Content Types
Creating new content for each of the marketing channels you use isn’t always the correct answer.
Wondering what is? Repurposing content or dressing already published content in different formats.
But here’s the thing: content recycling isn’t as simple as copying and pasting your content to different distribution channels. It takes a lot more than that.
So in this guide, let’s walk you through the right way to repurpose content like a pro.
Let’s roll.
To repurpose content is to reuse it. Except, in a different content format.
For example, you package your blog takeaways as a Twitter thread.
So, for a formal definition:
Content repurposing is recycling content in different formats with the aim of distributing it better and packaging it in formats your audience prefers.
You can drive a plateful of benefits from content repurposing. These include:
By repurposing content to meet different platforms’ unique requirements, you increase your chances of getting more eyeballs to the content you create.
As you package a piece of content in different ways, you increase its lifespan — maximizing its life and driving more mileage from it.
Not all folks among your target audience prefer consuming written content. Similarly, not all prefer audio or video content.
But this doesn’t mean you create different content for each category. You can meet their preferences simply by repackaging content in different formats.
Instead of dedicating more and more time to creating new content, you can use content repurposing to meet your content requirements while distributing content better.
In doing so, you’re focusing on content creation as well as distribution — both of which are essential pillars of a successful content marketing strategy.
As you repurpose content in different formats and for different channels, you can establish a consistent online presence without being neck-deep into content creation.
For instance, by repurposing blog content into social media content, you can dedicate more time to engaging with your followers.
Now for how you can repurpose content:
This one’s a super simple way to fuel your YouTube channel’s growth with plenty of content. And it’s something we do here at Visme too.
We create videos from blog post topics that have a demand on YouTube — same material, different channel and presentation style.
Here’s an example of our blog post on YouTube SEO and a video on the same:
Repurposing content this way helps you reach a wider pool of your audience, ones who prefer watching content over reading it.
Twitter threads have recently become a highly-consumed content type that’s well appreciated over at the bluebird social network.
Instead of thinking of new ideas and creating new content for threads, go ahead and reuse takeaways from your blog posts into Twitter threads.
Here’s Sparktoro doing the same:
When it comes to social media, the incentives for creators are clear:
Make native content for our platform. Don’t you dare link out.
Or we’ll crush your reach. 🧵
— SparkToro (@sparktoro) September 10, 2021
For creating a winning Twitter thread, it’s essential you first test out how your audience reacts to a topic by sending out a tweet or two on it.
If the response is good, explore the topic deeper by creating a repurposed thread on it.
This could be a published ebook or blog content.
The idea is simple: create a clutter-free infographic that makes it easy for viewers to understand the topic at hand in one glance.
You can also submit the infographic to guest sites, therefore, reaching a wider audience pool.
Worried designing infographics will take a lot of time? Pick a ready-to-use infographic template from Visme’s template bank and design infographics yourself within minutes.
Here’s one:
As previously mentioned, not everyone in your audience is a reader or prefers watching videos. Instead, they might be audiophiles.
To make sure you’re reaching this segment of your audience too, turn your blog content into podcast episodes.
Alternatively, you can add a plugin to your blog page that lets your site visitors listen to the written article. Easy, isn’t it?
If you’re an avid Twitter chat participant, don’t let the content you create on the fly go to waste. Maximize its potential.
Wondering how? Fine-tune the content, giving it a storytelling angle. Then post it on LinkedIn. This way, you won’t need to create LinkedIn posts from scratch.
If you host Twitter chats, post recaps of the chat and the discussion that took place as blog posts.
Don’t host chats but participate regularly? Use the content you’ve shared as answers to the questions asked in the chat to put together an in-depth blog post featuring your and other contributors’ tweets.
Doing so helps you:
Have a lot of content on one broad topic? Curate all of it in one giant ebook format. Then design an enticing book cover and landing page to market the book.
You can also turn all the content into a comprehensive pillar page that links back to each of the blog posts that discuss the sub-topics in detail.
Creating such a pillar page will do wonders for your content strategy.
One, it’ll help position you as an authority on the topic. Two, it’ll make it super simple for your audience to find and navigate to all related content on one page. And, finally, it’ll help you improve your SEO by building internal links to your content.
