Ana Hoffman
November 8, 2017

Content Repurposing: Why You Need to Get On Board

Content repurposing

Ana Hoffman is a leading advocate of content repurposing. She has given classes on the subject.  Here, she presents an epic article which includes contributions from some of the top thought leaders in the business. It is another in our “Great Articles You may have missed” series.

Content Repurposing

Content marketing without content repurposing is like a cell phone without a data plan. Batman without Robin. Peanut butter ‘n jelly sandwich without the peanut butter. Or jelly.

Mechanical engineer Richard James invented Slinky by accident.

In 1943, he was working to create springs to keep sensitive ship equipment steady at sea.

He happened to knock some samples off a shelf and watched in amazement as they gracefully “walked” down instead of falling.

In its first 60 years, Slinky has sold over 300 million units.

Its sweeping success could be attributed to the fact that Slinky has been repurposed in many ways other than a toy in the playroom:

  • During the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers used Slinkys as mobile radio antennas.
  • In 1959, composer John Cage created an avant garde work called “Sounds of Venice” that incorporated the sound of an amplified Slinky.
  • NASA used the springy toy for zero-gravity psychics experiments in space.
  • High school teachers and college professors used Slinkys to simulate the properties of waves.

Not bad for a precompressed helical spring!

Your content has to be repurposed

Your content is your Slinky that’s begging to get off the shelf and be repurposed.

how recontent is your slinky

It has so many possibilities… so many ways to reach your customers where they are – RIGHT NOW – and bring them back to your site in the form of traffic and sales!

Yet… all it does is rot in your archives because you believe it was created for one purpose only.

😢 😥 😭

On the other hand, I repurpose everything. I mean it.

So much so that I’ve repurposed my head as a walking billboard for Traffic Generation Café…

content repurposing ana head

Why on earth?…

Because I KNOW the power of repurposing content.

And I am on a mission 🥁⚔️🛡 to show you how YOU too can take your archived content and spring it into action… by repurposing it.

What is content repurposing?

CONTENT REPURPOSING is a multi-channel marketing strategy that puts your business message in every format and on every platform your potential customers are looking for it.

YOUR content

YOUR target audience

EVERYWHERE they search for it

If…

Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.

~ Seth Godin

Then…

Repurposed content is the new reality of content marketing.

~ Ana Hoffman

Not everyone agrees though.

Why content repurposing gets thumbs down from Chris Brogan

Here’s what Chris Brogan told me he thought of content repurposing:

I’m not into content repurposing. When I see it, it tells me that the person has very few ideas.

It means they’re struggling to be creative and have enough varied and unique perspective to bring information to the world on a regular basis. Which means, to me, at least, that they’re not the right person to follow.

I’d rather follow people who go to sleep still STUFFED with ideas, and who are dying to share their take the next day and every day. Those are who I follow.

~ Chris Brogan

content repurposing by chris brogan

(❤️ you anyway, Chris! 😉)

Responding to my raised eyebrows 🤔, Chris clarified:

I see people copy/paste, change a dozen words and call it good.

I’ll sum up what Chris is saying this way:

People who repurpose content lack creativity and imagination.

I beg to differ.

I say folks who think that aren’t clear on what content repurposing is.

They see content repurposing as content reusing, recycling, syndication (which, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with – that too should have a place in your content marketing plan.)

Instead, I want you to think of content repurposing as content reinventing, reimagining.

Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman put it this way in the fifth “rule” of Content Rules:

…repurposing suggests something that might happen as an afterthought – like you might reuse an old Cool Whip container to store leftovers – whereas we’re talking about something far more intentional, as something that happens in the first phase of your content plan development.

Rather than repurposing, try reimagining.

content repurposing by ann handley

Well said indeed!

Repurposed content redefined

Since there’s so much confusion about the word ‘repurposing’, I propose we start with a clean slate.

Repurposed content is currently referred to in many different ways:

  • reformatted content
  • reformed content
  • relocated content
  • restructured content
  • regenerated content
  • reworked content
  • reimagined content
  • reinvented content
  • recycled content
  • reused content

(Truth is it makes NO difference what you call it… as long as you know exactly how to use it to benefit your business… BUT it does help to be on the same page.)

