Repurposing content is often overlooked in the marketing world. But the reality of the world is that different people prefer different forms of content and different channels for consuming their content.
Some prefer to read content. Within that segment you have some that prefer to read blogs, some that prefer to read on social media and some that prefer to read books or magazines.
The world seems to be getting more fragmented in the sense that there are more platforms for each of the three main types of content: text, audio and video.
The idea of repurposing is simply a way to get the most out of the content you create so you’re reaching the most people on the platform they prefer and in the format they prefer.
If you’re investing in a business blog and you want to get the most return, here are the ways to repurpose your content.
1. Email Newsletters
Email is sometimes overlooked. I get that. Email doesn’t have the same impact that it did in 2000 when everyone with an email address seemed to read every one of their few emails. Times have changed, but email still has incredible value.
In fact, you could argue that in some ways email is more valuable. Some people use email more than ever thanks to their smartphones and their preference for working via email communication. If you’re able to win their acceptance with a great email newsletter, you get regular access to their attention.
Publish your blog posts. Republish them in the emails you send. You can send the title and link. You can include just snippets from the posts and add them to the email. There are a few ways to get blog content to email subscribers.
2. Social Media Snippets
Speaking of snippets, they work really well on social media. One or two social platforms, like LinkedIn, allow you to publish longform content such as articles. But mostly, including LinkedIn, seem to prefer shorter length text content.
And the biggest key is that they want their users to stay on their platforms. They don’t want their users clicking on links to go consume content elsewhere. They don’t want people visiting your blog.
But they will welcome you with open arms if you’re adding great content to their platforms that their users want to consume. They want as much of that content as you are willing to provide.
In return, you get access to an established audience and the chance to build your brand so people know you exist and may choose to do business with you.
Write your blog posts as normal. Then take the best 2-3 sections (~50-100 words each) and share them on social media. Not at the same time, but over a couple days.
3. Audio
You can repurpose text, like a blog post, into audio format. Podcasting is more popular than ever. In many instances the podcasts are created in interview format. There may be some type of script written down before but usually it’s a little more free flowing.
And if you’re doing something like a podcast you can certainly take that and repurpose it into blog content. A 1-hour podcast could even lead to about 2-3 blog posts. And it’s not just a transcription. You can create a standalone blog post using the information shared in the podcast.
Let’s say you prefer writing blog posts. Find someone on your team or hire someone with a great voice and ability to read take your post and record it. Then publish it as a podcast.
4. Video
You can take a blog post and use it as a script for a video. You can use the post to create a format for a graphic video, which is kind of like an infographic. I’ve also seen success videos where the person starts with a blog post and they use that as a script for a video and they may also expand on the topic a bit with some more off the cuff thoughts.
5. Webinar
You’ll more often see webinars turned into blog posts. Again, not as a transcription, but having someone watch the webinar recording and use the content for a blog post or for multiple blog posts.
For example, you might have an expert on your team that hosts a webinar in Q&A format. Then you have someone watch and use that information for blog posts.
But you can do it the other way. You can repurpose a blog post so it acts like a presentation for a webinar. Your expert may prefer to write blog posts versus being on camera interacting with an audience. So they create the post and then you have someone that can use it to host a webinar.
Conclusion
The biggest item to remember with repurposing is that you want to create content to match the platform. You have to see what is working on a platform and do your best to match it. A full blog post pasted onto Facebook likely won’t work. But a 100-word snippet from a blog post may work really well on Facebook.
That’s the key to repurposing content, including blog posts, in 2021.