Why and How to Repurpose Your Content to Maximize Its Potential

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTRepurposing content is taking a piece of content you already have written or recorded and reinvigorating it. It means packing it up in a different way to remind your audience that it’s there.Finding content ideas is hard! Your audience probably hasn’t made the most of the content you already have. There is still opportunity for your content and more room for others to take advantage of it.Evergreen content can be repurposed. This type of content is content that is relevant now and in the future. Blog posts, videos, webinars and even your interviews can be repurposed into something new as long as it’s evergreen.What content has done well previously for you? Which blog post is the most read post? Which video received the most views? These are the ones you want to repurpose first!For blog posts, you can create multiple social media posts, a live video to link back to your blog, and create a checklist or workbook for people to download. The opportunities are endless!Round-ups are also an option. What are your top five blogs? Share those through an email and on your social media.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Create less, promote more! Your content has much more life in it than you think. Look at your content as a whole and brainstorm ways in which you can repurpose it. Do you have a series of videos? Turn it into a course. Do you have a blog you can turn into an infographic for social media? Share it on Pinterest. Get creative!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSWhat is repurposing content? – 03:59Why would we want to repurpose content? – 04:46What kind of content can you repurpose? – 05:57How do you repurpose your content? – 07:31Transcript below Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the Social Media Marketing Made Simple Podcast. I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing, and I am super pleased to have you here with me this week. So every time I start my podcast, I always really struggle with knowing how to start it. I'll say good morning, good afternoon, have you had a great week, and then I think to myself, "Well, I don't know when someone's listening to it," so I don't know whether it's morning, afternoon, whether it's a Monday, a Friday. So I always struggle beginning my podcast because I don't actually know what to say, which sounds like a really stupid thing, but I end up saying the same thing every time. I've tried to do a bit of research and go back and listen to the podcasts that I listen to, to see what kind of things they say, but again, I think they have the same problem that I do and they end up saying the same things as well.But anyway, if you've got any bright ideas, then please feel free to let me know because I would love to hear them because I'm struggling with the beginning a bit. I really do appreciate you listening to me, although I apologise for rambling on. Today's podcast is going to be a really good one because one of the things that I get asked all the time is about content and creating content, and there's a really big thing about you've got to be good at content, you've got to be imaginative and engaging, you've got to put lots out there, and it's really hard to keep coming up with stuff.I know I'm really bad for this because what I should be doing with the podcast ... And I've tried a bit ... is I should be planning out, okay, for the next six weeks this is what I'm talking about, but I don't. I do tend to get to a podcast and think, "What should I talk about today?" And today I was struggling, which is ridiculous because I'm talking about social media, which is such a huge subject. However, sometimes your mind just goes blank and you think, "I don't know what to post, what to write about, what to record on a podcast."Also, I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like there is just so much content. I was looking at a course the other week that was available to purchase, and it was huge, and they had all these upgrades that if you paid more, you would get this bit and that bit and this cheat sheet and this checklist and this email thing, and all I could think about was that's just so much stuff, and actually, am I going to get to read it all? Am I going to get to go through it? Because I have to say, in the past I have purchased courses and I've not completed them. Big massive courses that cost me thousands, and I've not finished them because there was just so much content.So sometimes I feel like we are overwhelmed with how much stuff there is out there and how much stuff we've already put out there, which got me thinking about today's subject. So today I'm going to be talking about repurposing content for social media, and I think this is a really good subject, and one that actually everyone can probably take some benefit from because if you're having to produce any content of any kind, finding a way in which you can put more content out without actually having to think of a million new ideas has got to be a good thing, and I'm hoping you agree, which I'm sure you do.So today I am going to talk you through what is content repurposing, first and foremost. Then, why should you think about doing it? Then we're going to look at what is really good to repurpose, what kind of content is good to repurpose, and then I'm going to give you some ideas on how to take a piece of content and ways in which you can repurpose it. So today should be a really good podcast episode. I'm so glad I've got you here along with me. Let's get started. What is repurposing content? Okay. What is repurposing content? So basically it's taking a piece of content that you've already written or recorded or have somewhere in some format, and it's basically reinvigorating it. It's giving it a new lease of life. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to change anything on that content. It just means packaging it up in a different way and putting it back out there so that people can see it again or they're reminded that it's there again. So for instance, if you've got a core bit of content such as a video or a webinar, a blog post, whatever it might be, it's about using that content that you've already put out once and you've already shared once, but putting a new spin on it, putting a new lease of life, and sharing it again. Why would we want to repurpose content? Why would you want to repurpose content? Well, as we've talked about before, finding content ideas is hard, and actually, you've probably produced so much content already and people have not made the most of that content. When you go and look at, say, your Google Analytics and look at how many people are landing on your blogs, on your website, it doesn't matter whether 500, five thousand, or fifty thousand people have read that blog post. There's still opportunity for other people to read it that maybe haven't read it already. Also, have look at your video views on Facebook or YouTube. Again, there's always room for more people to see that content.Also, as I said, there is so much content out there already, and I am sure that people have not made the most of the content that you've already put out. So therefore, looking at how you can re-put it out there, put a fresh spin or a new light on it, is a great way to make sure that people are really making the most of that content. Basically this is the ethos of create less, promote more, which for me, someone that has to produce a lot of content, sounds like a brilliant idea. What kind of content can you repurpose? Okay, so we're convinced that we know what it is and we want to do it because we know why we should do it, so what kind of stuff can you repurpose? Well, one of the first things you need to think about is, is it evergreen? And by evergreen, I mean does it matter whether it comes out today or in 4 months, 6 months, 10 months time? Because actually, there's no point in me trying to repurpose a bit of content that talks about Instagram's latest updates because after a month it's not going to be the latest updates. However, when we're talking about how to build an audience profile, then that's evergreen. That doesn't matter whether I do it today or in six months time, the principles are still the same.So then the next thing we're going to think about is what type of content can you repurpose? Well, it's anything that's been produced already such as a blog post, a video, a webinar, an interview, anything that you've got a really good strong piece of core content that provides a really good value to your audience. That's the sort of thing you're going to look at repurposing.A great tip you can use when trying to decide what to repurpose is look at what has gone down really well previously. So for instance, if you look at your Google Analytics again and you go and see all your blog posts, which is the most read blog post? Which are the videos that got the most views? Then obviously that's really good content because people were interested in it, so those would be the ones that I start with first. How do you repurpose your content? Okay, so you've identified some key pieces of content that you think were really well-received the first time round. Maybe it's a blog post that was written 12 months ago, a video that you did six months ago, and you're now looking at how you can repurpose that content. Also, I should mention that it doesn't have to be old content you repurpose. It could be something that you produce tomorrow and then just find multiple ways in which you can put it out and to promote that bit of content, or use that key core of...