How Much Do B2B Marketers Use Curation?

Curation Insights (Mar 11 2012)

1. After analyzing 150,000 posts on 1,000 business-to-business sites, Argyle Social concluded that 30 percent of the companies in the sample are curation-focused, defined as sites sending 75 percent or more of their posts link to third-party websites. About 13 percent of companies are creation-focused: most of their posts link to their own websites.
   
   Overall, about two thirds of the business-to-business marketers linking to others more frequently than they link to themselves. That should not be too surprising. There’s an adage in the software business that, no matter how many smart people you have working for you, most of the smart people work someplace else.
   
   The same is true of great content: most of it will be created by “somebody else.” Still, the perennial question seems to be whether marketers should curate or “create” content. The answer probably is “both,” most of the time, but there are some possible nuances.
   
   When looking at clicks, curation clearly dominates, according to the Argyle Social data. Posts linking to third-party sites generate 33 percent more clicks than posts linking to owned sites. “This makes sense,” says Argyle Social. “The very best content on the Internet is typically not going to live at yourcompany.com”
   
   However, if you’re looking to drive conversions, content creation is the optimal strategy. That also should make sense. An original post can be structured to provoke or encourage a user entering a lead generation funnel. Many curated posts will not lend themselves so well to conversion.
   
   

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