10 Ways to Repurpose Content

10 Ways to Repurpose Content

If you are a business owner, blogger, or freelancer you may feel that you could spend hours and hours working on content marketing.  There is just so much to do and to think about from website content, blog posts, email marketing, social media, social media videos, youtube.  Not to mention physical marketing assets such as postcards, signage, business cards, flyers and radio ads.

What might be a huge relief for you to hear is that is is perfectly acceptable to reuse and repurpose your marketing content in order to save time, money, and energy.

Here are 10 ways that you might consider using to repurpose your content.

Turn your blog posts into multiple streams of content use

If you are going to create a blog post or article on your website, then you might as well maximize your time and efforts.  This one blog post can become 2 to 3 social media posts (on all of your platforms.  It can become 10 to 20 or more Pinterest Pins.  Include your blog post in your email newsletter, and inspiration for video or lives.  In my opinion investing in Blogs as a content marketing tool would be a the top of my list because a blog post at the top of the task list filters down successfully into all other channels, and achieves many digital marketing goals at once.  A blog is beneficial for SEO, helps establish you as an expert in your field, gives you content for social media, gives you content for email and other marketing, and can be repurposed in the future.

Create email marketing content from blog & social media content

If you are using email marketing - AMAZING!!  If you are not - see this blog:  5 Benefits of Email Marketing

When you are creating your email marketing content make sure that you also include content from your recent blog posts.  You already have the graphic and the link - so include it in your newsletter or email blast.  And a great way to repurpose social media content is to include it in your email newsletter too.  Think about a gallery featuring social media posts for the week, or use just one highlighted social media post that received a lot of engagement.  You can use the original graphic, or even a screen shot of the post.  Sometimes its fun for your email audience to see the comments & perhaps even the stats.

Repurpose video to all channels

If your business is investing in video - again AMAZING!  (I know this can be costly especially if you are having them done professionally).  Video is an effective method of communication with your target audience.  TikTok is incredibly successful because humans relate to other humans, even in the business world.

So if you are investing in Video make sure that you think ahead of time how you can maximize this investment.  I always suggest to my clients that they negotiate that they will get a long form version of their video (i.e. 3 to 5 minutes) a shorter version of the video (i.e 1 minute) and then multiple clips of the video that are 15 to 30 seconds in length.  This will give you video content you can repurpose on your social media for months to come.

PRO TIP:  Get all video clips CLOSED CAPTIONED not only for accessibility but it is proven that a huge percentage of users consume video with captions ON.  Don't miss this opportunity.

PRO TIP #2:  If it makes sense to do so also include a transcript of your video in text format.  Again this is incredibly important for accessibility - but as an added bonus the unique text on your website will help with Search Engine Optimization.

Reuse content in the months to come

Yes you can reuse reduce and recycle online too!  Once you have created a piece of content whether it is a social media post, a blog post, or a video, it is perfectly acceptable to reuse this content in the future.  Repetition is actually proven to help your audience remember and retain information on your business.  In the digital world it can take up to 17 times of a user scrolling past your content to retain that to memory.  So if you create a really awesome social media post it is absolutely OK to repost this again in the future.  Average rule of thumb would be 3 months, however certain platforms allow for different uses.  For example on Twitter you can reuse the same content on a much more regular basis.  This would also be true with Instagram Stories.

Some social media scheduling tools allow for you to schedule content and repeat it automatically in the future (what an awesome time saver!!!)

Check out Sendible - we use this for all of our Dufferin Media clients.  They have a handy "repeat" tool so I could schedule the same post weekly, monthly or custom.

Create multiple images from one blog post

One of my favourite little tricks is to create more than one graphic for each of my blog posts that I can use for marketing on various channels.  So you will often see within each of my blog post articles more than one graphic.  For example the main graphic that I use most often, usually followed by a statistic graphic, and finally a PRO tip graphic.

What this provides me with is now 3 ways that I can share this one blog post to all of my social media channels.  I immediately turn one blog post into 3 social media posts.

In addition if you are using Pinterest for your digital marketing then you will find it very acceptable to create 10 - 20 unique pins (or more) for each blog post and publish these on Pinterest to various boards all leading back to the same blog.  An incredible way to drive traffic to your website.

Use your email marketing content for social media content

If you have created an email newsletter or other form on content via your email marketing system you might consider a social media post sharing the link to your email blast.  I personally do not use this tactic in my own marketing but I see it used often in nonprofits and other organizations that send out emails that include information they might not otherwise send out via social media.  All email marketing softwares will include a link to each email blast that can be used to share elsewhere.  **note this might not work great on Instagram unless in a Story.**

Turn your blog posts into video topics

If you are looking for inspiration for video content for Youtube, TikTok or Reels, you may need to look no further than your blog posts.  This is certainly a goal for me, to grow on video platforms.  Luckily I have hundreds of blog posts I could use for inspiration.  The topic and all of the talking points already exist, so why not create a video using them.  Another quick tip to consider might be to use the Canva assets (if you are using Canva for graphic design) to create a Reel or TikTok using one of their thousands of amazing templates.

Turn traditional forms of advertising into digital content

This might sound a little backwards, but I actually did this a few times recently for a client.  The client needed a flyer to print in one case, and a table top sign in another instance. I created both of these visuals in Canva in the correct format for sending to the printer.  BUT WAIT!  I wasn't done there because in Canva you can RESIZE any graphic into any other size!!! (might require some manipulation of where things are laid out on the page).

So this one flyer / poster I was able to turn into an Instagram post, Facebook Post, and Twitter Post with very little time or effort.  This is amazing for time savings, but also for branding as this allows for continuity between digital and print.  A branding WIN!

Rewrite old blogs and republish as new

So I've been blogging here for about 4 years.  There is a lot of old blog content on my site (some quite embarrassing when I read it LOL).  What is great about this is I can circle back at any time and rewrite and republish old content.  When I've done this I will usually create new graphics for the blog, update stats, and edit text content.  I will also double check at this time SEO, keywords, and categories and tags.  If you wish at this time you could also change the published date so it appears at the top of your articles again on your website.  And then of course you can share again to all of your social media.

Add social media content to your website

This is another one that might seem a little backwards too, but some businesses use this very successfully.  The most common example that I can think of is when a business includes a social media feed on their website.  This is very popular now with Instagram, and when used correctly can add some amazing visuals to a front page.  In the past it was more common with Twitter and Facebook Feeds.  My only caution if you are going to implement a social media feed to your website is to make sure that a) you update your social media consistently and b) that you always make sure the plugin is updated

I have also been successful at creating website content from feedback that I have received on social media.  Especially Twitter.  I often ask for submissions from social media to include in an article, and I will include a screen shot of the users post and type up the text to match.  This can also create additional social media content AND you can tag the user you are quoting for further engagement.

How will you Repurpose Your Content?

I hope that you found these suggestions helpful for your digital marketing strategy.  I know how stressful it can be to try to keep up with all of the tasks involved in promoting your business online (and offline) as well as running the business.  Hopefully by reusing and repurposing your content you can save time, energy, money, and stress.

If I can be of any assistance with your digital marketing strategy please don't hesitate to reach out.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to repurpose marketing content?  Please leave a comment below.