Top tips for easily repurposing your content

Content creation takes time, no matter whether you’re creating a blog post or video. That’s why it makes sense for you to get as much visibility and use as you can, from that created content. Repurposing your existing content is such a good idea, and that’s why we’d like to share our top tips for easily repurposing your content, in today’s blog!

Not only is repurposing easy to do, it’s also a great way to save you some time. It enables you to reuse what you’ve already created or may have sat around – such as old research notes and materials. [If you’d like more reasons why repurposing is an awesome idea, check out last week’s blog on the subject: The Benefits of Repurposing Content & How to Get Started.]

In today’s post, we’re going to cover seven top tips, followed by a quick breakdown of the tools that can help make repurposing easier and faster.

Tip #1: Use a different medium

If you’ve already got content created, it’s easy to recreate it for the different mediums. For example, you can create a video by simply reading your text-based content, can turn your videos into audio files, and can create slides or animated videos from your original text.

Tip #2: Go for bite-sized

Your readers are time short, that’s why snippets and short bite-sized content are popular. So take advantage of that. Take your original video and break it into individual short 1-2 minute long snippets. Use sites like Canva or Stencil to create infographics, memes, quotes and GIFs. [Here’s how you can use Giphy to create your own GIFs from your videos: https://biteable.com/blog/tips/make-gif-video/]

Tip #3: Update old content

Repurposing isn’t all about creating something new from existing content. Sometimes, you can simply update something to give it a new lease of life – especially when it comes to blog posts.

Look to see which of your blog posts are currently getting the most focus. You can use your Google Analytics to do this – simply go to your Google Analytics dashboard and, on the lefthand side, select Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages. Change the date range to suit and then scroll down to see your most popular posts and pages.

Once you know what’s popular, you can go in and update them – before promoting them again on your various social media platforms.

[If you’re struggling for ideas on what blog posts to initially write on your site, check out this article on Easy & Essential Blog Posts for Every New VA Business.]

Tip #4: Separate and recreate

Another top tip for repurposing content is to split down what you have. Earlier we mentioned splitting videos into shorter snippets, but you can also split down existing blogs and turn them into several shorter ones. For example, you may have a comprehensive blog that’s 2,000-3,000 words. You could split this down into three or four shorter blogs.

Alternatively, you could go through and highlight pertinent tips, hints, phrases and quotes. These would then be used to create image graphics, memes and social media posts for the social platforms you’re on. You could also use them to add content to your email campaigns too!

Tip #5: Group together

You can also take several items and group them together, to create a larger piece of content. The most obvious choice would be taking several blog posts on a similar subject, and putting them together to create an eBook or guide.

Another option would be to combine them together to create a mini email course. Add in video and you could have a paid course or webinar topic.

Tip #6: Rewrite for a new platform

There are sites that allow you to take your published content and repurpose it on their site. Medium is one of the more popular ones. If you’re doing this, it’s nice to take a little time to rewrite the content – but it isn’t essential.

LinkedIn is another site where you can repurpose existing content. Although, if going down this route, it’s best to rewrite your original content. You could simply create a new intro paragraph and summarise the rest of the original blog’s content – with a link to read an extended version back over on your site. To publish on LinkedIn, go to your home feed (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/) and click on Write an article – it’s under the Start a post section.

[If you’re interested in syndicating your blog content further, check out this article on How to Repurpose and Syndicate Your Blog Posts, by Social Media Examiner.]

Tip #7: Follow up and expand

Our final tip is to use your existing content as a springboard for subsequent blog posts. Often, topics can only be touched upon within one blog. Use this original blog post as a starting point, so you can create new blog posts that either follow on from it or continue to expand and go further into the original content further.

Repurposing Tools

Here’s a quick breakdown of tools that can help you make the most out of repurposing your content. [Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, we may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.]

Easelly – simple infographic maker, with free and low-cost paid options available: Get Easelly

Animaker – Drag and drop, easily editable animated videos. Paid option, register to try out for free: Get Animaker

PiktoChart – Create infographics, presentations, reports and flyers. Paid option only: Get PiktoChart

Canva – Great for all social media posts, memes, flyers and even animation: Get Canva. Check out this post on how to use their animation features.

Giphy – Enables you to find GIFS on almost anything to share. Plus, you can create your own in there, too. Get Giphy.

Missinglettr – Enables you to grow your blog by automatically creating a 12-month social media drip campaign for your blog posts. Get Missinglettr [via my affiliate link].

Stencil – The fastest (and easiest!) way to create social media images, quotes and graphics: Get Stencil [via my affiliate link]

PowerPoint – Yes, you can use PowerPoint to create infographics too! Check out this course from Shelley Fishel of Tomorrows VA – Shelley hand holds your through the process of creating compelling Infographics using Powerpoint in this course: How to create Infographics using Powerpoint. [via my affiliate link]