Let’s repurpose the phrase ‘content repurposing’ into

 RECONTENT = REPURPOSED CONTENT

Recontent is NOT about reusing an old piece of content again and again.

It’s content reimagined and reinvented.

Recontent has to be every bit as good, creative, compelling as the content it’s based on.

repurposed content without pizzazz is out

‘Repurposed content without pizzazz is out.’ ~ Ana HoffmanClick To Tweet

As a prospect discovers your recontent across various platforms and channels, she forms an impression of you and your brand.

That overall impression is what, in the end, will determine whether you get the sale.

Amy Porterfield on content repurposing

content repurposing by amy porterfield

Think of it this way. If you bought an expensive pair of shoes would you show them off once and then hide them away in your closet, never to be seen again? No way! Same goes for your best content. Show it off multiple times, in multiple places, in multiple ways. It’s just too good to take it for a spin once!

~ Amy Porterfield
AmyPorterfield.com

Brian Fanzo on content repurposing

content repurposing by brian fanzo

I believe content isn’t king. GREAT content is king and brands must focus more on creating great content and getting it in front of the right audience.

I “Up-Cycle” my content, which means I take one great piece of content and transform it into different types of content for each platform.

For example: record my podcast on Facebook Live, upload audio to iTunes, create a blog post, take 4 best quotes from the episode and create graphics for Pinterest, take 4 clips from a months worth of episodes and create a 2-minute video to use as a Twitter video.

It takes 30 minutes to record the video and it turns into 6-7 pieces of content.

~ Brian Fanzo
Isocialfanz.com

 Why bother with content repurposing /recontent/?

So why would you, a busy business owner, want to take on an entirely ‘new’ content marketing strategy as opposed to sticking with what you already know and do – continuously churning out new content?

Below is a conversation I had with Ralph Moorhouse, my Traffic Hacks email list Subscriber who owns a site dedicated to vacation rentals in France.

Ralph: I feel your pain – constantly trying to write blog posts to support my vacation rental business – other things always get in the way.

Ana: Why do you keep writing content for the site? Who’s reading it?

Ralph: Basically I haven’t a clue – just hope [misguided it seems] that I will start getting traffic [bookings] through website.

Unfortunately, Ralph’s story is a way-too-common cautionary tale of the content that never could.

Here’s how it goes…

You, the business owner, create content.

You have great hopes for it – traffic, leads, sales…

Yet nothing happens… the content just sits there… on your website… right where you put it.

What’s the problem? Location, location, location!

How’s your content going to fetch you traffic and sales if all it does is… yep, just sit there! 🐶

Now, imagine your website is a cute little chocolaterie off the beaten path.

content repurposing for a chocolatiere

Sure people would go nuts about your chocolate… IF they knew your shop existed!

So what do you do? Can’t just twiddle your thumbs waiting for customers to miraculously show up at your doorstep, right?

Yet that’s exactly what you do with the content on your blog.

How about this:

  • you hit the busy city streets (third-party platforms)
  • …with samples of your incredible chocolate (repurposed content – REcontent)
  • …and business cards with your store name and address (your call to action).

Do you think THAT will fetch you customers and sales?

You betcha!

And this, my dear online business owner, is exactly why you MUST repurpose your existing and future content.

Michael Stelzner on content repurposing

content repurposing by Michael Stelzner

I think businesses that invest a lot in creating valuable content but don’t think of creative ways to slice and dice it in different mediums are doing themselves a disservice. There’s wisdom is taking what works and reapplying it to different formats.

~ Michael Stelzner
SocialMediaExaminer.com

Jay Baer on content repurposing

content repurposing by Jay Bayer

The content you make is not THE thing, it’s just the FIRST version of that thing.

~ Jay Baer
ConvinceAndConvert.com

Ted Rubin on content repurposing

content repurposing by Ted Rubin

If your content is good, you should be able to ride it until the wheels fall off. Re-sharing and reposting the good stuff is a critical distribution tactic that can help you get the best mileage and is a key to unlocking the content puzzle.

By sharing quality content multiple times on multiple channels, you expand the reach of your marketing efforts and make it that much more likely to build a loyal following. In addition, repurposing and syndicating good content will be a powerful tool that builds on your most successful ideas.

