At CSTMR, we love original content.
If done correctly, it builds authority, showcases expertise, and delivers real and long-lasting value. But compelling original content takes time, resources, and subject matter depth across multiple channels and departments.
For many of us (marketers, small business owners, startup founders, etc.), especially those with lean teams or tight timelines, keeping up with that demand is a challenge.
That’s where content curation can be incredibly valuable, not as a replacement for original content, but as a strategic complement.
Curation—the process of selecting, arranging, and sharing existing content—is often dismissed as filler, but when done well, it can scale your relevance, strengthen your brand voice, and position you as a go-to source of insight.
As an added bonus, it helps audiences sift through the digital noise to find what matters most to them.
In this article, we’ll unpack the fundamentals of content curation, explore its benefits, and offer actionable strategies (and best practices) to help you get started.
What Is Content Curation?
There’s a trend sweeping across our online culture. Maybe you’ve noticed it.
As we get inundated with more content, more noise, and more distractions—on every feed, every channel, every platform—a faint cry can be heard: the desire for meaning, authenticity, and truth.
People aren’t interested in “more.” They’re craving what actually matters.
Content curation is the filter that separates the signal from the noise.
In plain terms, it is the process of selecting, arranging, and sharing existing content created by others, with the purpose of educating, informing, or engaging your specific audience. In other words, instead of producing something entirely new, you become the editor-in-chief for your audience, choosing the most relevant and credible pieces (articles, podcasts, videos, etc.) for their consumption.
When it’s lazy, it’s not great. But when there is intention and care, it can deliver something focused, useful, and trust-building for your brand.
The key point to remember:
A true curator does more than merely repost. After discovering valuable third-party content, they brand it for their specialized audience, contextualizing the content through their own commentary, framing, or insights.
Content curators always put their own stamp, their own POV, on the work they choose to highlight. This detail shows that the curator is engaged, thoughtful, and confident in their own perspective.
Benefits of Content Curation
Content curation can unlock a host of internal and external benefits for your business.
Before we hit on them, I need to say—again—the following:
At CSTMR, we love original content.
It (especially the long-form variety) is a foundational pillar of modern digital marketing. In-depth guides, branded thought leadership, podcasts, reports, video, etc. all drive visibility/authority and deliver exceptional value.
However, in the current digital environment—one where what was breaking news at breakfast may become ancient by lunch—timing is everything.
The financial world doesn’t wait.
Markets shift, regulations change, and breaking news can surface (and expire) in a single afternoon. In these moments, original content can take too long to ideate, draft, approve, and publish.
The game is constantly shifting, and you need to be ready to keep your audience informed whenever the goalposts move. Content curation enables immediacy in a matter of seconds, rather than hours and days.
That’s why it enhances credibility.
People respect businesses that understand what is happening in the here and now. By connecting your brand to other reputable sources, you demonstrate a knowledge base that extends beyond your immediate domain.
This is appealing to your clients and prospects, as it shows that you don’t operate in a vacuum, and you’re confident enough to heed the opinions of others.
Content curation opens new pathways in your content marketing strategy to drive audience trust, intrigue, and engagement.
Additionally, by leveraging other people’s perspectives, you can guide your audience to more nuanced subjects without absorbing the brunt of doing the heavy lifting. You can leverage it to identify what your audience finds most interesting without the R&D costs of making something from scratch.
It also gives you more room for risk taking. After all, it’s not your blog, video, or social media post in question—it’s someone else’s.
Therefore, content curation enables you to take bigger risks in what you choose to showcase.
Content curation also inspires conversation. It’s thought leadership for a new generation, in the same way that the comments section of a YouTube video is often more compelling than the video itself.
That’s also one of the reasons why sharing third-party content initiates business networking opportunities.
Whereas self-promotional outreach can come across as awkward or inauthentic, content curation shifts the spotlight and offers a more genuine reason to connect and start a conversation. This takes the focus off you/your business and provides an honest and personal way to reflect (and even celebrate) the work of others.
Internally, the benefits continue, as content curation facilitates publishing consistency and helps sustain momentum across digital channels
Even the best content creators know the difficulty of consistently delivering 100% original content. It’s a big ask in the very best of circumstances.
Thankfully, curating makes it easier to keep your pipeline full around the clock. By toggling between created and curated content, your marketing team can feed audience appetites while lowering development costs and freeing your creative team to focus on what they do best.
Content Curation vs. Content Creation: Striking the Right Balance
As we’ve seen, content curation offers a dynamic tool for your marketing arsenal.
However, as effective as it can be, it’s not meant to replace the development of your brand’s original content.
Instead, content curation plays a complementary role alongside content creation.
The question is: how should you balance the two strategies?
In terms of raw percentages, marketing experts are divided. Some encourage a 60/40 split in favor of content curation, though others argue for the exact opposite. Others even favor the 5:3:2 rule of social media, with curation taking the lion’s share of posts.
If you ask us, we’re less regimented on the numbers and encourage you to play to your strengths. For example, if you and your team have the bandwidth to deliver amazing articles, videos, and white-papers, you should publish as much original content as you can.
However, if you don’t have the resources to prioritize long-form original content, curating is the way to go. Ideally, your brand will be able to consistently satisfy both content buckets (even if the exact percentages shift from time to time).
Since we’re on that note, let’s briefly dig into the core advantages (and disadvantages) of content creation.
Benefits of Content Creation
Content creation entails anything original your brand makes for customers and prospects. That includes articles, emails, social posts, infographics, eBooks, reports, etc.
There are three reasons why content creation is essential to a holistic marketing strategy:
- Original content builds trust, because it showcases your expertise.
- Original content boosts SEO (via long-form blog content) because it builds authority and attracts organic traffic.
- Original content advances your brand, because it delivers something audiences can’t get anywhere else.
