There’s an interesting exercise going on here at iCopyright.
With the launch of our new repubHub portal, everyone on the management team is choosing one article a month to republish.
Last week’s republished article illustrates an interesting content marketing lesson.
Chip Schafer, iCopyright’s Director of Customer Service, republished an article on this blog last week about about the importance of delivering customer service with a personal touch.
Chip’s comment on the original article was about the challenge of delivering customer service for a 100% digital service, as a SaaS company.
Chip and I read the same article, but one quote from the original article triggered a completely different thought for me:
“Companies don’t make emotional connections, people do.”
I started to wonder: does repubHub, our new content curation tool for republishing — or any automated republishing content platform, for that matter — give content marketers a way to make that emotional connection?
The very nature of content curation as a form of communication, from a tweeted link to a republished article, is not 1:1, but one to many.
In its most elemental form, that process is completely impersonal — sharing the same content hundreds of others are also sharing … with automated tools, no less!
Many curation models assert that our choice of content adds value.
That’s true.
But I believe that curation with thoughtful comments — adding context is the current buzzword for that — is the only way to make an emotional connection.
And an emotional connection makes all the difference.
Back to my example.
Chip and I read the same article. Chip’s take, and his republished post, got shared and favorited after posting, among customer service professionals of other SaaS companies.
Chip can now further connect with those social connections.
My post today is hopefully relevant to a completely different online community. If history is a guide, the value that I’ve added for bloggers and content marketers will be reflected in social engagement as well.
This example shows that two content marketers can create distinct value and connection, among a distinct audience, with the same republishable content and a unique point of view.
Isn’t that is the point of all content marketing, really? Adding relevance and value to your unique audience?
We’ll take it a step further. Without context, what does our sharing amount to?
It’s OK to use automated platforms and tools, but it’s better, when you use them, to add value.
• Tell me WHY I should care about the link you retweeted, or the post you reblogged.
• As you curate content, whether with a tweet or with a republished post, curate responsibly.
• If you are going to republish using repubHub, or any republishing platform, republish responsibly.
Our digital world doesn’t need more SPAM. There’s too much of that, already.
Don’t lose the human touch.
At iCopyright we take customer service seriously. As an SaaS company (software as a service) enabling the sharing and licensing of great content with a few clicks, we take away the friction between buyer and seller, publisher and republisher. The ideal we seek is a fair exchange between the parties without the need for each publisher or content [...]
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