15 Awesome Content Curation Tools (Including Freebies!) (2023)

If you're having a hard time consistently posting original content, you're not alone. The hard truth is that time is tight for digital marketers in 2021, and constantly producing new, engaging, value-based content requires a lot of time and money.

Fortunately, there is a profitable marketing strategy that will help you improve your content marketing efforts, drive more organic results, and save a lot of time. I meancontent restoration.

In this article, we'll take a look at content curation, including its benefits, principles, and some of the best free and paid content curation tools on the market.

What is content curation?

Content curation is theselection process and distribution of relevant digital media content(eg blog posts, articles, audio, video, etc.) to your audience through communication channels such as social media, blogs, and email newsletters.

Essentially, you're exploring the vast content sandbox that is the internet to find relevant information and strategically share it with your audience.

The operative word isimportant.

You can't just collect the most current and popular web content; You need to select resources that are interesting and relevant to your audience (ie current and potential customers). Once you've collected useful information focused on a specific topic, effective content curation requires you to reorganize and share content in an easy-to-digest way.

Just to be clear,Content curation is different from content planning. While the former focuses on gathering useful content to strategically share with your target readers, the latter involves developing themes, deciding what type of content to use, and creating strategies to achieve your content goals.

To learn more about content planning and some tools to help with this process, I recommend reading ourrecent guideAbout the topic.

Benefits of content curation

In addition to saving time and money, content curation offers a wide range of benefits, including but not limited to:

• Improve SEO- With content curation, you're creating more social sharing opportunities, links, and better rankings by providing readers with engaging, value-driven content that meets their preferences.
• Create brand awareness- By curating content, your website and brand can quickly emerge and resonate with new readers, building awareness and educating your audience early on in the buyer's journey.
• generates credibility- Remember, your business is just one of hundreds involved in ongoing conversions with potential buyers in your industry. Content curation helps your audience see the breadth of your experience and consequently sends trust signals of editorial depth and maturity to your site and brand.
• establish authority- By consistently sharing premium content, your followers will know that every time they find a resource in your feed, it's worth reading. You can also add your own unique perspective to the conversation, demonstrating your creativity and subject matter expertise in the process.
• Support lead generation- Curated content helps drive organic traffic to your website and social channels. More quality traffic equals more subscribers, leads, and paying leads.

3 principles of content curation

I mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, content curation isn't just about collecting the latest content from the web and sharing it with your followers. It has to be specific, thoughtful and relevant. Below are three principles to keep in mind as you take your content curation efforts to the next level.

Know your audience

Target market research is one of the main pillars of any successful content plan. It is also the first step towards effective content curation. To make sure you're sharing valuable content,you have to research your audience.

One strategy for determining your target audience is to developpublic people. This approach will help you treat your prospects like real people, walk into your space, and carefully consider what content is most useful to them.

Remember, your main goal as a curator is to collect the most valuable content to share with your readers. Zoning people in your audience ensures that you understand exactly how the content will help them before they hit the Share button.

seek to create value

Think of content curation as another strategy to add value.

Customers want to be informed, but they also want to save time. But the problem is, just like you, they struggle to keep up with the latest industry news and trends.

This is where content curation can be a game changer.

By presenting personalized content to your subscribers,is giving them the information they want in a digestible form- saving precious time in the process. By curating personalized content, you are delivering value that allows you to build relationships with your audience that are not based solely on financial transactions.

Balance with original content

Just because you can freely curate and share other people's content doesn't mean curation should take over most of your content strategy. Remember, content curation is only one piece of the content marketing puzzle.

A strong content marketing campaign includesa healthy mix of creation and healing. Once your organization starts generatingoriginal blog content, you can focus on providing your audience with a constant stream of industry information based on specific and relevant topics.

15 of the Best Content Curation Tools

Curating high-quality web content can be tedious. Fortunately, there are several great tools available that can help ease the load. Let's take a look at some of the best.

1. Flipboard

Flipboardis a free desktop and mobile content curation platform for discovering topics from personalized news to lifestyle trends across multiple content sources. Essentially, Flipboard creates mini-magazines using curated links grouped around a specific area of ​​interest.

Once you've created these content magazines (also known as "boards"), you can make them publicly visible and distribute them via social media. You can show you're on the inside by creating magazines that are relevant to your readers with links from trusted sources. You can even feature your original content in magazines to help people learn more about your business.

Flipboard is not only a very user-friendly platform, but when it comes to pricing, it's completely free!

