What are the best ways to curate content without plagiarizing?

One thing I've found helpful is connecting with actual experts. Even when you don't have one at hand, LinkedIn is No.1 tool to look for the people who can contribute to your work. It benefits both sides: you have real-life data to include into your piece of content; your expert gets media exposure. While interviewing your expert, be sure to avoid generalized statistic data (or at least make sure it's proven by recent studies), ask for actual numbers and testimonials. For instance, if you describe a service or a product, try to get in touch with its audience to request information. It does make your work longer and more complex, but your content is worth it.

When it comes to curating and sharing content, you will be judged by the company you keep. The perception of your target audience will be based on 2 things. 1. the value of the summary and insights you add; and, 2. The perceived credibility of the sources you choose to share. Combined, these factors will shape your audience’s value perception, as well as your perceived credibility as an information resource.

Always look for the ORIGINAL source. Often, data suffers from what I think of as the "telephone game effect" — Writer A pulls information from an original source, and then Writer B pulls from Writer A (changing a little along the way), then Writer C takes information from Writer B (making more changes) and in the end, you get very vague or even inaccurate information because you got too far from the original source.

Credit inspiration too! If your new campaign, project, article, idea, etc was inspired by someone else's work, you need to give them credit. Your audience will appreciate your transparency and you're doing the ethical and professional thing by acknowledging that someone else's work inspired yours.

Acknowledging the original creator's effort is non-negotiable. Always make sure to cite them, and never pretend that the content you've curated is your own creation. Not only is this unethical, but it also tarnishes your brand's image, as plagiarism is frowned upon. If you are posting on platforms like Twitter or Instagram, you should tag the original creator or the source. When sharing a collection of content from various sources, provide a brief preview and then redirect to the complete article, video, etc. Make sure to give credit to all the original sources in the full piece.

To paraphrase and summarize effectively, you actually need to thoroughly read/consume all the subject material - be it a blog post, book, video, podcast or a webinar. This helps in connecting the dots among different topics and create a content piece that is cohesive and detailed. Again, the goal of content curation is not to cut short time & resources for creation, but to provide real value to your audience.

For the stories you share, create a brief summary that encapsulates the substance of the story and why it matters to your audience. The value of curation lies in the added-value of an informed, expert perspective.

The easiest way to create unique content is to get unique expertise! Everybody is an expert in their own right... Could you identify the right people for the topic you're writing about and sit down and discuss it with them? The insight you can get from picking someone else's brain can be invaluable.

When curating content, you need to: - research good and trusted sources, - read and select key content to share with your audience, - sometime repurpose content to match the platform you share it on, - reach out to content creators to build fruitful partnerships, - analyze the performance of your content strategy, - and iterate on it. Content curation is not a shortcut, nor an alternative to content creation. It's a well-thought activity that helps your brand to build healthy relationships by mentioning them original creators and putting a spotlight on them.