News Curation: 3 Ways the Pros Do It
News curation is the act of finding, grouping, organizing and sharing the most relevant and noteworthy news stories about specific topics of interest. Unlike traditional online news publishers (newspapers, magazines, TV networks) and blogs, which primarily create original content, news curators focus on finding (or cultivating)the best content that is already published. There are three primary types of news curation sites, exemplified by Techmeme, Yahoo! News and The Huffington Post, each a leader in their category.
Collection of Links. Techmeme is a website comprised of groups of links providing up–to-date information and tech industry news from various sources around the web. The site is organized into categories such as Top Items, Sponsor Posts and Who’s Hiring in Tech. This provides a simple yet powerful go-to source for tech news and resources. There are two things worth noting about Techmeme. First, the site acts as a launching pad for all news in technology and simply links out to the original articles. Second, there is a great amount of automation that goes on behind the scenes and the site largely “runs itself,” including grouping relevant articles together in clusters. Techmeme illustrates how keeping content simple, yet direct and informative can be very effective.
Content Aggregation. Yahoo! News prominently features the most recent and popular news along with providing a comprehensive source for a complete range of easy to navigate news topics. Unlike Techmeme, however, Yahoo! News hosts content on its own site. This, of course requires that the curator has agreements with each publisher whose content is being hosted. Yahoo! News is also largely driven by automation. In fact, its pages are often personalized to the individual reader.
Content Commentator. The Huffington Post is a respected site comprised of curated news, video, blogs and a vibrant online community. The publication expands beyond aggregation by not only presenting content, but surrounding it with its own commentary and perspective. Visitors can expect and rely on The Huffington post to deliver high quality material with a no-nonsense, direct approach to news. Their intelligent, purposeful content creates a satisfied and loyal audience. To achieve this type of connection with their readers, The Huffington Post does not rely on automation, but human editors who not only select the content to curate, but also decide on the light in which they will present it.
Here are some effective actions straight from the pros for every news curator to consider:
- Decide on the amount of automation that you will use for your content curation
- Focus on your area of expertise to gain a specific loyal audience
- Create a community for your visitors to connect and discuss your content
- Branch out and collect the best content from across the web
- Use images, video and good visual design to draw in visitors
- Maintain a continual and consistent flow of content
If you are interested in learning more about how to use automation for content curation, feel free to explore Lingospot's Algorithmic Publishing software or contact us for a free consultation.
