Leveraging Content Curation with Intelligence Platforms

Every organization needs information. They need to know what their competition is doing, what’s happening in the greater market and with their customers, and how events in the world can impact their business.

Usually, analysts deal with this data, but there is an increasing amount of information available and that complicates things. We need tools like intelligence platforms to help process large volumes of data into something meaningful.

This is where content curation comes into the picture.

The more you use intelligence tools, the better your company becomes at sourcing, processing, and disseminating information. Doing this optimally impacts revenue and growth, so let’s get into how you can curate content properly.

Collecting Information

The content curation process starts with collecting raw data. Your business doesn’t just want to collect content; you want to collect meaningful, usable information that turns into intelligence. It comes down to deciding what information to gather and where to get it.

Factors to Consider

Do a quick search for one of your competitors or the latest industry trends and you will get a ton of information. Is this data really useful for your business? Some could be while others are irrelevant so what should you look at?

When you search for data, you only want to consider that which is relevant to your business and the decisions you have to make. Within any organisation, relevance will depend on who is using the information and what they intend to do with it.

For instance, your R&D department may want to know if a competitor has filed a new patent application. In contrast, your marketing team wants to know about the performance of a specific product in the market. These departments might not find the intelligence used by each other as useful. Similarly, a business operating in the mining industry might not be interested in the information gathered by companies in the beauty industry.

This contrast highlights a pertinent point: All information can be used by someone, but only certain information is relevant to each department or business. Your goal with content curation should always be to find relevant data.

Where to Get Data

With so much information available, it’s normal for businesses to pick only a few sources of content. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to go through everything, not to mention the cost of gathering all this data.

Some of the sources you may consider are:

• Internet sites like news pages and corporate websites
• Open Sources such as RSS feeds
• Paid-for reports
• Paid-for premium content providers with information databases
• Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook
• Government data

The list goes on and on. Which ones should you use? It’s up to you and what works for your business!

Intelligence platforms, such as Intelligence2day®, offer great assistance with data collection. These platforms aggregate information based on what you want to know about and your chosen sources.

Curating Content

After collecting data, the information has to be curated to determine what can be used and how. Someone has to decide what information is relevant and what impact it may have on the business. Both of these factors come at a cost — be it time, money, or otherwise.

Investing in Time

Relevant, timely information can be viewed as an investment since it provides essential intelligence for a business to perform well. Still, you need to decide what level of time is an acceptable investment.

Start by considering how much time it will take to collect and validate information. You need to decide whether the source is trustworthy and how you can measure changes in information quality.

Similarly, time may be spent on administrative tasks whether the content is curated manually or through an intelligence platform. It’s also necessary to do platform management or troubleshooting occasionally, such as when a source website blocks your domain.

A final consideration regarding time costs is risk management. Sources providing free information have no legal commitment to supply your business with content of any kind of quality. In this case, a paid service delivering high-quality content has a lower associated risk.

Impact and Relevance

The importance of obtaining relevant information has been mentioned already as it has the potential to have the greatest impact. Finding relevant information is one of the most important parts of content curation.

Free sources, such as Google Alerts, can be used to send you information of your choosing; however, they have limitations as what you receive depends on users actively searching and clicking on results.

How much information can be missed in the process? A lot. It’s the reason why a paid service is more reliable to provide detailed, relevant information resulting in a greater business impact.

This image considers the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of content. To get a better understanding of how to balance your costs, impact, and overall value, you need to review all elements of cost and impact.

Saving Time with Intelligence Platforms

Content curation is never free, but the decisions you make about aspects such as intelligence platforms can reduce the time and financial investment.

These platforms allow you to set up a portfolio of trusted sources. Information from these sources is digested by tools and turned into intelligence that your business can use. Essentially, the process cuts out time that your team would have spent to manually collect and curate content which does save you money.

Sharing Content With the Right People

Finally, the intelligence obtained through content curation needs to be disseminated to the right people so that it can be put to good use. It is essential that every department gets the necessary intelligence to make good decisions.

Intelligence systems can be set up to send relevant information to certain individuals or business units automatically. The platform administrator can create automatic alerts, newsletters, and reports that aggregate information making it easier for readers to digest and use intelligence.

Optimize Content Curation for Your Business

When you use intelligence correctly, your business can thrive. The right information is a game-changer and intelligence systems can help you achieve it.

Start by analyzing your need for content to determine where you will find appropriate information. Use this to balance out cost, relevance, and impact. Once you understand your needs, a platform like Intelligence2day® can help you manage the content that comes into the system.

Intelligence2day® is an all-in-one platform that can assist you with all your content curation needs. Contact us today to see how we can help you.