Content repurposing is a great add-on to a content marketing strategy.
Basically, you create content for one platform and repurpose it for another.
This is a good approach because every platform is a little different. The audiences on those platforms are looking for content that’s in a little different form.
One example might be a blog post and Twitter. You can take a blog post, pull out the top quotes and share those on Twitter where the Twitter audience can consume it right on the platform.
Another example might be taking a podcast and uploading the audio plus some animation to YouTube as a video.
There are lots of examples and one popular one is Video + Blog. Usually you’ll see info on how to take it from video to a blog.
But you can also do it the other way.
Here are a few ways to convert a blog into a vlog…
What’s A Vlog?
Just a quick note on vlogs. It’s simple a video blog. A steady stream of new video content that you publish. It could be on your own website or on another platform like YouTube.
Usually vlogging is associated with documenting something like your work or personal life. But that was the same conception of blogging. Just a journal.
There are instances where that is true, but both vlogging and blogging can be much more.
Anyway, that’s what a vlog is. The reason you would want to repurpose a blog into a vlog or convert a blog into a vlog is to reach those that prefer video content to text content.
1. Write The Blog As Normal
Let’s assume that blogging is your preferred method for creating content. Usually people have a preference of video, audio and text. If it’s text, it’s not natural for you to want to record a video and then transcribe the video to create a blog post.
So it’s fine to start with the blog as you normally would. Do all the same research. Do the same organization and formatting. Publish it the same.
Everything the same.
2. Use The Blog Post As A Script
Now, once the post is done you just use it as a script for the video you’re going to create. That’s really it. This might be a little intimidating at first.
One thing to note is that if you’re not comfortable on camera that you have two options.
First, you could figure it out and try it. See if you’re good at it. See if you can become good at it. You most likely will not be good at reading the post and looking good on camera while doing it when you start. It’s kind of like being a news anchor. They’re reading info all the time. Most probably weren’t good when they started doing it in their basements, but they got better over time. You will too if you don’t absolutely hate it.
Second, if you do find that you hate reading and being on camera then it’s time to look for someone else to do it. It could be someone in your company that likes being on camera. It could be someone that you contract from a freelance website. Or you could hire a professional by asking around your network.
3. Recording & Posting Method
Usually a vlog is a live recording. It’s easy these days. You can do it with a smartphone. Just record someone reading the blog post. You could use higher quality camera equipment and microphones and things like that. But give it a try with the basics just to see how it goes.
Also look to batch the process. Create and schedule the posts and then schedule a time for the video recording to happen in batches. They do this all the time with TV shows. I think it was Family Feud where they often record up to six episodes per day.
One other note is that some will create animation or use a static image or a stream of images over an audio recording to create a video effect. Even musicians will do this when they first release a new song on YouTube. They’ll use an image to hold the audience over until the video comes out.
That’s an ok way to do it, but the live recoding might be best.
Conclusion
You’ll often see people talking about how to repurpose video into blog posts. That’s fine if you prefer to create video more than text. But if you like creating blog posts, but want to repurpose to video, the process above might be the best way to go. The key question will be if you want to be the one on camera or if it’s better for someone else to take that over.