Best Practices for Social Media Content Curation
Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2025 9:53 am
As you can see, you can't just copy, paste, and publish other people's content. Curating content on social media requires a certain finesse.
To achieve the best possible results, follow these eight best practices and get inspired by the content curation examples below.
1. Determine your content mix
As we mentioned above, consider planning your content ahead of time. If you just finland phone number data post from your curated content without thinking twice, you're likely going to end up with a disjointed feed (and your mom probably warned you about this).
Planning your content mix on a calendar will also help you identify gaps in your publishing schedule. Is your curated content starting to overshadow your original content? No problem. In fact, you should be sharing more articles than you create. The ratio you should aim for is 40% original content and 60% curated content .
At Hootsuite, for example, we regularly schedule memes into our content curation mix.
Just make sure it remains 100% relevant to your target audience.
2. Know your audience
When curating your content, make sure it's relevant to your audience (at least as much as when you create it yourself).
Before scheduling a post from your content curation , ask yourself:
How can this content help my target customer?
How is it relevant to the problem(s) he is facing?
Does it match my target customers' perception of my brand?
Is it really worth publishing? Can I rework it?
If you can't answer the first three questions, try taking a step back and referring to your content strategy. Don't have any buyer personas? No problem. Use our free buyer persona templates and get started.
In the example below, I shared a study about AI replacing workers. This is relevant to my audience of marketers and writers on LinkedIn, provides a fresh perspective on a hot topic, and contributes to a trending topic—AI.
3. Don't limit yourself to just one platform or content source
Omnichannel marketing is the future (and the present, for that matter). Think about how your audience browses the internet. They don't just look at TikTok. They go from TikTok to X, then to Instagram or another platform. Try to take a holistic view of your social media feeds and plan your content curation accordingly.
You can also post cross-channel content to your feeds. For example, there's nothing stopping you from sharing an article you found online on LinkedIn or reposting a screenshot of a compelling Tweet on your Instagram feed. You set the rules.
Love this post from the @Wrexham_AFC TikTok account. pic.twitter.com/zyQbfA2FCE
— CALI WREXHAM AFC FAN (@Sumfun_Ron) April 24, 2023
4. Take ownership of the content
Don't hesitate to provide some context for the content you're sharing. Remember the three questions I asked you to answer in the second best practice? You can include your answers in a caption accompanying your post. For example, explain to your audience why they should be interested in this content.
Or just add some relevant emojis if you're feeling a little lazy. I won't judge you!
You can also use a quote from the content in question or create an eye-catching visual to accompany it. This approach will allow you to capture the attention of your followers and subtly associate your brand with the expert you're quoting.
To achieve the best possible results, follow these eight best practices and get inspired by the content curation examples below.
1. Determine your content mix
As we mentioned above, consider planning your content ahead of time. If you just finland phone number data post from your curated content without thinking twice, you're likely going to end up with a disjointed feed (and your mom probably warned you about this).
Planning your content mix on a calendar will also help you identify gaps in your publishing schedule. Is your curated content starting to overshadow your original content? No problem. In fact, you should be sharing more articles than you create. The ratio you should aim for is 40% original content and 60% curated content .
At Hootsuite, for example, we regularly schedule memes into our content curation mix.
Just make sure it remains 100% relevant to your target audience.
2. Know your audience
When curating your content, make sure it's relevant to your audience (at least as much as when you create it yourself).
Before scheduling a post from your content curation , ask yourself:
How can this content help my target customer?
How is it relevant to the problem(s) he is facing?
Does it match my target customers' perception of my brand?
Is it really worth publishing? Can I rework it?
If you can't answer the first three questions, try taking a step back and referring to your content strategy. Don't have any buyer personas? No problem. Use our free buyer persona templates and get started.
In the example below, I shared a study about AI replacing workers. This is relevant to my audience of marketers and writers on LinkedIn, provides a fresh perspective on a hot topic, and contributes to a trending topic—AI.
3. Don't limit yourself to just one platform or content source
Omnichannel marketing is the future (and the present, for that matter). Think about how your audience browses the internet. They don't just look at TikTok. They go from TikTok to X, then to Instagram or another platform. Try to take a holistic view of your social media feeds and plan your content curation accordingly.
You can also post cross-channel content to your feeds. For example, there's nothing stopping you from sharing an article you found online on LinkedIn or reposting a screenshot of a compelling Tweet on your Instagram feed. You set the rules.
Love this post from the @Wrexham_AFC TikTok account. pic.twitter.com/zyQbfA2FCE
— CALI WREXHAM AFC FAN (@Sumfun_Ron) April 24, 2023
4. Take ownership of the content
Don't hesitate to provide some context for the content you're sharing. Remember the three questions I asked you to answer in the second best practice? You can include your answers in a caption accompanying your post. For example, explain to your audience why they should be interested in this content.
Or just add some relevant emojis if you're feeling a little lazy. I won't judge you!
You can also use a quote from the content in question or create an eye-catching visual to accompany it. This approach will allow you to capture the attention of your followers and subtly associate your brand with the expert you're quoting.