it is not content created by you, you found it amidst the chaos and brought it to the forefront. There is tremendous value in that.
Some examples of successful curators:
Sari Azout’s from Startupy World: Sari is a seed stage investor, design-thinker, product strategist, storyteller and mum. She is building an entire business based on curation with Startupy World.
Startupy is a digital playground where curators collect, organize, map, and interconnect the most valuable business, investing, technology, and culture insights. Like the Pinterest for knowledge.
Josh Spector - For the Interested: Josh is a marketing / business consultant and writer who sends a daily newsletter to over 23,000 subscribers, majority of which is curated. It is so well-curated, that I often end up book marking all the links he shares.
Dylan - Growth Currency: If you are writing a newsletter (like I am!) Dylan curates great content to help you start, grow, improve, and monetize your newsletter (like he says it :).
John Bardos - Idea Economy: John runs a weekly newsletter to help creators and solopreneurs grow their audience and build their business. Once again, an excellent round up of links.
I save so much time and energy by relying on these curators for content, rather than looking for it myself.
Curators are very much part of the creator economy. All the above people are building businesses with curation at their core.
Curating could mark the beginning of your journey.
How to start curating?
5 steps from me on how you can start your curator journey:
Pick a topic: Pick a topic you are genuinely interested in. For example: Yoga for beginners; building better habits; productivity hacks for working mums; best books for 3-year olds; running a marathon for the first time; anything really, but pick one.
Start collecting: Start collecting the best articles / tweets / books related to that topic. You must see value in the article. Make sure you choose carefully, and not for the sake of choosing.
You can store the links you bookmark in your phone’s notes or on a Notion page. If you are feeling more adventurous, try https://mymind.com/
Keep doing this so you build a database of great links on a certain topic.
Choose a platform: Pick a platform to share these links on. Twitter is the easiest and fastest in my opinion; or open a blog on a platform like Wordpress or Medium.
Share consistently: Find a frequency that works for you (everyday / once per week / once per month), and publish these links consistently.
Explain in brief why you are sharing: It’s not enough to just post a link; take a minute to explain why you are sharing it and how someone else can benefit from it.
Voila, your curation journey has begun :)
Sharing ideas, no matter in what form, has great value.
Overtime, you will become known for sharing valuable content about a particular topic.
Once you start to be seen, you can grow your niche that will pave the way towards monetizing it.
What are you waiting for?
A few useful links for the week:
Creator Earnings: Benchmark Report 2022
2000+ content creators were surveyed in this report that demonstrates how every creator earns income in unique ways. Check it out here.
The creator path to time freedom and financial independence for mums
If you are a mum and want to know more about the creator economy and how it can give you some time autonomy and financial freedom, I created a small intro to it, you can download it here.
Any questions or comments, please hit reply or comment below!
Have a great week ahead.
Abha xx
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