Syndicate, Syndicate, Syndicate, Repurpose, Re-use, Re-think, and Syndicate some more. I syndicate everywhere I can. So I post on TedRubin.com (or whoever I am being paid to write for, then TedRubin.com), then LinkedIn, then Medium, HuffPost, and TheSocialCMO. Usually from each around 2 weeks apart… then socialize via all my social platforms, including FB, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, each time I post.

Stay on track by developing a strategy and processes for sharing good content over and over, and you’ll establish better thought leadership and keep your brand, and content, top-of-mind.

~ Ted Rubin
TedRubin.com

Blog early, blog often

Let’s look at content repurposing from another point of view – cold hard stats.

Did you know?…

  • In a survey of over 1,200 people, when asked “What is an effective way for a company to attract your business?“, 53% of respondents said providing free content about a topic of interest. (Frac.tl, 2017)
  • A study by Frac.tl and Moz concluded that inbound marketing tactics like content marketing can earn your brand nearly 200% more views than traditional advertising. (Frac.tl, 2015)
  • Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic and about 4.5X more leads than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
  • Companies that published 11+ blog posts per month got almost 3X more traffic and about 4X more leads than companies that published 0-1 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
  • 42% B2B marketers publish new content daily or multiple times per week. (B2B Content Marketing Report, 2015)

Whoa!

Do YOU create nearly as much content to compete with those numbers?…

Mike Allton on content repurposing

content repurposing by Mike Allton

Some of the most recent studies in content marketing suggest that it may take a business 50 or more pieces of content before they will begin to see exponential improvement in traffic, leads and sales. Therefore, businesses that blog once a week can expect to wait a year to really begin to see dramatic improvements.

A year. Who wants to wait that long?!

It’s the savvy business owner who sees that repurposing their content into a variety of ways and channels can significantly amplify and accelerate that process!

~ Mike Allton
TheSocialMediaHat.com

Some time ago, I experimented with blogging every day for 30 days – to see if my traffic would go up. And it surely did!

Of course, the quality of my content went down, but no surprise there.

The surprising part was the quality of the increased traffic. My page views, engagement, lead quality went down significantly to correspond with the quality of my content.

Lesson learned? Less is more.

Blog early, blog well

Fast forward to 2017, and ‘less is more’ is more of a case.

In the B2B Content Marketing Report 2017,

  • 70% B2B marketers from companies of all sizes are creating more content from the previous year,

BUT…

  • 76% prioritize delivering content quality over content quantity.
content repurposing quality
  • Content Quality remains the bedrock of success, according to the hot-off-the-press Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors: 2017 edition. (Search Engine Land, 2017)

Sounds like more and more marketers are realizing that…

content repurposing by Ann Handley

Creating ridiculously good content is hard, which is why you have to squeeze every drop of juice out of whatever content you create.

~ Ann Handley
AnnHandley.com

Blog less, promote more

Creating great content is great, BUT… not nearly enough to drive traffic and engagement on its own.

BuzzSumo says 50% of content gets 8 or fewer shares and 75% gets zero links. 😱😰

I am sure that comes as no surprise to you. You know exactly how hard it is to drive views/traffic to your content!

Truth is…

content repurposing by Mark Schaefer

(source)

Ian Cleary on content repurposing

content repurposing by Ian Cleary

I believe that to stand out in the crowded world of content marketing, you need to deliver more strategic content that takes more time to deliver but delivers you better results.

When you do invest the time in this content, you need to maximize the value you get from it and that’s where repurposing comes in.

Spend more time on bigger pieces of content and then work out how you can distribute this content in as many relevant places and in as many different ways as you can. Create a presentation about it, create social media updates that you share for months about it, create graphics about it.

It’s NOT about producing lots of lower quality content. Produce higher quality strategic content and repurpose.

~ Ian Cleary
RazorSocial.com

Content promotion trumps content creation.

Blog less, promote better

Promoting great content is great, BUT… it’s smart to make it more promotable first.

How?

