What is Content Aggregation and how to leverage it for Digital Marketing
We have known this for a long time that “content is the king” in the marketing world but have never really explored the depths of this statement, where the questions such as what kind of content, where to promote, who should create the content and how it will be beneficial for the audience.
“Actually talk to your customers. Use the language that they use. Talk about the things they talk about. Never feed salad to a lion.”
Brands have been creating promotional content endlessly but it hasn’t been getting them anywhere. So, the idea here is to design your digital marketing strategy based on what’s trending and develop content keeping the target consumer’s interests, likings, and taste in mind.
And the recent advancements in the content marketing world have introduced an emerging phenomenon called – content aggregation which has provided answers to the problems of brands associated with attracting, engaging and converting the audience better than ever before.
So, let’s first understand what actually is content aggregation.
Content Aggregation: Definition
Content aggregation in its simplest form is the process of accumulating content from diverse digital platforms on a common topic into an exclusive place.
There are millions of posts being uploaded every day on digital platforms and aggregating that into a single feed makes it easy and simple for users to access a topic of interest into one place saving them time and effort.
And eventually, for brands, Content aggregation serves the purpose of accumulating content for marketing, information-sharing, driving engagement and interaction with the audience.
The content aggregation process is executed by a digital tool called content aggregator by extracting content from vast sources based on the instructions provided to it.
Content aggregation can majorly be categorized into two types i.e. Social media and Regular.
Regular content aggregation based on aggregating information from different news sites, blog pages, articles, visual content and podcasts into one place for allowing users to easy and simple access to value-adding information.
RSS feed is one such aggregation example for this, It is a web feed or news aggregator which delivers content to the viewers through web syndication. Websites make use of these feeds to dispense updates, new blogs, episodes and much more.
Now the Social media content aggregation, where the content is accumulated from social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, among others.
Social media aggregation is much more trending and in use presently as a major chunk of the people are accessing social media sites worldwide and it unlocks the potential for businesses to gain leads and conversions. Here comes the role of social media aggregation tools or social aggregator tools.
Although content aggregation is a distinct area itself still people often confuse it with content curation. These terms have different meanings and we have mentioned it for you.
Content Aggregation vs. Content Curation
Both content curation and content aggregation are crucial elements of the digital marketing world. For an effective content marketing strategy, it is essential to integrate both aggregation and curation. But the important question is how are they different and how it affects you.
Content curation is majorly a manual process where the marketers have to analyze, research and curate content that meets the target audiences’ interests, likings, and needs.
Content aggregation comparatively is a more automated process where after the initial set up of aggregator and providing instructions, it will aggregate all the relevant content into a single feed automatically.
Automation is essential in the present business environment, as there is a huge demand for quick, easily accessible, relevant content delivered to the user instantly.
Content aggregation is automated therefore it is extremely cost-effective and provides instant feeds, accumulating content in real-time. It saves time for marketers and also human labor that otherwise would have been required to aggregate content.
Moreover, Content curation is a more detailed process and calls for editorial supervision as the aim is to deliver quality content that is informative and explanatory. Therefore, it requires an investment of time and human labor.
The originality of content is an excellent element to have in your content strategy as not necessary but it might help you in higher engagement and leads.
Content aggregation does not have originality aspect to the aggregated content as it is just accumulating the already posted content from users, brands or others.
Whereas Content curation inevitably includes some original content pieces or might just be totally original as a round-up of another piece of content. This gives the content a sense of freshness and updated aesthetics making it better than earlier.
The content aggregation has a certain degree of value addition characteristics for the audience as with the availability of moderation tools you can control the quality of content, its sources, and integrate valuable content from large content grouping based on the audience interest and brand relativity.
Content curation is able to provide more value additive potential with its niche, targeted, and detail-orientation combined with a human’s subjective approach. Content curation is resourceful when there is a requirement for High-quality content for a specific group of audience.
Content Aggregation & Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is an extremely dynamic and unforgiving field for brands. A small mistake could cost hugely to the image and stake of the brand so it becomes essential to post and promote content that has positive aesthetics to it. And Content aggregation is the way to do it for the brands.
In this constantly changing digital environment, there are new trends coming in every week and consumers are exploring new possibilities every day.
Therefore, It is important to be aware of what the people are talking about, their newfound interests, and trending topics to beat the competition and deliver what consumers are looking for.
Content aggregation helps in accumulating content from different platforms for brands to analyze consumer interests and trends instantly. This is an extremely helpful trait of content aggregation as you can take immediate action on to audience demands.
Without Content aggregation, it would require a lot of time, cost and effort to analyze, research and gather quality content for your marketing campaign. And you would have to gather it before conducting your marketing campaign.
With content aggregation, you can accumulate content in real-time with instant updates. This allows you to see how the audience is responding to your marketing efforts and make changes accordingly. Besides that, content aggregation is cost-effective and time-saving.
Over 90% of consumers agree that they would buy something if other consumers using that product have suggested to them that. This happens as a positive word of mouth means the users’ experience of the products has been satisfying and value for money.
Besides that, user-generated content about the brand provides social proof to the consumers about a positive brand image, authenticity, trust, and identity.
“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.”
Content aggregation as we know harnesses existing content so you can gather user-generated content relative to your brand and promote it using various social walls displaying aggregated content on events, Stores, E-commerce, website, and many other places.
User-generated content is a key element in any digital marketing strategy and incorporating it will make it more interactive, rewarding and exciting for the audience harnessing better leads and conversion for the brand.
Every business wants that they can acquire maximum engagement from their digital marketing strategy as consumer engagement is a key element leading to better conversions.
And Content aggregation is vastly helpful in driving engagement. As content aggregation allows you to harness quality content from social media platforms especially user-generated.
And this content can be used by brands to drive interactions through it or maybe designing their own specific hashtag or handles, asking users to share their experiences, ideas, feedback, reviews or opinions and giving them an opportunity to feature on company’s digital profiles.
Users will be interested in engaging with your digital strategy as they also have a chance to gain exposure and fame in return. Engagement with the brand will also help in building an online brand community of loyal consumers who will feel that their voice matters for the brand.
Consumers now expect personalized marketing and interactions between the brands. As they are well aware of how businesses are collecting information on their browsing history, interests, search keywords, and demographic information.
“The only way to win at content marketing is for the reader to say, ‘This was written specifically for me.”
User experience is a vital element that drives the consumer towards a brand or more importantly away from it. And content aggregation can offer more personalized content to be distributed to a consumer based on their online posts, activities, and history.
The facts prove this as well, 90%consumer finding it appealing and engaging with over 75% consumers making repeat purchases after seeing personalized content and offers (source: https://barnraisersllc.com/2018/04/personalized-marketing-facts-marketer-know/).
To Conclude
Content aggregation is immensely beneficial for digital marketers, as it provides a solution to major marketing issues faced by marketers such as consumer dissatisfaction, reach increment, low engagement and negative effect on conversions.
As content is what the consumers see first which leads them to the brand’s products and offerings. Therefore, if the content is not effective enough, the consumer will drop out immediately.
Content aggregation tools solve this problem and also provide customization and moderation options to make your campaign more attractive and engaging leading to a superlative consumer experience.
So, what are your views on content marketing and its relevance to digital marketing?
Author: Upendra is a digital marketing enthusiast and professional with a zeal to write anything and everything about content marketing and related domains and is currently assigned as a senior digital marketer at Taggbox. Follow his write-ups here and don’t forget to comment on what you feel about them!