It is likely that you are using different platforms to promote your brand.
You’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube – every social media site out there.
Here’s the fact: you don’t need to come up with a new set of ideas for every platform you promote, and you shouldn’t have to.
Save time and make the most out of your existing content with these tips.
But let’s first get the basics right.
What is content repurposing?
Your existing content can be reformatted to be used on different platforms. This is different from simply copying and pasting your blog posts on other platforms.
Repurposing the content involves using the information you already have to create something that’s better suited for other platforms.
So, what’s the point of repurposing content?
The most obvious answer to this question is it saves you time in creating new topics and content adopting an omnichannel approach in promotion.
Why come up with new ideas when you already have useful information?
Repurposing content also drives traffic to your blog.
By sharing your content on different platforms, you’re creating more opportunities to link back to your website and it helps further strengthen your SEO.
Now that we know how important it is, let’s see how to actually repurpose the content to use on different platforms.
Why create a content repurposing strategy?
Here are some of the reasons why you need to adopt a content repurposing strategy in your business:
- Diversification of traffic: With content repurposing, you’ll be tapping into multiple sources of traffic. You’ll be driving traffic from all the major platforms rather than depending on a single source of traffic.
- Brand awareness: When people see your brand thriving by commanding their attention wherever they go, they stay more receptive to your marketing messages. People buy from businesses which are tangible, it is hardwired in their brain. With repurposing your content, you’ll be amplifying your brand message.
- More ROI: Repurposing is reusing the existing content on your blog on various platforms. It has great advantages in reducing costs and time involved in creating new content for all the platforms we’re gonna leverage. When repurposing is done correctly, with a unique twist every time, it can skyrocket your ROI and save you loads of money.
- Unique audience: Do you think all visitors read your blog posts? Nope. Some people prefer watching videos instead of reading blog posts. With only blog posts in place, you’ll be missing out on those audience who are visual learners. On the other hand, there are some people who like listening to podcasts as they are auditory learners. You’ll be missing out on the audience of these different groups if you stick to one platform and don’t repurpose your content.
- Fresh new perspective: When you repurpose the content, it gives your audience a fresh new perspective while learning. Because, your audience’s behaviour will not be the same across all platforms. The way people learn reading blog posts is very different to the way they learn by watching videos.
These are some of the undeniable reasons why you need to repurpose your blog content.
Let’s dive in.
How to repurpose content for maximum engagement
Repurpose written content as videos
Use your existing blog posts as scripts for your YouTube videos.
To repurpose a blog post as a video, follow these steps:
- Break up your post into an outline with main points and sub-points. This will make it easier for you to follow along as you make your video.
- Record yourself presenting the information. You only need to record your voice, so don’t worry about getting a high-quality webcam. Instead, use Audacity, a free multi-track audio editor.
- Make slides that display the information you are going to cover. Make sure not to bombard your readers with text. Use bullet points, and split up the text slides with images.
- Use a video editor to combine the slides and audio.
- Publish your video on YouTube!
At the end of your video, remind viewers to check out your website for more information, tips, and relevant content. You can also market your relevant products and services too.
Also, embed the video into your blog post in case your readers want to watch that instead of reading. Some people prefer watching videos instead of reading text. By doing this, you’ll not be missing out on this potential audience.
Also depending upon the niche you’re in, you may consider monetising your YouTube videos with Google AdSense, Patreon, sponsored content, selling merchandise, and many more.
Repurpose videos as a podcast
Now that you have an audio file of your video in Audacity, you can also turn your content into a podcast.
Go to Fiverr, and get an intro audio for your Podcast created for €10 – €25.
Now, you need to add this intro to the audio in Audacity and then publish it.
If you are not interested in extracting audio from your video and repurposing it, you can grab your mic and just read out your post loud, and then create podcasts.
The biggest job when creating podcast episodes is creating transcriptions. By repurposing the blog content you already have, you’ll save a lot of resources.
Use Anchor.fm to distribute your podcast across multiple platforms. It does a great job of syndicating your podcast to platforms like iTunes, Google Podcasts, PocketCasts, CastBox, Player.fm, and dozens of others in one single click.
You can’t afford to ignore adding podcast promotion to your content marketing stack. Because according to some reports the number of podcast listeners is increasing sharply and it’s only the beginning especially with voice assistants in place.
