How to Build a Source List (a Crate) for Content Curation

Key takeaways

• Start from sources you already read and trust, not from lists of 'top influencers'.
• Mix kinds: people who write, publications, and a keyword or two for things you'd miss.
• A likes floor and filter:links do most of the work of removing noise.
• Prune the crate every month. A source that never makes the cut should go.

Most people who share links on X do it from memory: they remember a site they like, check it, and post whatever is on top. That works until you run out of memory. A source list fixes it. On GetCrate we call a saved source list a crate, because it's a box you can pick up, look through and put back.

What goes into a good crate?

A good crate holds the people and publications you'd read anyway, plus a keyword or two that catches what they miss.

Think of three layers:

1. People who write or build. Practitioners in your field who share their own work and what they're reading. These are often the best sources because they filter for you.
2. Publications. A trade site, a newsletter's site, a research blog. Added as a website so you catch anyone on X sharing their links, not just the publication's own account.
3. Keywords and hashtags. A phrase specific enough to mean one thing ("content operations", "rate limiting"), so you find voices you didn't know about.

Avoid starting from lists of "top 100 influencers". Those lists measure reach, and reach is a poor proxy for whether someone shares things worth reading.

How do you choose the first sources?

Look at what you've shared in the past month and work backwards to where you found it.

Open your own profile and scroll your last 20 shared links. For each one, note where it came from: an account you follow, a newsletter, a colleague. The accounts and sites that appear more than once are your first sources. Then add two or three people you respect whose links you don't see often enough.

If you have nothing to look back on, take one good article in your field and check who shared it on X. Search for its URL with url: and look at who posted it with a comment of their own. Those people are likely curators already.

Which filters should every crate have?

Links only, no replies, and a likes floor. Those three remove most of what isn't worth your time.

Language matters most for keywords. An account's posts are usually in one language anyway, but a keyword like "marketing" matches posts in dozens.

How do you turn the list into searches?

Each source becomes a search term, and the crate joins them with OR and adds the filters.

A crate with two accounts and a site looks like this:

(from:writer_one OR from:writer_two OR url:example.com) filter:links -filter:replies min_faves:25 lang:en

You can type that into X's search box, but it gets fiddly once you have ten sources. The Crate Builder writes the query, gives you a separate link for each source, and saves the whole crate in your browser so you can open it again next week.

Open the combined search on Latest when you check daily, and on Top when you check weekly and want the strongest posts first.

How do you keep a crate useful?

Prune it monthly: drop sources that never produce something you'd share, and add one new source each time.

A crate drifts. People change jobs, publications change focus, a keyword starts to mean something else. Once a month, open each source's own search link and ask whether anything from the last few weeks made it into your posts. If not twice in a row, remove it. Then add one new source you came across that month.

Keep separate crates for separate jobs: one for your core topic, one for an adjacent field, one for a weekly roundup with a date range. Export them as JSON now and then so a cleared browser doesn't cost you the work.

Once your crate is producing good links, Content curation best practices covers how to share them well.

Questions

How many sources should a crate have?

Five to fifteen is a good range. Fewer and you'll see the same few voices; more and the combined search gets long and the results get noisy. Split a large list into two crates by subtopic.

Should I include big publications?

One or two, yes, for the stories everyone will be talking about. But your value as a curator comes from the smaller sources your audience doesn't already follow.

What likes floor should I start with?

Around 10 to 50 for a niche field and a few hundred for broad topics. Adjust after a week: if you're skimming past most results, raise it; if you see too little, lower it.

Can I use an X List instead?

Yes. A List is a great place to collect the accounts. The crate adds the filters a List timeline doesn't have, like links only and minimum likes.