Blog Growth

10 Clever Ways to Repurpose One Piece of Content

July 31, 2019

If you work in online marketing or own a website, you know by now that content is king. But, if you have a bit of experience in the field, you also know that engagement is queen.

So, what does that mean, in layman’s terms?

It means that the content you create is crucial for bringing new visitors on the site/page/social media account. It is the force that drives sales and brings in profit. However, if the content you publish doesn’t create engagement (comments, likes, shares, reposts, and so on) all that energy and time invested will go to waste.

But not every piece of content you create gets the attention it deserves. Maybe you published it in a moment of the day when people weren’t paying attention or maybe some other piece of content captured your audience’s focus. Regardless, there are countless reasons for quality content to go unnoticed.

Still, this doesn’t mean you should give up on it. Each piece of content you create is based on your creative efforts and should be rewarded with the engagement it deserves. Furthermore, constantly creating new content is physically and mentally depleting and, in time, the quality of your material will decline.

This is why experienced marketing people and creators use content repurposing. This means that you get to use items you already have, in order to create a new and attractive piece of content. The strategy is extremely effective for content marketing campaigns, product promotions and/or launches, and other similar activities.

So, if the technique of repurposing content looks interesting to you and want to know more, have a look at the top 10 ways to do so.

Ten Ways to Repurpose Content

  1. Make Updates to Old Posts
  2. Infographics & Podcasts
  3. Transform Webinars into YouTube Tutorials
  4. Case Studies
  5. Use other Platforms
  6. Make a Roundup Listicle
  7. Revive Old Content in an E-book
  8. Create a Tips & Tricks Email Series
  9. Divide Long Content
  10. Quora Q&A Sessions

#1:  Make Updates to Old Posts

We’re sure you’ve come across posts that have an “[Updated to July 2019]” addition to their title. What this is trying to say is that the information on that piece of content has been updated to the month and year mentioned in the title.

This can mean that part of the content has changed or that the creator only edited dates, numbers, and other pieces of information that could have been outdated. So, if you updated old content, you don’t have to invest too much time and effort. Sure, you should, in fact, update the text, but it doesn’t have to be new.

Furthermore, Google likes updated posts and blogs/sites that keep their content fresh and on point.

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#2: Infographics & Podcasts

Both are new ways of communicating the content you create to different types of audiences and demographics.

The infographic is a wonderful tool that lets you create a visual, easy-to-browse representation of an information-heavy post. It’s also a clever way to get high-quality backlinks from sites who may want to include the infographic in their post or reference it for their own readers.

Podcasts just recently started gaining popularity, but people seem to love them. Now, you can either start your own podcast or participate as a guest in a trendy show that touches on the topic of the content you want to promote.

Regardless of the option, these are fantastic opportunities to reach out to new audiences and gain more power online.

Furthermore, certain social networks (e.g. Pinterest) are fantastic mediums for visual content, and you can leverage infographics to pick up traffic and customers from channels like these. For example, all of these brands bringing in traffic for “intermittent fasting”:

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#3: Transform Webinars into YouTube Tutorials

Webinars are a fantastic way to get in touch with the audience and learn about their needs with regards to the type of content you are creating. But once the event is complete, all that great content goes to waste.

To avoid this, record the webinar and put it on YouTube (with the necessary edits) as a tutorial or just as a recording. People who missed the live event would love to catch up!

Additionally, you can build up a library of webinar content and use this a gated offer with even higher value and therefore leverage. BounceX has a wonderful resource, their “Think Tank,” where you can access all of their past webinars and gated content:

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#4: Case Studies

Turn your internal data and test findings into a case study!

For instance, if you’re running an internal test to see which CTA is more clickable, don’t be afraid to share it with the rest of the world as a case study. This is amazing content and will attract a completely new set of people on your site!

This is probably the biggest untapped resource for most companies, especially those in marketing technology and software. However, even consumer brands like Uber and Airbnb have built fantastic engineering blogs that are used to recruit top tier talent.

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#5: Use other Platforms

We tend to think that just because we approached a topic on the blog, we can’t touch it on other platforms. However, if you’re a bit creative about it, you can discuss the topic on several platforms, and you don’t even have to create new content!

Let’s take WordPress and Pinterest, as an example. If you publish a blog post (on WP) that has a lot of visual aids, you can also create a Pinterest board to promote the content towards a new audience, one that’s more oriented towards the visual.

New platforms pop up all the time, and of course, they come and go. In the past, it was popular to repurpose blog content as well as presentations and publish them on Slideshare. I know tons of brands and consultants that have had wild success there.

There’s no one way to do this, but it’s important to align the channel with both your content genre as well as your target audience (in other words, if you’re targeting enterprise B2B software buyers, Pinterest may be a tough channel to do that).

#6: Make a Roundup Post

Even though they’re not the most advanced type of content, listicles are still appreciated, especially around holidays or other major events. This gives you the opportunity to create a roundup post with your top articles that make reference to the main topic.

Their biggest benefit? They’re incredibly cheap to produce. Another benefit? You can introduce yourself and open up relationships with influential experts in your industry.

I wouldn’t make this a pillar of your strategy, but a good listicle every now and then never hurt anyone (and some businesses have been built on them).

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#7: Revive Old Content in an E-book

E-books are great for helping old content resurface. Not to mention that it’s easier to reshape and restructure old texts into a new and improved product that will be appreciated by existing and new visitors alike.

Furthermore, you can use them as an incentive for people who subscribe to your newsletter or fill in a questionnaire (or any other activities you want them to complete on the site).

For example, we’ve been publishing Content Crafters interviews (interviews with expert content marketers), and we’re working on pulling together their patterns and wisdom into an ebook.

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#8: Create a Tips & Tricks Email Series

People love to receive nuggets of tips and tricks from an expert in the niche. So, if your content is well-ranked and you know your readers find it useful and insightful, it’s easy to satisfy their need for knowledge and motivate them to buy more, through an email series of tips & tricks.

For instance, a consulting business can create a quick ‘How to’ email series that helps readers organize their time and tasks. A web design blog can use email to provide tips on how to improve the user interface without too much effort, and so on.

Email newsletters, anecdotally, have become more and more popular. There is a certain exclusivity and personal nature to them. It’s only an anecdote, but I’ve seen more and more brands (as well as individuals) leveraging this channel.

#9: Divide Long Content

If you have several long old articles, and they start to lose engagement, you can give them a boost by dividing them into several different pieces. This way, you can create a series of posts on the same topic, each connected via internal links.

This is sort of a reverse-engineered “pillar and cluster” strategy, where instead of planning this approach up front, you take a huge piece of content you’ve already invested time and resources in, and just chunk it out into subtopics.

I’ve found this is also an excellent way to come up with ideas when the idea well appears to be dry.

#10: Quora Q&A Sessions

Quora is a fantastic source of inspiration, but it can also be a way to attract new readers on the site. Look for questions on the topics you already discussed in your content and offer a detailed, on point, and easy to follow answer with a link to your post/video/infographic.

Just don’t spam the website; you’ll get banned, and even if not, it’s incredibly transparent that you’re just a self-promoter. Try to provide real value, and you’ll get much further.

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Conclusion

Repurposing your content is not cheating the system (even though some content creators may feel this way). It’s just a valid technique to make sure your efforts are being noticed and appreciated by the people for which you are creating.

These ten ways to repurpose content are just a start, as well; in reality, if you get creative, there are tons and tons of ways you can repurpose what you’ve already created.

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Stewart Dunlop
Stewart Dunlop