Repurpose as slides
You can also have slides that can be repurposed on their own. Post them to some slide sharing platforms like LinkedIn’s Slideshare.
Don’t forget to promote that new content on your LinkedIn profile too!
Did you know that Slideshare has 80 million users worldwide?
Yep.
If you think there are no slide-lovers, rethink.
For some people, slides are a great way to consume information as they carry the benefits of both videos and written content.
Make sure you include the main keyword of the slides in the title, description and tags of your presentation. It helps you get more organic traffic to your slides.
Repurpose data to make infographics
Do your blog posts or curated content contain data?
If so, turn that data into an easy-to-read infographic.
Since some people are visual learners and love visual content, this will help you communicate your information to a variety of people.
Creating an infographic is easy and shouldn’t cost you anything. We recommend using Piktochart to build your infographics, since this program is specifically designed for that.
However, you can also use Canva’s infographic templates. There’s no need to buy Photoshop or Illustrator unless you’re a full-time graphic designer!
Once you’ve made your infographics, insert some of them into your blog posts.
You can also use them as posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (for Instagram, divide the infographic into smaller pieces and fit in to the post).
Place all those pieces in the same post. Infographics are typically too long to be used in an Instagram post without being modified).
Infographics are also great Pinterest material.
Don’t underestimate the power of Pinterest in driving you floods of traffic!
Publish your articles on other platforms
Share your written content on other platforms that host blog posts and articles. Depending on which niche you write about, you have different options for re-publishing your content.
Although Medium hosts content on many different topics, this platform prides itself on not publishing sponsored content or articles that are not original.
If you’re looking to publish to Medium, use an excerpt from a blog post you’ve already written and give a unique spin on it. Remember to link back to your original blog post though!
If you write fun, lighthearted content, consider posting it to Buzzfeed Community. This platform allows writers to turn anything into a Buzzfeed article.
Are you into mental health writing?
Submit your content on mental health and chronic illness to The Mighty.
There are unique platforms for almost everyone! You need to find them.
While republishing, you need to make sure that the syndicated content links back to your original blog post using a canonical tag.
Or else, you may struggle with duplicate content issues and the syndicated pages may outrack the original web page – especially if your webpage has low authority.
Most of the channels like Medium and LinkedIn Pulse, gives you the option to add canonical tags. To make sure that the canonical tag is added, use the inspect element or view the page source and search for the attribute “canonical”.
Answer Questions on Quora
Does your article answer a question on Quora?
Give the user a short answer with a link to your blog post for more information.
Use short paragraphs and bucket brigades/cliffhanger words to create interest in people. You don’t want to give away all your information without making someone clicking onto your site!
As Quora is a powerful and popular medium, you can drive lots of traffic provided your strategies are well-thought.
You need to answer questions on Quora, which have got good follower numbers but fewer answers. Answering these questions will help you get more eyeballs to your site.
Also, you need to consider sharing the links to your Quora answers on your social media profiles so that they get more views and will be bumped up in the people’s Quora newsfeeds.
Share Your Content on Social Media
When sharing your content on social media, follow these guidelines:
- Don’t give away all your information in the post! Readers interested in knowing more should click on your link.
- Don’t ask your audience to “like,” “comment”, or “share” your posts. Not only does it appear tacky, but also your post will not perform well on Facebook.
- There’s no need to use hashtags when sharing on Facebook. It’s not a commonly used feature on that platform. BTW, on Twitter, use 1-3 hashtags per post.
You can also use your content as a way to engage your audience on social media. Try these tactics:
- Quiz your audience by creating a poll. Then, share a link to your article with the correct answer 24 hours later.
- Share an article and ask a question relevant to it. For example, try asking “Would YOU use this tactic?”
As you can see, there is no reason why your content should only be used one time. There are so many ways to repurpose your content for any platform, whether it’s a video website, another writing platform, or social media.
Watch your page views grow as you spread your content farther!
Wrap up
Repurposing content is one of the most effective ways to leverage the omnichannel approach for amplifying your content marketing efforts.
I would not recommend relying on a single source of traffic when you have the chance of tapping on multiple sources.
In this post, I’ve only scratched the surface of repurposing. If you’re creative enough you can uncover more and more repurposing channels.