You have an editorial calendar and you publish articles on your blog consistently on a regular schedule. Check.
Your blog has beautiful social sharing buttons that you can customize and as soon as you publish, you share your blog posts to all your social networks. Check.
You use a social media management tool like Buffer, Hootsuite, CoSchedule, Missinglettr or Social Bee to queue up and reshare your evergreen articles on social networks a few weeks and months later, to help increase the number of people who see the content. Check.
Maybe you even go so far as reviewing and refreshing older content to bring it up to date and then reshare it again. Double check.
Now what?
When it comes to your content, what I’ve outlined above are simply the first steps. They are the non-negotiable steps if you want to get found and seen by your ideal client.
During an interview on MaAnna Stephenson’s #WPBlab Show, we talked for an hour about repurposing your content so you can be found everywhere as well as reach your audience in the way they want to consume (read, watch, listen) to your message. We covered a lot of ground in the show which you can watch below. MaAnna has also posted timestamps for key moments on her blog.
Let’s get two definitions clear that are frequently confused: content syndication and content repurposing.
Content syndication is the process of distributing your content for the purposes of promotion and visibility.
Content repurposing is the process of taking existing content and converting it into new formats, for the purposes of promotion or monetization.
Why Bother with Repurposing Your Content?
Consider how much your time is worth. In order to continually build your audience so you can attract prospects and leads for your business, you need to stay top of mind and continually demonstrate your expertise and how you solve specific problems.
Repurposing your content increases your “return on time” investment, creating more uses for what you’ve created. More content on more channels can give you better search engine ranking, as each type of content is treated distinctly by the search engines.
From the point of view of your audience, by adapting your content to various styles, you’re making it possible for your content to be consumed in the preferred method of your audience. This allows your message to be spread more widely. There are more opportunities for people to learn who you are and what you can do to serve them…..
If you’re worried about duplicate content, don’t be. Watch the video above at about minute 00:07:00 to get the scoop.
Before you copy and paste an article from your blog as is to another platform, think for a couple of minutes about the audience for that platform. For example, if you want to republish a blog post to LinkedIn Publishing, consider how you might tweak the content for a business-oriented audience. You might want to edit the article with different examples, different images, and possibly a revised title. You’re taking the original content and repurposing it for a targeted audience.
So, how can you reformat an existing article to get more leverage and reach more people? Let’s take a look…
13 Ways to Repurpose One Blog Post
LinkedIn Publishing – as mentioned above, you have an opportunity here to create a new cover image for the article, tweak it for a professional/business audience and add rich media like video and audio.
Medium – very much like LinkedIn where you can republish your article, though the audience on Medium tends to respond best to personal stories. So look at your article through that lens.
Facebook Notes – a simple blogging-style option on your Facebook business page and profile. You can add images and again, create a cover image for the article. Once you publish on your business page, you can also share it to your profile. (this is still a viable option, but Notes don’t get much engagement or visibility so you’ll need to experiment to discover if it’s really worth your time.)
Quora – use the Q&A site to find questions for which you can post your article or selections from your article as an answer.
Instagram – Many people use Instagram to post long-form captions with their images or videos. Summarize your article into a couple of paragraphs, then include a call to action to read the full post. You’ll need to put the URL for the post in your profile. TIP: I recommend using a tool like Shorby to create one URL that links to a page with many URLs. Here’s an example on my Instagram profile.
eBook – Take a look at one of the categories on your blog. Are there five or six articles that can be bundled together to provide an in-depth look at one of your areas of expertise? With a bit of editing to create flow, natural transitions, an introduction and conclusion, you can create a product to give away or sell on your site and as a Kindle ebook.
Slideshow – create a series of slides with bullet points and quotes from an article. Add a title slide and final slide with a call to action and post it on LinkedIn’s Slideshare.
