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In the age of social media, Twitter has become a particularly valuable platform for thought leaders to share their ideas and engage with their followers.
But what kind of content should you share on Twitter to build credibility for your thought leadership?
One way to enhance your thought leadership strategy on Twitter is by curating and sharing relevant content from other sources.
This allows you to share a broader range of information and perspectives and helps to establish you as a credible and well-informed source without having to create all of your own content.
Additionally, curating content can be a great way to engage with other industry experts and influencers and learn from them.
Here at UpContent, we help hundreds of companies surface thousands of articles daily for their content curation strategies, many of which are focused on developing thought leadership across multiple platforms.
We’ll share five benefits of using curated content for your Twitter thought leadership efforts, four tips for curating effectively, and four best practices when sharing curated content on Twitter.
Sharing curated content is a great way to diversify and build your thought leadership on any social media platform, but it shouldn’t substitute for your original content.
Adding curated content to the content you’re already creating has plenty of benefits.
1. Increases Your Reach
By sharing content from other sources, you can expose your own tweets to a broader audience.
For example, if you share a tweet from another thought leader with a large following, some of their followers may see your tweet and decide to follow you.
This can increase your reach and visibility on the platform.
2. Shows That You're Up-to-Date and Well-Informed
By curating and sharing relevant content from other sources, you can demonstrate to your followers that you're keeping up with the latest trends and news in your industry.
Just because you’ve been a mortgage lender since the 90s doesn’t automatically make you an expert anymore.
By sharing current trends, forecasts, and news related to your industry, you show that you are a student of your trade, building trust for your followers and future clients.
This helps establish you as a go-to source for information and insights by cutting through the digital clutter of information we are all exposed to daily.
3. It Provides an Opportunity to Engage with Other Industry Experts
Sharing content from other thought leaders or influencers is an opportunity to engage with them and start a conversation.
This can be a great way to build relationships and learn from others in your industry.
Thought leadership heavily depends on conversations with others in and around your industry because if no one is responding to the content you’re sharing, who are you leading?
Also, networking online is a great way to develop a more rounded point of view from people across different aspects of your industry, and possibly expand your viewpoint in ways you wouldn’t have if only creating your own content.
4. It Helps You Expand Your Own Knowledge and Expertise
And speaking of expanding your viewpoint, curating content from various sources can help you learn new things and expand your knowledge and expertise on a particular topic.
By reading and analyzing content from other thought leaders, you can gain new insights and ideas that can help to inform your original content.
And by consistently engaging in conversations with others in your industry, you’ll naturally learn more from the collective instead of you saying the same thing in an echo chamber you create.
5. Enhances Your Credibility
You can enhance your credibility as a thought leader by sharing high-quality content from credible sources.
This is particularly important if you're just starting out and trying to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
By sharing content from established thought leaders and influencers, you can add weight to your thoughts and ideas.
Naturally, we as humans will trust someone more if a third party is saying the same things you are, even if you are saying the exact same things.
But when it’s just you saying something, without any external information backing you up, people will naturally raise an eyebrow unless you’re someone already at the top of your field or have already built a direct relationship with them .
So now that you know some major benefits of curating content to help increase your following on Twitter, here are some tips for finding relevant, credible third-party content.
1. Follow Relevant Hashtags and Accounts
One of the easiest ways to find relevant content to curate is by following hashtags and accounts related to your industry or area of expertise.
This will help you stay up-to-date on the latest trends and news and give you a constant stream of new content.
You can easily retweet and quote tweet articles, tweets, and other relevant information and add your thoughts on why you thought it was important to share everything from your Twitter account.
While simple, there are a few downsides with this approach.
Following hashtags and accounts often provide a significant amount of content to sift through, and advanced searching and filtering options remain limited.
Further, this content is already present on the social network and, if related to a theme your audience is interested in, may have already been seen by them - making your retweet far less valuable than when they saw the information the first time.
2. Use Content Curation Tools
Many content curation tools are available to help you with content curation on Twitter.
These tools allow you to search for and organize content and schedule your tweets in advance.
UpContent helps you automate the parts of content curation that should be automated, like the finding and sharing of curated content.
You can easily share your curated content on Twitter using our different social media integrations or copy and paste it into your Twitter account.
3. Be Selective
Not all content is created equal, and it's important to be selective in what you share.
This is the “curating” part of content curation.
Choose high-quality, relevant content that will be valuable to your followers, and avoid anything spammy, low-quality, or offensive.
This may require performing a little bit of research on the author or publisher of that content or making sure the article you’re sharing isn’t just clickbait.
Remember, the quality of the curated content you share is building credibility for your thought leadership, so taking a little time to be selective in what you’re sharing can go a long way.
Add Your Own Commentary
While sharing content from other sources is important, you should also add your thoughts and insights to provide value to your followers.
By offering your own perspective and analysis, you can differentiate yourself from other thought leaders and show your expertise on the topic.
This also helps build your personal brand, voice, and personality. Just because thought leadership is online doesn’t mean you should dehumanize yourself.
Here are some of our recommended best practices when sharing third-party content on Twitter.
1. Properly Attribute and Link to the Original Source
It's important to credit the original author or source of the content you're sharing.
This helps to establish trust with your followers and also helps to avoid any issues with copyright infringement.
When sharing content on Twitter, ensure you share a link to the original publisher to give them credit and easily allow your reader to learn more.
If you’re using content curation software like UpContent, you’ll be able to create custom CTA banners that will display on each curated article for the readers to click a landing page you designate.
This feature also activates remarketing pixels for advertising campaigns you are already running whenever someone reads your curated articles!
2. Avoid Spammy, Low-Quality, or Offensive Content
As mentioned above, it's important to be selective in what you share.
Avoid anything that could be considered spammy, low-quality, or offensive.
This will help to maintain the integrity of your thought leadership brand and protect your reputation.
There is nothing wrong with sharing “hot takes” or articles you disagree with, as long as you are cordial, open to conversation, and explain why you disagree with something.
3. Balance Your Content Mix
While sharing content from other sources is valuable, you should also share your original thoughts and ideas.
This will help to balance your content mix and show your followers that you're not just rehashing other people's ideas.
Studies have shown that a mix of created and curated content is one of the best practices for any content marketing strategy.
Curated content receives 33% more engagement than created content on social media as it draws in your audience and stimulates them to act, and created content has a 54% higher click-to-conversion rate when it points to your website by activating this now-engaged audience.
So it’s not a matter of if you should create a content mix, it’s more of learning what the right combination for you is.
Next Steps to Start Using Curated Content on Twitter
Curated content can be a valuable addition to a thought leadership strategy on Twitter.
By following best practices and being selective in what you share, you can effectively use curated content to establish yourself as a credible and well-informed thought leader on the platform.
If you’re interested in using curated content in your social media strategy, sign up for a free 14-day trial of UpContent to easily begin curating content, or you can schedule a call with one of our Content Curation Experts to help find the best path for you.
If you want to learn more about how curated content can increase your thought leadership, check out some of these other articles!
