How to achieve a good curation?

Strengthen the follower bonds with interesting and relevant articles

The goal of a curator should be to become a reliable source of information to their followers. This will be achieved by regularly curating interesting and relevant articles; especially articles, which haven't been already covered by most media. A subscriber should have the following train of thought: “If I don’t follow curator XY, I will miss out on important and insightful articles, about which I will not hear otherwise.”

Less is more -  quality rather than quantity

2-5 articles per curated compilation (“selection”) are the recommended number. A sporadic deviation can be possible - depending on subject, character of content and pace of events.

You can't force great selections

If there is a day, where you can't find anything worthy enough to curate, it is better to go without a curation instead of just curating some mediocre content. If and how often such a state arrives, depends strongly on the subject. In general, we recommend publishing one selection daily from Monday to Friday.

Cover a wide source pool 

One of the implicit promise of performance of the curators towards the users is to keep an eye on a large amount of sources. A curator who curates content from the same 3 or 4 sources loses potential and risks a weak follower bond.

Distinguish between dated and timeless articles

The demand for content-related up-to-dateness varies depending on the character of the box subject. Scope does not tend to provide users with breaking news. Nonetheless should the curated contents and the additional comments not leave an impression of old news. Depending on the subject, a several months or even years old text could be worthy to curate - in this case it is recommended to explain why the article has been selected despite its age.

Comments offer additional value 

Either with strong opinions respectively annotations on the basis of own experience/insights, or alternatively through summaries of the most important facts of the text. An additional option is emphasizing remarkable facts which have been mentioned in the text.

Starting is easy, persistence is an art

Regularity and continuity is highly appreciated by the followers and forms a healthy routine, which turns the curating process into an automatism.

Variety boosts the appetite

The mix and the spicing up of a compilation of several articles makes the difference. An article considered on its own may appear irrelevant and unsuitable for curation, but can help to leaven a selection of multiple dry news contributions. Experience helps to create well balanced selections.