Video – You can convert your slide show to video or record yourself reading on video and post on YouTube. Another option for video is using a tool like Lumen5, create a short (less than 60 seconds) video with images that you post on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Audio/Podcast – Record yourself reading your article. Post the recording on the blog post, upload to Soundcloud and create a podcast that’s available on iTunes. Another way to do this is to create an audio-gram and use Headliner to create a video using an audio clip laid over an image from your blog post.
Email course – break down your article into a series of tips (or a selection of articles) you deliver via email over a period of days or weeks. This makes a great lead magnet.
Pinterest and Instagram- Pull key sound bites or tips from your article and create quote or tip images. Post them on a Pinterest board about the topic. Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, as mastered this form of repurposing content. Click here to learn more about how Joan uses Pinterest.
Guest post – Are there blogs in your niche that accept guest posts? Updating and editing an evergreen post can often make great guest posts that will help you get in front of new audiences.
Webinar – You know those slides you created? Turn them into a webinar. Go deeper with the content and teach your audience more about the topic. A free webinar is another excellent lead magnet, or charge a small fee to get paid for your expertise.
Repurpose: From Blog Post to Webinar
I like to reuse and repurpose content whenever possible. Not every blog post warrants the time and energy, but many do.
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post on how to use microcontent to amplify your message. A few months later, I was invited to contribute a chapter to a new book called Success Secrets of the Online Marketing Superstars (2015). The blog post became the outline for the chapter which I expanded to 4000 words.
Next, I repurposed the chapter into a webinar, teaching the concepts and tactics of creating and using microcontent. I charged a small fee. I’ve delivered the webinar twice and can easily update the content and deliver it again.
7 Ways to Repurpose a Video Show
Another example of repurposing is how I repurposed my former Adventures in Visibility show. Many high-profile podcasters are now recording their shows live on Facebook and then converting to an audio podcast.
- The content is originally created during the show broadcast live (formerly on Google+ Hangouts on Air and then on Blab, and now on Facebook Live or YouTube Live)
- The recorded video not only lives Facebook, I also upload the mp4 file to my YouTube channel
- The video is embedded on a blog post where I recap the show and link to resources mentioned
- Next, I post the video on Slideshare, after adding a title slide and slide with a call to action
- Often, I’ll transcribe the show to create more detailed notes or a pdf give-way.
- I always create visuals for my shows, before and after. Before to promote the show; after to drive traffic back to the blog post.
- The audio track gets uploaded to my Soundcloud channel where it also gets distributed to iTunes.
RECOMMENDED READING:
How to Quickly Repurpose Your Facebook Live Videos
How To Repurpose Your Content Without Running into Duplicate Content Issues
Got enough ideas now for how to get maximum leverage out of your evergreen content? I sure hope so! You don’t have to do everything listed in the article. However, I urge you to take the time to extend the life of your content by adding one, two or three of these tactics to your content marketing strategy. It’s faster and easier to reformat content than to create new, unique content. Really. Especially when you put a system in place.
This post was originally published in 2015. Updated with new information in 2021.
Blog photo by Tobias Cornille on Unsplash
Fantastic — you are absolutely the master at this, Denise. Thank you for keeping it in front of us!
Thanks, Elizabeth, I appreciate you stopping by. I’ve had this on my list to do for quite a while. I winced every time I saw the post and noticed the out of date info. 😱
Great stuff.
People do not realize how much can be done with content.
As you said, make an ebook out of a collection of articles–make videos out of them.
Break them up into messages that you can send your subscribers–and not to sound silly, but if you are not building a list–you should be.
Post them to social media, etc.
When you think of it what could be better–more content–in more places, means more exposure for your website or blog.
Sounds good to me!
Thanks for this helpful post Denise. Whenever I add another heading to a blog post I’m writing, I’ll think to myself “Have I written something about this heading before?” If so, I’ll pull the paragraphs and reuse them. Also, after I spruce them up a bit, I’ll update the original blog post. I’ve heard that updates help your SEO. It also keeps it fresh, right?