I’ll give you a hint…

Vision trumps other senses

Vision trumps other senses:

  • In the brain, neurons devoted to visual processing take up about 30% of the cortex, compared with 8% for touch and just 3% for hearing. (Discover Magazine)
  • MIT neuroscientists say we can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds (MIT, 2014)
  • Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. (Brain Rules)
  • Colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. (Xerox, 2014)
  • Eye-tracking studies show readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. In fact, when the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page. (Nielsen Norman Group)
  • People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. (Research)
  • Articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the amount of shares of articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo, 2015)
  • Facebook updates with images had an amazing 2.3x more engagement than those without. (Buzzsumo, 2015)
  • 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. (Syndacast, 2015)
  • Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Traffic Generation Café, 2016)

Including visuals in your content makes it more

  • findable,
  • readable,
  • enjoyable,
  • promotable,
  • lead-generatable,
  • convert-able,
  • revenue-bringable.

Recontent is the answer to all of the above.

After all, ‘reimagining‘ = ‘telling the story in images‘ = ‘visual storytelling‘, remember?

Bottom line…

repurpose content more, write less

How to turn failing content marketing into a success? Write less, repurpose more!Click To Tweet

…and avoid this extremely sad statistic:

  • On average, 75% of ideas are turned into a content asset, published once, and never reused or repurposed again. (Kapost)

How will recontent benefit your business?

You might be thinking,

“Content repurposing sounds great… for content marketers!

That’s not me. I’m just a small business owner with too little time and too much to do as is.”

Oh, so you are NOT a content marketer?

But you ARE creating content hoping it’ll help you to break through to your target audience?…

And you do understand the way to your customer’s wallet is through content marketing?…

As Jon Morrow said:

content repurposing by John Morrow

FACE IT: you ARE a content marketer.

Without content marketing, your business is next to doomed.

And without content repurposing, your content marketing is next to doomed.

Neal Schaffer on content repurposing

content repurposing by Neal Schaffer

Content repurposing is to content marketing what marketing automation is to email marketing.

~ Neal Schaffer
NealSchaffer.com

Now that we’ve determined you need to continue reading this post, let’s take a look at the benefits of recontent.

Content repurposing increases your chances to be heard

‘The rule of 7’, first defined by the marketing expert Dr. Jeffrey Lant, says that your prospects need to come across your message at least 7 times before they really notice it and take action.

It’s based on a psychological phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect, which states people tend to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them.

In other words, your target prospect needs to see your content multiple times to become familiar with you => develop trust for you and your brand => enter your conversion/sales funnel.

Repetition increases the chance that you get heard.

Repetition also increases … the authority and believability of what you have to say. Listeners go from awareness of the message to understanding to trust.

Saying it twice may in fact be twice as good as saying it once.

~ Seth Godin

How are you going to expose the prospect to your content on a repetitive and consistent basis?

By creating even more content?… that quickly drowns in your blog archives?

Joel Comm on content repurposing

content repurposing by Joel Comm

You put a lot of work into your content. Why not make sure your audience can see it wherever they want? I like to do live videos, edit them in iMovie and repurpose them to YouTube, Facebook, my blog and iTunes.

~ Joel Comm
JoelComm.com

Sam Hurley on content repurposing

content repurposing by Sam Hurley

Recycle your content! Else it gets old, stale — and you’ve wasted all your time and money using a multi-use product just once! #ContentCrimes

~ Sam Hurley
Optim-Eyez.co.uk

Content repurposing increases your website traffic

Content repurposing is the most effortless way to improve your search engine rankings.

Here’s why.

Every time you publish a piece of recontent, you get at least one backlink to your site.

The more recontent you publish, the more backlinks you get.

Some of those links might be more valuable than others, but don’t obsess over it.

Focus on creating a strong CTA (call to action) in every piece of recontent and bring prospects back to your site – that’s your priority #1.

SEO value of backlinks is a by-product of driving actual traffic.

Since you publish it on sites with high domain authority, your recontent is likely to rank on search engines for the topics (keywords) you optimize it for.

For instance, SlideShare gets over 75% of its overall traffic from search engines; thus, your SlideShare presentations are very likely to see some of that traffic.

That’s why it’s so incredibly important to make your recontent findable (search engine optimized) as well as readable (reader optimized).

