Secrets to Repurposing Content That Will Help You to Effortlessly Grow Your Business
Content repurposing is often positioned as the simple solution for busy small business owners and entrepreneurs to enable them to show up in all of the places they are expected consistently and as a way to avoid the dreaded burn out!
However, whilst repurposing might sound like an appealing approach given the assumed endless need to put out post after post, without the knowledge about how to do it effectively it might feel like just another task on that list of To Dos or result in content that fails to really hit the mark.
And who really wants to be told about something else that they SHOULD be doing unless it is going to get you real results?
What does it mean to ‘repurpose’ your content?
As the name suggests, content repurposing simply means taking one piece of content and putting it to use for a different purpose. In reality, it might also mean taking a piece of content and using it more than once to help you achieve the same purpose too. And for most business owners who are tasked with producing their own content in order to promote their businesses, this is an appealing concept because it means that you are able to get the most bang for your buck (so to speak!)
But, you might also be feeling unsure about taking one piece of content and sharing it again - albeit in a different place or a different way for a number of reasons. From worrying about being repetitive to feeling out of alignment with your messaging, the task that repurposing presents can often take you deeper into your mindset around your marketing too and can allow you to better understand the best ways for you to share the amazing things you do!
And that can only be a good thing, right?!
So, in order to get working smarter, not harder with your content creation, you first need to understand the different types of content you could be producing and the different roles they play within your own content marketing.
Get selective with the golden stuff and start repurposing!
What are the different types of content? (And does your business REALLY need them all?)
Ask our good friend Google this question and it will throw up answers that tell you there is a range of somewhere in the region of between 7 and 113 different types of content. Sit down and start to make a list for yourself and you will soon see why this might be true - blogs, podcasts, reels, e-books… depending upon what you are willing to include, the list could begin to feel infinite. And when you are the person with the responsibility of producing it, that is going to feel overwhelming.
So, I am going to ask you to put thinking about the specific different forms of content to one side for a moment and focus on the role they play instead…
Evergreen content is content that is built to last! This is content that will stand the test of time and feels sturdy and reliable and probably more polished or perfect than anything else.
Topical content is timely and completely current. It has a small window of time when its impact is to be truly felt and an expiry date that is often unknown. Put it out at the right time and it can be pretty powerful but, get that wrong and it will fall totally flat.
Macro content is best thought of as long form content and, whatever form that takes, is likely to be jam packed with value whether that is informative or entertaining in nature. This content is designed to hold an audience’s attention.
Micro content, in contrast, is short form, bitesized content that is designed to be consumed quickly and often within a context where the audience will be encountering lots of other content thick and fast (think, social media!) and therefore much of its impact is going to be instantaneous.
Depending on what your business is about and the ways you like to work, you will be producing a range of these different content types for use across a number of different platforms or in different forms, so take a moment to think about the content you currently create and share and see if you are able to categorise it according to these definitions.
And, if the list of all of the places you might show up feels overwhelming, remember that tackling one or two things well at first is always going to be most effective. Once you have mastered repurposing, it will feel easier and easier to start showing up in other places too.
So, now that you understand this, you are probably wanting to know where you might begin with that repurposing…
Ways to repurpose content
Whilst there are many different ways that you can take an existing piece of content and transform it into something shiny and new, there are really only two different approaches to doing this that will determine how you might go about doing so.
You are setting out to create content and intentionally identifying different ways that you can use it.
You’ve got an existing piece of content and you want to use it to create more.
Recognising which direction your content creation is flowing in will allow you to squeeze the most from every piece and build a big old bank of content ready to share!
So, you are setting out to create something new…
In many ways, creating with the intention of repurposing is the most efficient way there is for generating content. This is because you not only create the range of content you need but you also have a strategy that gives your creation direction and ensures that you are never short of content again.
If this is where you are at right now, begin with making a list of all of the different places you need content for - emails, blogs, podcasts, vlogs, socials…wherever it is you show up, make a note of it before you begin. From there you will be able to separate the longform from the shortform content and map out how the larger pieces of content might be broken down into something smaller.
For example, when you sit down to write a blog like this you may be able to use a large portion of the content in an email with only a few minor adjustments. You may also be able to select the key points within each section and make a carousel post for social media. There may be a number of statements or questions that can be extracted and turned into quotes that can be put on graphics that could be shared. Any key data you use could be turned into an infographic. Any questions could become topics for conversation on a podcast… depending on the nature of the original content, that list might be endless!
Beginning with the clear intention to repurpose the original content you create means that, as you create, you are able to identify the parts of the content that will work to suit your needs and, as a result, generate the other pieces of content almost immediately (or at least have a note of how you want to use the to hand for when you are ready!)
But if you already have some content you want to recycle…
Taking existing content and transforming it into something new might leave you in the position of having to make a few more tweaks or alterations in order to get all of the content you are after, however, it does have the added bonus that you now have information about how that brilliant piece of content you have dreamed up in your head actually performs when you put it out into the real world.
And, trust me, this is incredibly powerful!
Using the insights and analytics you have access to across the different platforms you have been sharing on allows you in the first instance to identify your best performing pieces of content. You know the stuff - the reel that reached record numbers, the post where things kicked off in the comments, the email that saw click after click. This content is completely golden and so you should be allowing it to shine its brightest! Take the content in its most complete form and simply switch it up so it feels fresh.
For example, take the caption and add it across graphics as a carousel. Or record a video of you putting a top tip into action. Whatever it is that worked well last time, recreate it exactly in a different way!
And remember, if you are working towards specific goals in your business that can be measured by these metrics such as more followers or traffic to your website, filter your insights or check in with your analytics that tell you which of the previous content you have shared has helped you achieve this in the past!
And, if you are able to do so, why not take the main message from that piece and go deeper by using it as the starting point to begin creating something from scratch?
However, just because a piece of content hasn’t performed quite the way you wanted in the past doesn’t mean you should right it off completely! If the messaging feels right and you still believe in its value, a change of format might be exactly what it needs to connect with your audience in the right way.
Remember…
There is really no right or wrong way to repurpose your own content. As long as you are the person who has originally produced it, how many times you switch it up, reshare it or reproduce it in different ways is entirely up to you. You will be the only person who ever sees 100% of your content so sharing something again shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Your audience is likely to be growing all of the time so giving fresh followers the chance to benefit from your best bits is a great gift!