The ability to repurpose content is the cornerstone for any successful content marketer.
More often than not, you might have hit a lean patch with writer’s block or lack of time. It’s during those times, that we look for quick content ideas and repurposing content is one very successful strategy.
Before we dive into how we can repurpose content, let’s take a quick look at the why of doing so.
Why Repurpose Content?
- Longer Shelf Life – One of the biggest advantage of repurposing content is the ability to give life to your old content and making it shareable, snackable again
- New Audience, More Reach – Probably you have written a blog a year back and it has reached a certain audience and forgotten. Now that you repurpose it to say a slide deck and host on Slideshare, you are reaching newer audience thus giving your wider reach.
- SEO Benefit – You might have written a cornerstone content with certain keywords/phrases a while earlier which got you the SEO benefits. Now by having the same content in other form, you are improving the long-tail aspect as well as the authority on those keywords/phrases. Also more traffic back to your website means better ranking too.
Now let’s get into the details…
5 Ways to Repurpose Content
Most of the time, the question I get asked is – what kind of content can be repurposed?
And my answer to that is, any content that has provided value to your readers. Look at your best performing content over the years, understand which one got you the best clicks or engagement and then look at repurposing that content.
Now, if you have shortlisted the content, here are the 5 ideas to help you repurpose content –
1. Quotable Images
One of the easiest ways to help your content reach wider audience is to leverage the power of visual content. Pick up data points, sub-headings or part of your text and convert that to images of various sizes and post on platforms likes Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram Stories, etc. You can create a custom link using bit.ly link and put it on your Instagram Story/Snapchat to drive traffic to the old blog.
2. Slide Deck
The next way to repurpose content is to convert it to a slide deck. Like the quotable images, on the slide deck too, you can pick up the data points, key content and put together a slide deck and host on Slideshare. With it’s integration with Linkedin, you can reach audience on Slideshare as well as your business audience on Linkedin. Here’s the quick example
3. Infographic
Nothing beats a good infographic. As a small, medium, big or even a personal brand, you HAVE to build infograhics. This is one visual content form that has the power to make your content go viral even if it is little stale. If you are not creating them, you’re missing a ton of traffic on your content. Here’s a quick example of what you can do, again dip into data and key points of existing content and create a nice infographic.
Tools for creating infographic – Canva, Piktochart, Infogr.am
4. Video/Vlog
Producing video or vlog (video blog) is often considered a tough ask. Not now, with emergence of various video tools, you can create videos in a very short time. One of the easiest way I have found is to create content on Microsoft Powerpoint or the Keynote tool on Mac and save that content as videos. You can then use Windows Movie Maker or iMovie and add or edit effects. Alternatively, you can use your mobile devices to shoot a video of your own explaining the old content.
Here’s something I did when Instagram launched stories in competition with Snapchat.
Tools for Video – iMovie, Windows Moviemaker, Adobe Premiere (Advanced Users), Microsoft Powerpoint, Keynote on Mac
5. Podcast
Again like videos, podcast is often considered difficult. But it can be an amazing strategy to repurpose content to audio form. To keep it simple, you can invest as little as $5 on site like Fiverr and get a voice over artist. Make them read your content and there you have, an audio version. Now you can either create a podcast channel or host it on Soundcloud.
There you go, some easily doable tips to repurpose content and give life back to your old content all the while reaching to new audience.
Your Thoughts
- Do you invest in repurposing old content?
- What type of content works best for you?
Do share your thoughts over the comments below.
