Content creation for your brand, business, or website can be fun and engaging…at first. After a while, you may find that you just don’t have the time you’d like anymore or maybe you have new platforms and your standard medium, such as blog-writing, doesn’t fit. You may be challenged with maintaining multiple social media platforms that need fresh content in smaller bite-sized amounts. Regardless of your need, content creation is critical to sustaining your online presence. Repurposing, or the art of editing and refining previously created content for new consumers, might be the solution you are seeking. When you repurpose content, you transform a previously used format into new material with a diverse, and sometimes wider, reach.
You cannot just take any old piece of content and repurpose it. While repurposing isn’t as labour-intensive as writing your original piece, this is about more than a re-write. You need to figure out the why and where to proceed.
In today’s age of rapid digital consumption, making content for different mediums in a short amount of time is necessary to keep up. First, determine what medium you are publishing to. Once you have determined where the content is going, assess what style will be most effective. The double-edged sword of many social media platforms is length—you have mere seconds to catch someone’s attention. To edit a larger post such as a blog or article, you can cut it into slices and achieve a much higher number of posts from one piece. You can use just a headline, a title, or a quote or statistic and then link to your page. Use a scheduler to turn one long post into a bunch of snippets that you can get organized at once and set to post in advance.
You don’t have to recycle text into a new text. To appeal to the typical audience of social media, repurpose your original text into an infographic. To do this, change your titles and headers into sections, and use bullet points or even icons to transform your work.
If you are looking at turning one big piece into smaller tidbits for consumption, keep it visual, use a scheduler, and engage with your audience by responding to comments to build rapport. This is the difference between engaging with your audience using a long post that reveals who you are or what you do versus catching the eye of a scroller and drawing them in.
Create a newsletter or different type of medium to share information you have previously created in a new way. Instead of re-sending your blog, re-construct it as a personal email and send it in a uniquely individual way, such as addressing it directly using the first name or connecting the new medium to the work your business is currently engaged in.
Creating an e-book or video can take longer BUT can be used to attract new and deeper participation with your audience. To best utilize this method, choose a high-performing previous piece of content or outdated SEO phrases in the headings. Update the information and generate a new text using the new terminology, or better yet, film a video. Using this method, you can take several smaller pieces and consolidate them, or add them to a previous piece.
Another way to repurpose content is to create a slide deck. Presentations are a way to reach someone in a mailbox in a new way. You can use new graphics and photos, video snippets, or sound clips. Creating a presentation can update your content and reach new faces.
Moving to a new conduit online might require some tweaking, but due to the compact nature of most mediums, might not be too complicated. You can turn quotes and tweets into images or screenshots or use them in a boomerang video on TikTok! Short videos can be used on Facebook or Instagram stories and on the Snapchat, Tiktok or Twitter feeds.
If you will be sharing the same video on multiple feeds, you will want to ensure that they are spaced out to not saturate to a client who may be active on multiple platforms.
Repurposing old posts saves time and energy when you don’t have to focus on creating your new content from scratch. It gives you more platforms to work with and gets more eyes to whatever you want your potential clients to see. This will give you time to work on bringing in stronger leads for purchases as you can schedule your posts and move on to the deeper work of building relationships.
Remember that not all original content should be repurposed. We live in changing times and outdated ideas should be tossed, not repackaged! By identifying the purposes of your content recycling, your content creation team can easily target the best options and work on the foundation that makes the process repeatable. Once you’ve learned how to do it, the task gets easier.
At VanPatter Group we understand that the internet is your connection to your clients. Not only can we help you learn more about repurposing content, but we can show you how to get it in front of clients who are looking for your type of product and service! Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help take your business to the next level!