What is content curation?

Curation is a filter, not a firehose. The value is in what you leave out.

1. Pick a handful of trusted sources: trade bodies, official announcements, respected newsletters, suppliers and creators in your field.
2. Set a regular time to scan them, such as fifteen minutes on Monday morning, and save anything useful.
3. Ask of each item: will my customers care, and is it accurate and current? Drop anything that fails either test.
4. Add your take in a sentence or two: what it means for your audience, or what you would do about it.
5. Credit the source clearly by tagging or naming them and linking to the original.
6. Use the platform's own share, repost or quote features where they exist, rather than downloading and re-uploading someone else's work.
7. Mix curated posts with your own, so your feed still sounds like you.

Good sources depend on your industry, but these work for most small businesses:

• Industry newsletters, trade magazines and professional bodies.
• Official updates from regulators, councils and government departments.
• Your suppliers' and partners' posts, such as new products or how-to videos.
• Local news and events your customers would want to know about.
• Customers' posts about you, shared with their permission.
• Creators and experts in your niche whose work you respect.
• Saved collections on the platforms themselves, and a feed reader that gathers the blogs you follow.

Content creation is making your own original posts. Aggregation is collecting lots of links in one place, often automatically, with no comment. Curation sits in between: you choose a few things carefully and add your view.

There is no proven ideal ratio of curated to original posts. Some marketers suggest rules of thumb, but the right mix depends on how much original content you can make. A practical test: if a follower read only your last ten posts, would they still know what your business does and how you sound?

Curation shares other people's work, so a few rules protect you and them:

• Link to the original and name or tag the creator.
• Don't repost someone's photo or video as if it were yours. Ask permission first, or use the platform's share feature.
• Quote briefly rather than copying whole articles.
• Check the date and the facts before sharing news.
• Avoid sharing competitors' sales content.

Use each platform's own share features where you can: they credit the creator and link back to the original. The Instagram details were checked on Instagram's Help Centre on 14 October 2026.

• Instagram: the Repost button shares a public reel or post with your followers and lets you add your own text. Reposts sit in their own tab on your profile, and you can only repost if the creator allows it. You can also share posts to your stories.
• Instagram's guidance on original content recommends reposting or sharing to stories rather than re-uploading someone else's content without material edits, which may be treated as unoriginal.
• X and Threads: repost, or quote the post to add your comment above the original.
• LinkedIn and Facebook: use the repost or share option and add a line on why it matters to your audience.
• Articles and news: share the link with your own short summary rather than a screenshot of the whole article.

You don't need special software. A few free tools cover most small businesses. The Google and X details were checked on their help pages on 14 October 2026.

Keep a single "to share" list wherever suits you. The weekly habit matters far more than the tool.

• Google Alerts emails you when new results for a topic appear in Google Search. You can set how often, which types of sites, the language and the region.
• X advanced search filters posts by phrase, account, language and date, which helps you find what people in your field shared this week.
• A feed reader collects new posts from the blogs and news sites you trust in one place.
• Saved collections in Instagram, TikTok and YouTube let you bookmark posts as you scroll and come back to them on your curation day.

A hypothetical estate agent posts five times a week: three originals and two curated posts.

The two curated posts took about ten minutes each. They kept the feed useful and local without the agent having to film something new every day, and the café is likely to notice and return the favour.

• Monday (curated): the council's announcement about a new bus route, with a line on which streets benefit
• Tuesday (original): a video tour of a new listing
• Wednesday (curated): a reposted reel from a café that just opened near two of its listings, with credit
• Thursday (original): three questions to ask at a viewing
• Friday (original): a sold sign and a thank-you to the buyers, shared with their consent