10 qualities of talented content curators

Content curators—or editors—find, sort, categorize, and distill the big data and vast amount of content that’s accessible to us. Google Alerts will locate and list articles, blogs, and stories. But curation is the hot ticket item in social media and business. It requires the human factor—someone with a pulse—to make sense of our collective informational chaos.

Author Steven Rosenbaum writes in “Curation Nation”: “When you add a human editorial layer, a curational perspective that organizes gathered content and community participation, you get real results.”

Savvy companies and communications pros understand that content pulled from a plethora of sources should be categorized by curators who:

1. Know their audience, readers, and brands.

2. Keep abreast of trends, twists, and turns in a specific niche.

3. Pay close attention to articles, chats, interviews, videos and conversations to discover the “buzz of the hour/day.”

4. Discern the junk from the gems.

5. Monitor trade associations and industry events.