Make ebook creation easy by starting with a template:
You don’t need to necessarily publish all the sections covered in the ebook.
Instead, highlight some of the key takeaways from the book and publish them as a blog post.
Don’t forget to create graphics for the takeaways that are easy and visually appealing to share on social media.
To add, include a link to the ebook in the blog post so that you can get interested folks to share their contact information in exchange for downloading the ebook.
Not just checklists but templates, cheat sheets and more.
All you have to do is to distill the information you’ve written into a checklist or template format that makes it simple for your readers to follow the steps you’ve outlined.
The best part? With Visme, designing professional-grade checklists is a piece of cake.
Simply customize the template of your choice and gate it behind a lead generation form.
As with recycling ebook content, identify important findings from your research reports.
From there design visually engaging graphics featuring those findings and write a blog post on the topic.
Make sure you alter the size of the graphics so that you have both blog post graphics and social media graphics ready in the correct dimensions.
This way, you can repurpose report content as blog and social media content.
Want to drive more value from it? Dress the findings in an infographic format (use a template like the one below) and distribute them on guest sites and in your newsletter.
You can use your blog post introduction as your newsletter content.
Then, provide a link to the post for a detailed dive into the topic. This way, you can provide value to your email list and drive traffic to your blog simultaneously.
You can also share the insights you’ve posted on social media in your newsletter.
Alternatively, include screenshots of your social posts or embed tweets in your email while adding new information to the topic.
Use a template like the one below for your newsletter.
Curate all the content you’ve created on one topic and present it as a roundup post.
You can also create a roundup post on posts you’ve published in a given quarter or year. Or compile a roundup post of your most popular posts.
You can distribute your blog and ebook content on Medium as well.
Simply publish your blog post on Medium. But make sure the topic is one that’s of interest to the audience using Medium.
Another great way to repurpose content is to create presentations for Slideshare from published blog content, white papers and research reports.
Not sure how to design presentations that hook your audience right away? Use Visme’s pre-designed presentation templates.
Simply change the color and fonts according to your visual brand identity, add your text and your repurposed content is ready to go live in its new presentation format.
Essentially, repurposing content is simple.
There are, however, a few things you need to pay attention to.
Read on to find what these things are in this 3-step process to content repackaging:
There are three ways to go about doing this.
Firstly and ideally, you want to repurpose all new content you publish so that you can distribute it better and maximize its ROI.
When taking this approach, create a checklist of ways you want to repurpose the content.
Let’s suppose you’re about to publish an in-depth blog post. Before it goes live, here are some ways you can prepare repurposed content to increase its reach:
Secondly, identify popular blog posts.
This is the best strategy to adopt if you’re only starting to recycle content and want to make the most of already published content.
For this, head to Google Analytics to identify blog content that’s done exceptionally well over the years.
Now, repurpose the blog post into email and social media content. You can also expand on the content or get experts to share their insights and create an ebook from it.
At the same time, look at the social posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos and newsletter content that’s done well in the past.
Package all this content in different formats. Example: turn the video into a blog post. Or, share the newsletter content on Medium.
Lastly, find evergreen posts and repurpose them.
This is content that you produced for its usefulness in the long haul. Make the most of it by recycling it.
As mentioned above, create a checklist of all the ways you can repurpose content based on:
Based on this checklist, determine the steps you need to work on for each piece of content to recycle.
Pro tip: Make sure you block time for content repurposing in your content calendar. This is essential so that you’re dedicating enough time to distribute content — not just create it.
The success of content repurposing depends on two key pillars:
Hence, for each type of content you plan to reuse for a channel, ask yourself:
With these 14 ways to repurpose content and the exact steps to take, you should be able to squeeze the most value from your content effectively.
By following the tips shared in this guide, you can also reach new audiences and grow your online presence without creating any new content.
Want to jump-start content repurposing? Sign up for Visme for free and start repackaging content into different visual formats today.
Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice.
Try Visme for free
About the Author
Masooma Memon is a pizza-loving freelance writer by day and a novel nerd by night. She crafts research-backed, actionable blog posts for SaaS and marketing brands who aim to employ quality content to educate and engage with their audience.