Creation vs Curation

Let's reflect for a minute about Social Media. Many times we focus quite heavily on content creation. Maybe we want to start a blog or YouTube channel, but we don't know exactly what it is we want to create, let alone how to go about creating it. And there's lots of materials out there to try to figure that stuff out. But you're probably already creating some content of your own in the form of microblogging. Most people online have either a Twitter or Facebook account, if not both. And there's a ton of other platforms, too, maybe with LinkedIn or Instagram. The point is that you are already engaged with creating content, even if only shorter versions of what I am doing with this blog. If this is true for you, then you have already started your creative expression. So it's just a matter of lengthening it up a bit and maybe changing formats.

Yet there's another side to Social Media, something a little more passive. And it does happen in the same platforms. When you like or share somebody else's posts, you are doing what is known as content curation. It is another component to your overall branding. By sharing other people's content, you are expressing a type of editorial control. It does reveal to others what media you are ingesting. It tells the rest of the world what world you are looking at. 

I assume that most people are doing a little creation and curation all of the time, but in a fairly unconscious way. I also assume that creativity is not always easy for people, especially when they are still learning how to use the technology to create their own content. In my opinion, curation has a value unto itself, and I believe there's a place for it in that arena. I suspect that thinking of curation first may be easier for users to find out for themselves what most interests them and what they might be most familiar with so when it does come time to create more, they might extrapolate some kind of theme from the stuff they have liked or favorited on their other platforms.