When your recontent ranks on search engines, it sends indirect search engine traffic back to your site, as in

Google => recontent => strong CTA => primary site

The more you recontent, the more ‘visible’ you become.

Your potential audience sees you everywhere they go.

Whether they come to your website right away or not, they now perceive you as a niche expert.

And when they DO need what you offer, you just might be the first one they come to.

That’s the TRUE power of recontent: being recognized as THE one with a solution to a problem.

The by-product of growing your brand and niche expertise through recontent are

  • mentions on other sites
  • backlinks
  • referral traffic
  • higher domain authority of your primary site
  • higher overall search engine rankings

Stick with repurposing your content and you’ll see ALL of the above as a result. I guarantee it.

Eric Enge on content repurposing

content repurposing by Eric Enge

Content marketing is an incredibly powerful tools for businesses to gain substantial exposure. However, it only works if you invest the time to create high quality content, and that can be quite expensive to produce each piece. For example, imagine you spend 10 hours creating one fantastic piece of content, and it gets some great results. Sounds great, right? But wait, who has the 10 hours these days, and how many times per month can you find 10 spare hours to create the next great article?

Content repurposing is about getting more value from each great piece of content you create. Imagine you still spend 10 hours to create the first piece of content, just as outlined above. What if you could take pieces of that content and break it out into many different incremental pieces, each at much lower cost?

Here are some examples:
  • Extract 10 to 20 social shares from the post, and share them over time on social media
  • Record a related YouTube video using all the same concepts from the article
  • Reach out to third party sites and pitch them on guest posts which cover the same topic area. Don’t send them the exact piece of content, but rewrite it to fit their audience (note this will take some time, but a lot less than 10 hours)
  • See if you can get interviewed by people on topics closely related to your post
  • Take the original content, put a little more time into it with some key additional ideas and offer that as a PDF download which you use to capture email addresses

These are just some ideas, all of which leverage the original content you created, and they can all help multiply the total return off the initial piece of content!

Lastly, from an SEO perspective, content repurposing helps create a lot of additional exposure for your content, and this can lead to more links and traffic back to your site.

~ Eric Enge
StoneTemple.com

Content repurposing helps reach a much wider audience

A research by the child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that:

  • about 30% of the population strongly uses visual thinking,
  • another 45% uses both visual thinking and thinking in the form of words,
  • and 25% thinks exclusively in words.

So… if your primary form of communicating with your audience is words – blog posts, for instance – you are only reaching about 25% of them effectively.

The rest needs you to show it to them.

Content repurposing allows you to appeal to multiple audiences with various content preferences.

Henley Wing on content repurposing

content repurposing by Henley Wing

Repurposing is important because it opens up different entry points for potential readers/customers to discover you.

It’s like using an original pick-up line that works like crazy attracting women in a bar.

Why not reuse that pick-up line in a different setting? Chances are very few, if anyone would’ve heard it the first time.

~ Henley Wing
BuzzSumo.com

Content repurposing breaks through multi-screen reality

Your target audience is constantly plugged in, using multiple devices and services at a time.

  • 83% of consumers globally are constantly plugged in, using, on average, 2.23 devices at the same time. (Adobe, 2016)
content repurposing helps with multiscreen reality

On the other hand,

  • 47% of global device users admit feeling distracted by multiscreening. (Adobe, 2016)

Duh!…

What’s a content marketer to do?

Repurpose your content into videos, SlideShare presentations, and images.

Your prospects might not want to read an in-depth blog post on their mobile devices, but they might watch a 2-3 minute recap of the post. Or flip through a slide deck. Or listen to the audio version of the post.

  • With limited time (15 minutes or less), 57% people opt for videos over text and 63% for shorter stories over long articles. (Adobe, 2016)

In other words, it’s a great disservice to your business to fail to optimize your content for this multiscreen reality.

So… recontent, recontent, recontent!

Rich Brooks on content repurposing

content repurposing by Rich Brooks

Content repurposing is a multiplier. It’s the triple word score on Scrabble, except you’re not limited by triples.

Once you’ve developed a piece of valuable content–valuable to your audience–it’s about taking the same content and using it in multiple places to reach a wider audience with a minimum of additional work.

