How to Repurpose Content
Turn Old Content Into New Business
There are dozens of ways to repurpose content that’s past its prime. Ways that can generate revenue, create social buzz, and gain a fresh audience for your message.
These days, our water bottles can evolve into a rug, or an old hat can become a new Halloween costume. Sustainability is the name of the game. Your content doesn’t need to rot in a landfill even if it’s seemingly outdated.
The social media and branding experts over at Buffer recently did an experiment. They stopped publishing new content for a solid month. Instead focusing on how to update previous content. Their results were fascinating. For example, they saw only a minor dip in site traffic and organic search traffic actually went up! You can read all about their experiment (and experiment yourself with the spreadsheet they used to determine their starting point) here.
If you have a backlog of blog posts or a treasure trove of whitepapers that seems irrelevant, read on. We will show you ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and ensure your hard work didn’t go to waste.
Stockpile Evergreen Content
Much like its coniferous namesake, evergreen content is majestic and timeless, catching the eye season after season. Evergreen content is defined by its relevance and its quality. It’s generally very well-written and highly optimized for search, along with being more instructional or educational in nature. Think FAQ posts, listicles (especially those focused on stats), or explainer videos.
Evergreen content is useful because it’s a way to drive traffic to your site long-term. At the same time, it positions your brand as a thought leader. Peruse your own content and examine the content that gets the most traffic. Then repurpose that content on social media or showcase it on your blog sidebar, in an e-newsletter, or during a live event.
Make Small Tweaks to Popular Content
Hubspot has a great post on the difference between revamping and repurposing content. Namely, repurposing content is making edits that serve a purpose. Whether you’re adjusting keywords to improve your SEO or making more significant rewrites that attract a different audience or a persona at a different stage in the funnel.
However, if you have a piece of content that is wildly popular but slightly dated, you can always revamp it. Edit dates and times and remove obviously current events. Voila! Timeless content that can even attract a whole new audience, building your credibility and increasing awareness of your message.
Consider posting your content on popular aggregators like Reddit or Medium to build an audience. Even minor changes, like changing the call to action, can result in major lead generation. Here are a few tips on how a little effort can pay off nicely. This blogger saw 490,000 new page views as a result of her revision efforts!
Transform Existing Content
Transforming content goes several steps beyond revamping or repurposing. Instead, it’s taking a blog post and creating an infographic, video script, webinar, or even a white paper out of it. Again, the key is to hone in on what is driving readership and then with minimal effort.
You can create a new piece of content based on the existing content. Then link back to the original piece when you share out the end result.
Consider taking a selection of your most popular blog posts on a single topic, and bundling them into an e-book. Sell that e-book, and you’ll have a whole new revenue stream (and new traffic) all based off existing content. This new content took a little bit of reformatting and streamlining to create.
You could also conduct a podcast by recording an interview with an expert on a topic you’ve already written about.
Or take a slide presentation and turn it into a video. Especially since 79% of consumers prefer watching a video about a topic to reading about it.
Finally, segment longer posts on stats or facts into bite-sized pieces of content. Then post those smaller pieces on Twitter, Facebook., or LinkedIn.
Go Live with Content Topics
Another way to succeed with recycled content- go live!
We’re talking Facebook live, Instagram stories, Snapchat or even a live chat via webinar. Pick a topic you’ve explored via your blog and position a live event around it. Then link to the blog post, case study, or white paper that generated the event. You can even offer it as a download after the event is over. This approach is excellent for topics that lend themselves well to conversation or Q & A’s. You can also prompt your followers on social media to ask questions prior to an event, or afterward, to boost engagement on your social media channels.
Flip the Camera Around
If you feel like you’ve exhausted the backlog of content you’ve created, reframe your narrative by looking at a treasure trove of content you may have never even considered: user-generated content. That’s right- you can leverage customer and client interactions by using it as the basis for new content.
Turn a testimonial into a video that you can easily share via your blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, or all of the above. Then ask your customer to link to it on their social channels.
Find photos, videos, or social media posts that reference your business and use them as springboards for their own content pieces. Or take advantage of frequently asked questions to start a new video series that explains the answers to your most common issues. This approach is a fantastic way to build authentic connection along with sharing traffic and knowledge with your customer base!