2. Pocket

Formerly known as "Read Later",Pocketfalls under the category of content curators to read later. Instead of keeping a list of links in an Excel file somewhere, Pocket helps you organize and keep all your interesting blog posts, images, and videos in one place.

It's a great platform to cultivate the habit of collecting content to save and share later. The app also allows you to discover new content (depending on the topic) through top publishers, famous influencers, and other content curators.

Pocket is a free app and upgrading to Pocket Premium ($4.99 per month) gives you access to a host of cool features. Perhaps the most notable premium feature is the ability to archive a page permanently, so even if it's deleted forever, Pocket keeps a copy.

3. Elink.io

Sharing your content in a way that is presentable and contextually relevant is one of the keys to successful content curation.Elink.ioIt takes the drudgery out of content curation by simplifying the process of saving links and turning them into shareable viral content.

This nifty content curation tool allows you to turn your favorite links into a beautiful newsletter that you can create using templates. Just copy and paste your links or pull them directly from your bookmark collection and the app will automatically generate the sharing page. Additionally, you can modify various page elements for a more personalized result.

The free version of Elink.io gives you access to basic features. With the Pro Plan ($12 per month), advanced features like post analysis and team collaboration features are available.

4. Scoop.es

Saquelois a hybrid content curation and social media platform. Targeted at content marketers, social media managers, thought leaders, and knowledge managers, this curation tool enables anyone to create newspaper-style boards containing shareable content from multiple sources.

It's a simple tool for discovering and distributing high-quality original content. Start by researching your topics or keywords, and Scoop.it will generate a reading list of the most relevant content to share and post to your profile. There is also an extension to quickly get links while browsing online.

The free version of Scoop.it allows you to track a single topic for two social media profiles. The Pro Plan price ($14.99 per month) adds more theme pages, social media channels, and Google Analytics integration.

5. Feedly

Powered by artificial intelligence,Feedlyit's like an RSS feed on steroids.

Basically, it is a content aggregation platform that brings together topics relevant to your business in real time. It's also an intuitive way to discover and follow high-authority sites and experts in your industry.

Using Feedly is as simple as entering a URL or using specific keywords, then you can add and browse these sources and see them all in one place. Plus, the "Featured" section is a great starting point for new Feedly users. Feedly also has strong social media integration, so you can easily share your content links with your audience and team members.

For the free version, Feedly allows you to track up to 100 content sources. The Paid Pro and Pro+ pricing offer significantly more fonts and better AI relevance.

6. Who

Unlike most of the tools on this list,That?It stands out for being exclusively a content curation platform. It's also the only curation tool on this list where every piece of content is curated and reviewed by humans.

Quuuu focuses on the most critical aspect of curation: sharing content.

There are two ways to receive handpicked content with Quuu. First, the app uses the SocialChief network to directly connect your social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Or, you can use third-party scheduling tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Hubspot, where Quuu content is delivered directly to the developer of your choice.

The free version allows you to access the most basic features, but you can only automate one social profile. Pro ($5 per month) and Business ($15.83 per month) include Advanced Read Later and Advanced Reader modes and up to 10 and 100 social profiles, respectively.

7. Tinnitus

While it is primarily a content research tool,Buzzsumoit has many features that can help with content curation, allowing you to discover top-tier content and follow the most influential people.

Buzzsumo's content discovery module makes it easy to find trending content based on specific keywords or topics. The tool constantly searches the web for keywords and phrases that your potential buyers are searching for. Buzzsumo also lets you set up alerts based on content types, so when news breaks on your relevant topics, you'll know right away.

Buzzsumo Free offers up to ten surveys. Paid pricing plans start at $99 for Pro, $179 for Plus, and $299 for Large. Buzzsumo is a great investment if you go the paid route, but the price is well worth it.

8. Upload content

UpContentis another solid content curation tool for discovering and distributing third-party content. UpContent's proprietary technology analyzes millions of articles each month and presents the results in an easily digestible grid format.

Distributing your custom content is also easy, thanks to the app's strong integration capabilities with third-party platforms like Hubspot and Hootsuite. Premium content curation features include RSS integrations, custom CTAs, custom article images (comes with a Shutterstock license), and premium integration and support.

The free version of UpContent doesn't offer much because you are limited to one theme and one user. The paid pricing plan starts at $13.50 per month and goes up to $238.50 for the enterprise level license.

