Playing with Content Curation Tool, Scoop.It

Some years ago, I heard about “content curation.”

Content curation is the thoughtful collection, gathering, and publication of content from different sources, around a specific topic.

I think most of us who are using Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites are already curating content. My tweets on Twitter and posts on my Facebook timeline present curated content. A Pinterest board is a content curation medium.

So do we need to use a dedicated content curation tool like Scoop.it?

To find the answer, I tried Scoop.it myself.

Well, nobody HAS to use it or similar content curation tools. They're not essential to successful online or content marketing. However, content curation can have its advantages:

• It lets me collect interesting content and archive it in a meaningful way. Forget about bookmarking web pages. A Scoop.it board is much more visually appealing and easier to manage than bookmarks.
• Avoid information overload. A Scoop.it topic is a record of how I've filtered through all the information I've found on that topic. This is useful for myself, but I can also share it and help others make better sense of all the content out there.
• Integration with other social media profiles. Scoop.it is another social media platform, because you can interact with other users and engage with them. For example, you could follow their topics and re-scoop their scoops (similar to retweeting on Twitter). However, even if you didn't, it's easy to share your topics on your social media profiles.
• Search engine optimization (SEO). Scoop.it topics are indexed by Google, so it could be yet another way for new audiences to discover you.
• Content creation. You can create a Scoop.it topic as part of research when you're writing a blog post, video script, or other type of content. But the topic itself is new content, like a magazine page or web page, that has it's own URL. You can even embed a topic on your website, like this:

And, you know what? Creating a topic (or board) is actually fun.

Do you use Scoop.it or similar content curation tools?

What do you like about curating content online? What advise do you have for marketers like me who are new to these tools?