What is Repurposing Content in Marketing?
There are two major ways to get the most out of your content. The first is to repurpose older content and republish it with up-to-date information. The second is to repurpose it across all your platforms, including social media, blogs, email and more. Both options allow you to take advantage of content that is already produced and help to save time.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
Business owners across the world all have something in common. They all have time and budget constraints. In fact, the study of economics is really the study of scarcity. Perhaps that is why repurposing content has become so popular. It does not celebrate cutting corners but represents an efficient way to reach new audiences with the same, or similar, content. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because you have said something once that there is no need to repeat it or use it on another platform.
Optimizing and Updating Content for SEO
Taking information from an old post, article, research project or other work can help give it new life and provide your audience with great information. After content sits for a little while, it can be time to brush it off, freshen it up, and put it out there again. In other words, repurpose it. Sometimes, your content only needs a few tune-ups before it is ready to roll again, and you will save time and money by not having to research and create completely new content.
So how do you know if your older content is worth repurposing? To answer this question, you need to look at your data. Check analytics to see how many views your page is getting, and what the trends are showing. See what people are searching for and what they want to know about, and figure out how you can best answer their questions. Keep in mind that just as consumer habits change, so does how consumers search for products and information. Consider if your content is still relevant to what your audience wants to know. Is it evergreen? Or has it already wilted?
A popular business adage is, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This holds true for repurposing. Regular content and SEO audits should be completed to identify opportunities and weaknesses. This includes looking for content gaps, underperforming content and more. A study from Semrush1 uncovered the following two key points:
- 65% of companies that succeed in content marketing run content audits more than twice a year.
- Auditing and pruning your existing content is one of the most effective ways to increase engagement, rankings and traffic without having to spend additional resources on new content.
Another important aspect to consider is timeliness. It is everything when repurposing content. Consumers always ask, “Why is this important to me now?” so you have to answer that question beforehand. Maybe your content is seasonal, and it is that time of year again. Maybe there have been new developments in your field and you want to call your audience’s attention back to your products, services or information. Whatever the reason, you want to be careful that you are not just reposting the same information, but you are updating your content and showing that it is still relevant.
Whenever you update content, always update the references and anything that will show the age of your work. Also, be transparent with your audience. Let them know that this is an update to an older piece of content. In fact, this article is an example of content repurposing, as the original article was published on July 1, 2019. Three years later, the information remains evergreen; it simply needed a refresh to include updated statistics and new best practices.
Repurpose Content on Other Channels
The second major method of repurposing content is to take your up-to-date content and tweak it to work across a variety of platforms. Giving your content a new home can open it up to new eyes and new potential. The goal is to present this information in different and impactful ways or on different platforms.
Potential customers consume information and learn through different methods. Some are visual learners while others may rely on the printed word. Some like short and to-the-point messages, while others prefer in-depth information. One size does not fit all in real life and this is most certainly true in marketing. The goal is to increase user engagement by diversifying content and platforms.
Repurposing Cornerstone Content
The most practical way to expand content reach is to take existing content and break it down into bite-sized pieces. At Callis, we repurpose digital content by first creating cornerstone content; in our case, a podcast. The podcast episodes are then turned into blogs, social posts and emails.
How to Repurpose Content on Social Media
Social media is increasingly important to today’s consumers, so being able to find relevant information on your social pages is critical to keeping the interest of your audience. That is why repurposing content from its original source to social media is a great idea.
Creating social media posts about your topic can provide some quick info and can act as a teaser to the full content. Formatting your content to different social sites can make it more user-friendly and accessible to your target audience. For example, eye-grabbing stats can make great social posts.2
Play to the strengths of your content, as well as those of your social platforms. When using social media, it is important to be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of each site and what its typical users are looking for. Making the right post on the right site could be the difference between a potential customer engaging with your business or scrolling past your content.
How to Repurpose Video Content
Videos are versatile media that can be used across a variety of platforms. Whether it’s YouTube, Instagram or wherever you post your videos, they are each likely to have unique audiences with different tastes and expectations. Revamping your videos by trimming them down or editing some information allows you to use the same base content for multiple posts.
Existing messaging, photos, audio and b-roll can be used to create lightweight videos as well. View our full article Leveraging Lightweight Videos for more information on how you can reuse existing assets as videos in an impactful way.
How to Repurpose Blog Content
Many businesses use blogs to keep their customers informed on what they are doing. Your blog likely has some great content, yet you want to make sure it is getting as much exposure as possible.
Your solution to this opportunity is to repurpose your newly-minted blog content for a new format. The information from an article can be used as the basis for a new video or podcast to better suit your audience.2 Consider rounding-up past posts into a “how-to” guide or “best-of” collection. These can be turned into an ebook or even a new in-depth article. You can also turn some of your most intriguing blog information into social media posts. Take smaller tidbits of information from the blog to create your post, but remember to link to the original article.
Repurposing Content – The Final Word
The concept of repurposing content is not new. We all want to create amazing articles and content that educate, entertain and motivate our potential customers and clients. Unfortunately, or perhaps realistically, time and budget do not always allow for the research, development and publication of this content. That’s why we are big believers in repurposing content and working efficiently to achieve great results. Now is the time to dust off the shelves and explore your archives to discover what content can be optimized and repurposed to help your business generate awareness and leads.
Resources:
1 40+ Content Marketing Statistics to Power Your 2022 Strategy – Semrush
² 12 Great Examples That Prove the Power of Repurposing Content – Hubspot
This article was previously published on July 1, 2019 and updated on July 19, 2022.