9. Clean

For marketing experts,Cleanis an enterprise-grade platform that specializes in targeted content marketing curation. Curata helps your organization become a sought-after source of knowledge by helping you carefully curate only the most useful information.

The tool aims to deliver relevant suggestions via a machine learning algorithm that adapts to your preferences. In addition, Curata also gives you the ability to get trending content through various social media channels.

Users can review their collections through an intuitive user interface and publish them on proprietary platforms and social media channels. Curata also supports your SEO efforts by building landing pages for trending topics and optimizing for long-tail keywords. Curata is recommended for expert healers and can be powerful in the right hands.

Pricing information is available upon request.

10. DrumUp

Get togetherIt scours the Internet for the most interesting and relevant content to share with its followers using sophisticated algorithms. Instead of the regular blog post, you're powering your pages and social media presence with the latest content from around the web.

What I like about DrumUp is that it excels at content distribution.

By creating an intelligent workflow, you can quickly create, review, and publish curated content. Additionally, the board features an intuitive user interface for scheduling and sharing content on social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It also comes with a Chrome browser extension for content discovery and blog post scheduling.

DrumUp has a free version with limited accounts, posts per day, and content suggestion streams. The starter pricing plan ($15 per month) features RSS feed integration, more library posts, and removal of DrumUp branding on posts.

11. Floater

If social media is an important part of your content marketing strategy,flockerIt's worth checking out. The dashboard is relatively easy to use and you can add content manually or create an automated feed by simply linking your social accounts or via an RSS feed link.

Flockler allows you to create engaging curated content using various layouts, which you can display on websites and social media. Flockler also has a WordPress plugin that will allow you to add the tool to the CMS platform with a simple shortcode.

Flockler offers a 30-day free trial, and the price for the Lite Plan starts at $55 per month and goes up to $550 per month for the Premium Plan.

12. sharp

cuttingit's a unique item on this list because it's more of a conversion tool. However, this little tool supports your content curation efforts because it helps drive clicks and traffic to your website.

Basically, Sniply allows you to create branded curated content by adding a custom CTA to any destination URL. When you create a "Snip", Sniply generates a unique URL that you can share across your social media pages and accounts. When people click your custom Sniply URL, they'll see the destination URL as usual, but they'll see a prominent call-to-action button with a link to your website (see screenshot above).

There is no free version, but you can try the 14-day free trial. Paid plans start at $29 per month and go up to $299 for the agency plan.

13. Twitter Lists

Without proper organization, Twitter news feeds can be a mess.twitter listsClean up the mess by helping you create curated feeds from Twitter accounts outside of the main feed.

This built-in feature of Twitter allows you to track and curate content through a more focused environment of groups, topics, or accounts. Since there are plenty of compelling Twitter lists already out there, you can search for what's relevant to your business and follow them to save time.

If you're an experienced Twitter user, the Lists feature can be a powerful curation tool.

14. Share

Fast, easy and free - that's itShare. It's one of the best tools out there if you want to get into the content curation process right away.

For starters, unlike most of the tools in this roundup, ShareIt doesn't require an account. Just visit the ShareIt website, enter your keyword or topic, and you'll get a list of relevant content suggestions. Easy peasy!

You can easily share the content suggestions on the social media platform of your choice or through SocialPilot if you have an account.

15. Newsletters

If you're a traditional marketer, a newsletter is still one of the best tools for curated content, as well as news sources. Regardless of your industry, email newsletters are a great way to keep up with your favorite publications and influencers. I personally have my favorite SEO ezine that I read every week.

As a content discovery tool, newsletters work best if you sign up for a newsletter that is relevant to your business and industry. It's also good practice to see what your competitors are doing with their email newsletters. If you can't find good newsletters in your space, take the opportunity to create your own curated content newsletter.

Newsletters are not only a great content marketing tool, but they can also serve as inspiration for content ideas.

Which healing tool is right for you?

Choosing the right curation tool depends on the scale of your business and your curation efforts.

If you're a seller who only shares a few links on a few platforms, you can probably use free tools. However, if you have a larger operation and are constantly sharing multiple links and content assets across multiple platforms, consider using more complex apps and tools.

Many of the tools I've described above offer free or limited trials. I suggest you sign up for a free trial to get an idea of ​​how a specific tool can help. You can determine if it is a good fit for your organization or not. Remember to avoid sharing obfuscated content – ​​The goal of content curation is to provide your readers with tangible information and value.

Do you have a favorite content curation tool? Which content curation tool from the above list do you think is the best? Tell us in the comments!