A video becomes a blog post. And that becomes an infographic. And that becomes a slide deck, which begets a series of tweets and status updates. And then you can create an “evil twin” post and submit it for a guest blogging opportunity, or do some podcast outreach to become a guest one someone else’s show.

The possibilities are limitless.

~ Rich Brooks
TakeFlyte.com

Rebekah Radice on content repurposing

content repurposing by Rebekah Radice

Content repurposing isn’t a new idea, but it certainly is an underutilized one. When you repurpose, you take one piece of content and turn it into many. And the beauty behind this tactic? You get more mileage out of your content, a higher impact, and all at a lower cost. In other words – more bang for your marketing dollar.

And there’s so many ways to repurpose your top content. You can turn it into a Slideshare of 3-5 tips, a Youtube video, infographic, podcast, webinar – the sky’s the limit. Tap into your creativity and test what works, drive traffic, and increase your social media engagement.

~ Rebekah Radice
RebekahRadice.com

Content repurposing saves time

I know, I know… content repurposing sounds great! AND extremely time consuming…

But what’s the alternative?

Creating even more content that rots in your blog archives?

repurposed content Ana Hoffman quote

 

That’s how I got into content repurposing to begin with.

I needed to find a better way to get my existing content in front of more people. To give my content more shelf life.

My recontent journey started with SlideShare.

Often referred to as the ‘Sleeping Giant of Content Marketing’, SlideShare is the largest presentation and document hosting platform in the world. It’s owned by LinkedIn and now Microsoft and has about 70 million active users.

So…. as a complete newbie to SlideShare, here are my very first recontent results:

  • 30 days.
  • 9 presentations.
  • Over 243K views.
  • Several first-page Google rankings.
  • 1,400 clicks to Traffic Generation Café and my Facebook fan page.
  • Over 400 new Facebook fans.
  • SlideShare became my second largest referral traffic source.

243,000 views!!!

Imagine trying to do that on YouTube… 🤔

Learn more about my SlideShare success and how you can do the same for your business:

How did I find the time to do all of that?

I stopped creating new content

Instead, I promoted my existing content by repurposing the heck out of it.

As a result,

  • I spent less time creating more content (9 presentations vs my typical 3-4 blog posts in 30 days)
  • I leveraged high-trafficked platforms where my target audience spent time
  • And I drove a LOT more traffic and conversions than I ever had via traditional blog post promotion on social media.

Less effort and a LOT better results, in other words.

So if you are overwhelmed, overworked, and discouraged by your current content marketing efforts, you can’t afford NOT to repurpose your content.

What does it look like to reimagine your content?

Did you know Thomas Edison was by far not the first one to invent the light bulb?

In fact, some historians claim there were over 20 inventors of incandescent bulbs prior to Edison’s version.

So why is Edison the one popularly known for the invention of the light bulb?

Edison was the first one to recognize that the bulb itself was nothing without a system of electricity to make it truly useful.

So not only did Edison create his version of the bulb, but also developed an entire industry of power generation and supply to go with it!

Tim Brown, Founder of IDEO, wrote in Harvard Business Review:

Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight.

What is the ‘marketplace’ for your content? How would people want to take it in?

Would they want to read an in-depth blog post? Or prefer to watch a video on a mobile device? Or listen to an audio on the way to work?

It’s not enough to create a useful piece of content.

You need to build a recontent ecosystem around it to get it into the hands of the right people at the right time in the right format.

Recontent Ecosystem in action

Think of your content as a set of legos that could be shaped into endless forms – your Recontent Ecosystem.

What does it look like?

content repurposing ecosystem

The recontent ecosystem above works best for

  1. content creators with a stockpile of existing content
  2. people who write as their preferred content creation method

SIDE NOTE

Your starting point will depend on what your primary way to create content is.

If you are a vlogger, start with Step 5.

If you are a podcaster, start by… recording your podcasts as videos! It always amazes me how many podcasters don’t even think of doing this, yet it should be a no-brainer. Same amount of effort – double the content.

Going back to bloggers: your recontent starts with a blog post.

RECONTENT STEP 1

Scout your blog archives for a post:

  1. That’s evergreen (update it if necessary)
  2. Solves a problem for your target prospect
  3. Has a relevant call to action (remember: recontent is not about website traffic per se, but converting that traffic into customers!)

