How to Grow on Threads: 9 Ways to Gain Followers

In our time on Threads, the Buffer team has picked up some patterns — here are our tried-and-tested strategies for growing your following on Instagram’s new platform.

Museums curate works of art. We marketers curate digital content.

Though our link shares may not be artistic contributions, the idea of curation is at least the same at museums and online: We’re all seeking only the best material to pass along to our patrons, customers, fans, or followers.

Finding and sharing exquisite content has never been more valuable. With the vast volume of content being shared every day, it’s harder than ever to sift through and find what’s most valuable to you.

People love being told what’s good to read or essential to see. Curators are the tastemakers of the modern creative landscape.

With that in mind, we’ve collected some ways to get started with content curation and to do so as efficiently and expertly as possible.

What is content curation?

Content curation is sorting through a large amount of web content to find the best, most meaningful bits and presenting these in an organized, valuable way.

Social media users are looking for a one-stop shop in a world of nearly infinite content – most social media platforms offer that. However, it is also helpful to note what content curation is not.

Curation is not aggregation.

What’s the difference? How the content is collected.

Content aggregation relies on automation, using algorithms to find content – it’s what the social platforms do. Content curation features handpicked content, often introduced with a snippet of copy from the curator. When performed correctly, content curation can add a lot of value.

Aggregation is algorithmic. Curation is handpicked.

The human element of curation is a huge source of its value. Algorithms can do a great job at surfacing stories that meet certain standards, but there will always be posts that fall through the cracks. Handpicked human collections can find content that might resonate outside of standard measuring tools, and the end product of a handpicked curation will always be unique.

4 benefits of content curation

Here are some of the significant benefits to a good content curation strategy. These benefits include:

You improve your relationship with the creators, publishers, and brands whose content you share.
You grow your authority on a subject (provided the curation is top-notch).
You add quality content to your site or timeline and create a great resource for others.
You save time by creating content yourself from scratch.

Examples of content curation

Content curation can work itself out in a number of different ways. Depending on your marketing focus and content strategy, one of these three curating methods—or multiple methods—could be a fit.

Curate content in a weekly blog post

You may be familiar with these link roundups. They’re simply posts that collect helpful resources from around the web on a given topic (the very definition of curation).

This is my preferred method of curation for Buffer’s newsletter. I put in the latest content from the blog, one trend from our social media manager to give our audience something actionable to take away, and three or four of the most relevant social media news of the week.

Curation is big in the newsletter space. We’ve highlighted a few of our favorite newsletters before – Morning Brew, Lia Haberman to name a few, and they all incorporate content curation in one way or another.

Here’s an example of one from Substack newsletter, as seen on that highlights content from around the web as well as the other interesting links they’ve found elsewhere.

On social media, curation is likely to be part of the mix of content you share. You’ll still post personal updates, brand mentions, and miscellaneous other content – curation would simply join the schedule.

Girl Power Marketing is a fantastic example of content curation done right on social media. Founder Annie-Mai Hodge pioneered the “social media updates” format, curating the top news of the week on social media from around the web in one-line snippets.

How to curate content as efficiently and expertly as possible

If curating content is something you’d love to try for your marketing efforts, you’re likely wondering about the one big hurdle: time. How much time does quality content curation take?

Certainly, a time investment is involved in doing it right (as with most things done well). But don’t let this dissuade you from getting started. There are a number of resources, tools, and tricks that help make the curation process even easier. Here’s what’s involved.