Blog repurposing 101
Do you start from scratch for every piece of content you produce?
If the answer is yes, then why? You need to start repurposing your blogs. Repurposing is a handy way to get the most from your content, to exploit and dive deeper into your ideas and to create a web of content that stays on theme, helping to build your authority in those areas.
But it’s not all copy and paste. In order to turn it into effective social posts, videos and emails you need to do a little bit of tinkering.
What is repurposing?
Sometimes also called recycling, it’s when you take a blog and you turn it into other content. Great content can be time intensive. So when you create the best blog you want to make sure that you’re squeezing every last drop of impact and use of it, and that’s where repurposing comes in.
Once you publish a blog, usually, that’s it. Job done, move onto the next one. But repurposing allows you to keep reinventing the content and the ideas, extending its lifespan, making your life easier and creating a bank of on message content.
More bang for your buck
This one is particularly true if you’re outsourcing your content writing. Let’s say you’re paying a content writer to craft your blogs for you. You’re paying them for that one output. You publish it on your site, it might give you an SEO boost, it might generate a few leads but then it gets buried by newer blogs.
By repurposing that blog into social posts, a video, a webinar topic, a podcast or whatever is most helpful to you, you’re getting even more value from that initial investment.
The same goes for your time. If you’ve spent 4 hours researching and writing the blog in the first place, you can then capitalise on that time and build out your content bank.
Make your life easier
You’ve chosen your blog topics for a reason, hopefully, that’s because they’ll resonate with your audience or they’re searching for those topics. But once you’ve had that great idea why would you only use it once?
Thinking of ideas, doing the research, writing the initial content. That’s where the time is. When you’re busy it’s far easier to take something that already exists, make a few tweaks and send it out into the world in a shiny new format, than it is to start from scratch.
Content creation doesn’t need to be difficult and repurposing helps avoid that.
Reach new audiences
Not everyone reads blogs. Not everyone is on Instagram. Not everyone watches videos.
You need different content to appeal to different audiences. So taking a blog on a certain topic and creating different outlets for the ideas and opinions in that original piece allows you to target and connect with more people.
It’s not plagiarising, because it’s your own work, and also I’m not saying copy and paste, the content needs to be adapted to the channel it’s going to be used on. But taking the idea, message or topic of that blog and tweaking it slightly will broaden its reach, broaden its usefulness and broaden its impact.
How to repurpose blogs for…
There’s a whole number of different ways that you can repurpose your blogs into a range of lovely content. But here I’ve picked out a few to show just how easy it is.
Video
Take your blog and turn it into a script - pull out the key points and quotes and then either turn that into an animation - you can do that even with something like Canva. Or give them to your most video-happy colleague and ask them to talk to the camera pulling out those points. A quick edit to top and tail it and you’re good to go.
Podcast
Take the theme and message of a blog and invite someone to discuss or debate it with you while being recorded. This way you get to further explore the topic with another viewpoint while still bringing in the main points of the blog. Further points for you if you link to the podcast at the end of the blog and vice versa.
Social media
Your blog should be broken down into subheadings. You should be able to take each of those sections and make it into a social post. 5 sections? 5 posts, plus one promoting the blog. Otherwise, look for key quotes or statistics and pull them out to highlight them on your social media channels.
Infographic
Perfect for stat-heavy blogs. Take your statistics, group them into categories and then get a designer to work them into an infographic. This can then be used to show the impact and importance of the blog as well as to further promote the article and increase traffic.
Emails
In an ideal world, all your content should link together so this one should be easy. Take the theme of your blog and use that to inspire your next email. Zoom into one particular quote or stat, maybe frame it as a discussion and you want to hear your audience’s opinions. Just don’t forget to link back to your blog so your audience can read your thoughts.
In a world where we’re all so busy, repurposing content can be a really great strategy to maximise every single thing you write. Whether that’s reposting it verbatim or creating new content from what you’ve already produced, there are some easy wins for you.
But beyond saving you time, repurposing allows you to reach new audiences on different platforms while presenting a united content front. It’s not without some work, but trust me, it’s far less work than thinking of a new idea for every single piece of content.
Give it a try and see how you get on.
