Curating content is defined as selecting, organizing, and presenting content, mostly for online use, either for searching or marketing, or actually any form of business or profession. How do you curate and communicate your content? How do you provide information smoothly and quickly?
First you have to select it, then organize it and make it presentable. It has to be valuable, accurate, and searchable. As with writing the content, you need to:
- Know the target audience.
- Ensure that the content is reusable and relevant.
- And depending on the system being developed, note if the content is to be classified or confidential and design accordingly.
To get started:
- Locate templates and models to give you some ideas as to how the architecture of the content should be established; getting started to build a system is not an easy task.
- Group and categorize the content (e.g., by project or types of documents or by videos, diagrams, etc.) for easy access. Organizing them is not the only key to having a good searchable structure or system. Know what you want your system to present, to be able to do or to provide.
- The content also has to be formatted in such a way as to be visually presentable and easy to use. Getting the right look and feel of the system will not only make it more appealing, but more useable as well.
- Find where existing content is being stored and then decide on not only the (possibly) new location (cloud, database, etc.) of the system, but how content will now be stored and also who will be in charge of the content and the processes involved in creating and maintaining the system.
- Again as always, if this is a global company, translation processes need to also be considered.
To ensure that the content is valuable, visualize a user needing access to the content. Develop some scenarios and make sure the framework is suitable for the user. You can also mail out a survey or questionnaire and gather needed information. You might want to say you are setting up a test case. Find out what users want in the searchable system. Once you have a prototype, have users try it out and see where adjustments need to be made.
Also, note the costs that need to be considered in maintaining the content. The above are only a few of the many things that have to be considered. There are resources and packages available that can be of assistance, but you need to know what you want and need for curating content.
Don’t forget that once a system is established, plan ahead and create contingent plans for any unexpected delays and bottlenecks, and ensure that all problems can and will be resolved. To ensure the system is working well, set up a tracking system and always get some feedback to its functionality.
If you have are involved with curating content, please leave a comment as to what has to be considered before developing a curated system and your experiences.