Original content has your brand’s DNA in it.
That’s why it’s so irreplaceable.
Plus, since it’s truly yours, you can do whatever you want with it. You can share it anywhere you like, repurpose it across multiple platforms, and update it over time.
Drawbacks of Content Creation
There’s really only one legitimate concern with original content creation.
It’s time-consuming.
As we have covered, the digital sphere is constantly being flooded with new material, and it takes significant resources to stay afloat (and competitive).
Videos must be tightly-edited and social media posts must throw knock-out punches in an instant. Long-form content has also become especially challenging as shortened attention spans now place a premium on brevity.
Despite these challenges, original content is well worth the upfront investment—especially when coupled with content curation.
When taken in unison, the two strategies position you like a fine artist who proudly displays their work alongside other classic paintings.
Content Curation Strategies
It’s time to become a content curator.
But how? Start by seizing the low-hanging fruit:
1. Social Media Commentary
The legacy news media is no longer the fastest draw in the west.
It’s the influencers—the citizen journalists and self-appointed raconteurs—who often make the biggest waves in the sea of social engineering.
Just like on Wall Street, they’re the whales worth following.
As a content curator, social media should be your first focus. Whichever platforms you leverage, allow yourself to balance the factual with the fun. In other words, embrace the diversity of social media posts by sharing links to important industry stories and more entertaining takes.
After all, social media content curation provides opportunities to show your personality: first, by giving you carte blanche in selecting what your audience might find most interesting. Secondly, it gives you room to provide your own commentary and context.
This is where curation gets custom.
As a hypothetical example, let’s say you share the article, “AI in Financial Services: Can It Be Trusted?”
It’s a tantalizing question begging for your own analysis. Maybe you agree with the article’s conclusions—or maybe you take a totally different stance.
What matters is that you jump into the arena and frame the conversation from your brand’s perspective. This is where you’ll differentiate yourself from the masses.
Remember: while content curation looks like it’s purely about other people’s perspectives, it’s always a prime opportunity to showcase your own.
2. Email Newsletters
Keep track of what you share on social media in a given week.
Then, choose the most salient stories and leverage them in your email marketing, perhaps as a concise newsletter to your clients and prospects.
This could be framed as a weekly roundup, a bi-monthly retrospective, or even a quarterly review. Whichever path(s) you choose, know that a curated newsletter confidently demonstrates your engagement with current events.
In doing so, it positions your business as the go-to resource for what’s happening in the world of fintech and financial services.
This fosters trust between you and your readers, as you indirectly assure them,
“We’re on top of an ever-changing world.
We cut through the fluff, so you don’t have to.
Here’s what we think matters most to you.”
Best of all? Your newsletter will lead off with a brief introduction to keep your brand front and center.
3. Executive LinkedIn Sharing
We’ve already mentioned the range of opportunities for curating via social media.
Here, we want to spotlight LinkedIn as an especially potent tool in this arena. To maximize its efficacy, encourage your C-suite to share curated content with their own personal commentary.
This personalizes your execs and humanizes even the most monolithic companies. When Jamie Dimon writes an op-ed, people read it (and, for a brief moment, they see the individual behind the corporate giant).
To prospective clients, few things are more intriguing than a CEO or CFO opining on a recent trend in a shared article:
“This piece makes some great arguments for [ABC], but I think
the true conversation is actually about [XYZ]…”
This kind of respectful disagreement shows confidence. And when you tag other key players to stimulate engagement, it shows you’re not afraid of a polite townhall debate.
Over 80 percent of B2B marketers claim LinkedIn is their secret weapon. Leverage it to stay in the bullseye of the conversation.
Bonus Strategies
Get visual.
While it’s great to share the written word, you can also compile fintech news into infographics and short videos. While featuring the findings of other sources, you can add your company’s internal data to elevate your products or services.
Additionally, you can partner with influencers for co-curated content series. These sorts of “mashups” can increase your social proof and expand your audience.
One more idea: curate resource lists on your brand’s website.
For example, you could maintain a directory of the “Top Fintech Tools for 202X,” where you embed links from other reputable sites and boost organic traffic (especially for more niche terms).
5 Content Curation Best Practices
As every creative knows, rules are meant to be broken.
However, without constraining your genius, these five best practices will help you stay on mission to retain clients and attract prospects:
- Always add context: Whenever you post a link, immediately explain why your audience should care.
Give them buy-in from the get-go. Curation thrives on context. - Vet your sources: Does every post need to be from The New York Times or Fortune?
No, but it’s wise to prioritize sharing from credible, recent, and (reasonably) impartial sources. - Balance perspectives: Any opinion will risk causing offense. That’s part of life.
To neutralize the fear of ideological divides, just remember to amplify opinions on both sides of an issue. - Stay consistent: Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but only to a point.
While you don’t need to post around the clock, keep your pipeline full so you’re regularly on the radar of your target audience. - Brand it: Third-party content can be great—sometimes, too great.
Be sure to gift-wrap curated posts in your brand’s tone and visual identity so readers always remember who to follow.
As you progress, keep tracking your performance so you see which types of posts drive the highest engagement levels.
Finally, don’t forget to blend curated content with original pieces. Together, these strategies will reveal your understanding of the times and the depth of your expertise.
Start Curating, Start Scaling
Fintech and financial services are crowded markets, and companies need a competitive edge to stand out.
Content curation is a streamlined path to staying top of mind and boosting audience engagement. By carefully selecting third-party content, you can position your brand as a trusted guide and rise above the noise.
Whether you prioritize social media commentary, executive LinkedIn posts, or curated newsletters, content curation will empower you to spark conversations and drive trust while better managing the heavy lift of building out original creation.
Need a fresh strategy to get started? Chat with our CEO, Rory Holland, to start building a gameplan today.
