How Neil Patel Uses Content Curation and Content Creation to Create Blog Posts People Love
In case you didn’t know, BBH harnesses both the power of content creation and content curation.
What does that mean?
We create content that is exclusive to this site and we also point you to the best online articles for business owners.
Well, today I want to point you to a blog post I wrote on RecessionSolution.com that reveals a powerful way that you can use both content creation and content curation in the content marketing that you create…
The Powerful, Unique Way Neil Patel Uses Content Curation to Create Irresistible, Viral Blog Posts
I am about to tell you how Neil Patel went from reselling car parts to becoming one of the top names in content marketing.
And he did it by using an unusual hyrbid method that combines content marketingand content curation in a very unique and powerful way.
But first, I need to tell you an important story.
It’s a story I read in a great book called Curation Nation by Steven Rosenbaum.
It’s the story of how one magazine became the best-selling consumer magazine in the U.S.
And guess how they did this? They used content curation.
(If you don’t know what content curation is, then I’d encourage you to read Beth Kanter’s post Content Curation Primer .)
How Reader’s Digest Was Started
Do you know the story of how Reader’s Digest got started?
The idea for the magazine was thought up by a guy DeWitt Wallace.
He came up with the idea while he was recovering from shrapnel wounds that he received in World War I.
His idea was to gather his favorite articles on many subjects from different monthly magazines.
He would then take these articles and condense or rewrite them and then combine them into one magazine.
His prototype for the first Reader’s Digest issue had 31 articles from magazines like Atlantic Monthly, Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, and Ladies Home Journal.
He was really pleased with it so he showed a sample of his “magazine of magazines” to the sister of a college friend whose name was Lila Bell Acheson.
She loved the idea! And guess what? He ended up falling in love with HER! He proposed and they were married in 1921.
Together they began a husband-wife partnership that would become what some have said was one of the most successful and productive partnerships in publishing.
The Self-Publishing Route
12 publishers turned them down, so they decided to just produce the magazine on their own.
They mailed out several hundred circulars and then they went on their honeymoon.
When they returned from their honeymoon they were completely shocked!
The results of that first mailing gave them 1,300 subscribers (at $3 a year) for the magazine.
With those subscribers, Reader’s Digest was born.
By 1929, the magazine had 290,000 subscribers and had a gross income of $900,000 a year.
That’s was a lot of money in 1929!
By the 40th anniversary of Reader’s Digest, there were 40 international editions, in 13 languages and Braille, with a total international circulation of 23 million.
That shows you the power of content curation.
The Magazine’s Successful Format
The magazine’s format was used for decades and decades, because it proved to be so effective.
The basic format consisted of these sections:
- 30 articles per issue – This was so there would be one per day.
- A vocabulary page
- A page of “Amazing Anecdotes”
- A “Personal Glimpses” section
- 2 features of funny stories: “Humor in Uniform” and “Life in these United States“
- And a lengthier article that was usually presented at the end of the magazine (This article was usually condensed from a published book.)
How successful was this content curation format?
Well, you can judge for yourself…
Reader’s Digest was the best-selling consumer magazine in the United States up until 2009, when Better Homes and Gardens took that title.
What I want you to see is this.
If you use content curation correctly, it will allow you to produce content your audience loves.
And that leads us to Neil Patel. Why?
Because just like DeWitt Wallace, Neil has figured out a way to harness the power of content curation, which has brought him great success.
Now pay attention closely and you’ll see what I mean…
Click here to continue reading and discover this powerful method that Neil Patel uses…
