Repurposing Content: What is it and Why is it Useful?

Content is how people find your business. They find it through a blog post or discover it through a video. The trouble with content is that it’s not as easy to create as some perceive; it takes time, skill, and patience to develop pieces that’ll drive the engagement that boosts business. 

But instead of stretching your team too thin with a lot of new articles, repurpose your content.

What is Repurposing Content?

Repurposing content is reusing existing content into a new format. To expand your reach, you “recycle” what’s already on your website, blog, and social media channels. For example, an old blog post could be revitalized as a short video, allowing you to pitch to an entirely new audience. A new audience means a new market. A new market means new opportunities.

But reusing content isn’t just going to help you reach new audiences.

Why Repurpose Content

1. Achieve consistent messaging on different platforms

Think of content repurposing as diversifying your “investments.” Instead of relying on a single video post about your new product, spread the potential for reach and engagement with other forms. No matter the goal, never depend on one type of content for your marketing campaign performance.

Repurposing allows you to multiply the delivery of your message in different ways.

2. Target audiences in every stage of the buyer’s journey

Not everyone in your target audience will be in the, for example, decision stage of the buyer’s journey. Some may still be in the consideration stage; others in the awareness stage. 

An effective content marketing strategy provides the right type of content to the right audience at the right time.

3. Boost your SEO efforts

Organic traffic, ranking, and clicks can all improve with optimized content. The volume of content you have is crucial to SEO, and repurposing lets, you add to pages and pages of useful and valuable content for your business.

Other advantages to repurposed content are optimizing digital marketing efforts, gaining backlink opportunities, and improving low-performing content.

But repurposing content isn’t just copying an article from your blog and reposting it on your social media channels. This is not a copy/paste job.

How to Repurpose Content for Marketing

Every marketing platform has different audiences with different expectations. So it’s necessary to match the repurposed content to those expectations. For instance, a how-to video about your product on YouTube may not fit the audiences you’re reaching on TikTok or Instagram.

1. You must adapt the content to the platform. Before doing so, choose the right content to repurpose.

    • Find an article or social media post that continues to drive engagement

If there is strong interest in the topic you’ve covered, it’s likely to get attention on other platforms.

    • Choose content pieces with evergreen topics.

Consistently relevant topics will always have an audience. Repurposing it will allow your business to have online visibility across all platforms.

    • Try new, long-form content.

Long-form content provides multiple opportunities for repurposing. For example, it could be a white paper, a presentation, or even a short video.

2. Once you’ve chosen the content to repurpose, choose the right format

When considering your formats for repurposing content, think visually. Visual content tends to engage more people; even LinkedIn is giving users what they want through a new tool that makes it easy to create visual content.

Your options for effective visual content:

    • Traditional video, with videos projected to take up 82 percent of consumer traffic online
    • How-to videos, since 70 percent of YouTube users consume this type of content to help with hobbies or jobs
    • Short videos on Twitter as tweets with videos get ten times more engagement
    • Infographics, the fourth most used visual content by marketers

3. Break up one long content into pieces.

    • Long-form content offers multiple opportunities for repurposing.
    • You could extract data and highlight it as a Twitter or LinkedIn post.
    • You could use a how-to section from the same content to repurpose it for your YouTube channel.
    • You could also turn parts of the content into a series of infographics.
    • You could find a Quora query relevant to your content and use a portion of it to address a topic on the popular forum.

4. Consider a newer way to repurpose your content.

You’ve covered written and visual content. But have you thought about going with audio content? 

Podcasting can be an effective way to grow your business. Instead of starting from scratch with content, repurpose an evergreen article for this popular format.

It’s a good way to engage with your target market; you’ll be able to build trust with consumers as you share your expertise.

5. Repurpose according to the stage of the buyer’s journey.

Finally, your repurposed content must match the stage of the buyer’s journey in which certain audiences are.

Users trying to find an article, for example, on e-commerce tools, maybe in the awareness stage and want to learn about them. Users looking up videos for the same topic may be in the consideration stage, finding more information on specific tools.

How to Repurpose Content Faster

You can still reduce the time spent repurposing content with the right tools. These free and paid tools are especially useful when turning words into images.

How to Repurpose Content Faster
How to Repurpose Content Faster

Piktochart

(Free plans and paid accounts)

This graphic design tool has advanced infographic features with templates you can customize. With its drag-and-drop tech, you’ll turn blog posts into eye-catching infographics. 

Visme

(Free personal plans and monthly paid plans for business)

If your content marketing plan includes SlideShare presentations and flyers for live events, Visme would be a good tool. It lets you create slide decks, visual graphics for social media posts, and infographics.

MeetEdgar

(Paid plans)

MeetEdgar isn’t just a social media scheduling tool; it also allows you to republish content in recurring weekly slots through categories. Repurpose a lengthy blog post about, for example, product packaging tips into snackable content in different social media posts.

Audacity

(Free)

It’s an audio recorder and editor that lets you transcribe written content, from ebooks to whitepapers. It’s easy to use and works for Windows, Mac, Linux, and other operating systems.

 Animoto

(Free version and paid plans)

Animoto is an online video editor that comes free for educators and students. If you want to take out the brand’s watermark, sign up for a paid account. This video tool has an enormous library of visual assets, from Getty photos to video clips. And they cover a wide range of topics, so you’re likely to find clips to fit your repurposed video content.

Other tools to look into are Blurb, which lets you turn a series of blog posts into ebooks; Repurpose.io, which repurposes podcast episodes into videos (among other features); Beacon, which repurposes content into visually appealing lead magnets; and Contentdrips, which lets you turn social media posts into quote images and interactive carousels.

A Smart Approach to Content Marketing

Competition is tough in any industry. Fortunately, you still have opportunities to fight for your place in a market even when you’re a small organization. Content marketing will give you that fighting chance, and repurposing is one strategy that’ll allow you to maximize efforts without straining resources.


Itamar Gero
Itamar Gero

Author Bio

Itamar Gero

Itamar Gero is the founder of SEOReseller.com, an SEO Services and digital marketing solutions provider that empowers agencies and their local clients worldwide. When he isn’t working, he’s traveling the world, meditating, or dreaming (in code).

Repurposing Content: What is it and Why is it Useful?

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