More worthy reads on creating best calls to action:

RECONTENT STEP 2

Believe it or not, this is one of the most challenging parts – turning a full-sized blog post into a bite-sized outline.

Takes a bit of practice going from some 2,000 words to 300-400 (that’s about how long your outline should be), but soon becomes second nature.

Here’s the BEST editing advice I’ve ever read:

content repurposing: how to edit outline

RECONTENT STEP 3

Next, your outline will become a slide deck (a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, in the other words.)

Why?

Because a presentation is, essentially, a collection of images.

And how can you repurpose images? The sky’s the limit!

I’ll show you how to turn your outline into a slide deck in under 60 seconds in this bonus PDF.

RECONTENT STEP 4

Once you have a presentation, turning it into a video is a cinch.

Simply record yourself reading through the slides with any screencasting software.

I cover recontent steps 3 through 5 in a bit more detail in this post:

RECONTENT STEP 5

There are several simple ways to separate the audio from your newly created video.

Here’s the easiest one: once your video is published on YouTube, go to ListenToYouTube.com, enter your YouTube video URL, and press Go.

This free service will quickly strip your video voice-over and turn it into an MP3 ready to be distributed to various audio sites, like SoundCloud.

Here’s a helpful video tutorial by Ileane Smith:

RECONTENT STEP 6

Your slides ARE images.

Some of them are transitional images that only make sense within the context of the presentation.

But many of them could be used as standalone images to be shared on social media, added to blog posts, articles, etc.

Just make sure those images:

  • contain a completed thought
  • have your branding
  • (optional) include your call-to-action URL

RECONTENT STEP 7

Creating an infographic doesn’t have to be intimidating.

It could be as simple as stacking a few slides together – as long as the end result contains a complete thought.

Like I did in this post:

RECONTENT STEP 8

This one is easy-peasy and EXTREMELY valuable – sharing images as social media updates certainly beats spitting out links in terms of engagement and clicks.

Don’t just share an update once though. Rinse and repeat.

Learn more about why you should share your social media updates more than once (or twice!):

RECONTENT STEPS 9 & 10

In these steps, you are going to use and reuse everything you’ve created thus far: slide deck(s), video(s), images.

Embed them in your posts and in articles you publish elsewhere – guest posts, LinkedIn Pulse articles, Medium publications, and so forth.

Needless to say, everything you see in this post was created according to the recontent ecosystem chart above with one exception: since I wasn’t repurposing an existing blog post, I started with an outline, then created a SlideShare presentation based on that, THEN wrote the actual blog post.

outline
👇
SlideShare presentation
👇
blog post
👇
presentation images added to the post
👇
images added to Click to Tweet CTAs
👇
YouTube video (also used as native video uploads to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
👇
all of the above continuously used in social media updates
👇
all of the above embedded in various articles [LinkedIn, Medium, etc.]

Each piece of recontent was created to amplify the original as well as serve as a standalone piece of your recontent ecosystem.

create content with content repurposing in mind

How to make recontent work for you

Repurposing your existing and future content is no longer an option – it’s a must.

I hope you understand it by now.

And if not… oh, well. It’s like Jay Baer says,

That’s okay. More opportunities for the rest of us.

…AND your competitors.

🙄 😲 😱

The only thing that might stand in your way is… the lack of skills.

That’s why you should download “How to Repurpose Your Blog Content for Maximum Impact” PDF now and learn how to put recontent to work for your business – and be ahead of the pack… for a change!

What Do You Think?

Do you take advantage of the benfits of content repurposing? Would you share how it has helped you (or the challenges you have faced) below? We hope so!

 

Watch Ana in her Curatti on Air Interview here

Originally posted as “Content Repurposing: Getting the Most Bang for Your Content Buck” on trafficgenerationcafe.com and republished here with permission.

Ana is the founder of Traffic Generation Café, which brings you the most profit-pulling free traffic generation tips, tricks, and resources. You can tween Ana @AnaTrafficCafe

Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_georgejmclittle‘ / 123RF Stock Photo

Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_conceptw‘ / 123RF Stock Photo

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