Mechanical engineer Richard James invented Slinky by accident.
In 1943, he was working to create springs to keep sensitive ship equipment steady at sea.
He happened to knock some samples off a shelf and watched in amazement as they gracefully “walked” down instead of falling.
In its first 60 years, Slinky has sold over 300 million units.
Its sweeping success could be attributed to the fact that Slinky has been repurposed in many ways other than a toy in the playroom:
- During the Vietnam War, U.S. soldiers used Slinkys as mobile radio antennas.
- In 1959, composer John Cage created an avant garde work called “Sounds of Venice” that incorporated the sound of an amplified Slinky.
- NASA used the springy toy for zero-gravity psychics experiments in space.
- High school teachers and college professors used Slinkys to simulate the properties of waves.
Not bad for a precompressed helical spring!
Your content has to be repurposed
Your content is your Slinky that’s begging to get off the shelf and be repurposed.
It has so many possibilities… so many ways to reach your customers where they are – RIGHT NOW – and bring them back to your site in the form of traffic and sales!
Yet… all it does is rot in your archives because you believe it was created for one purpose only.
😢 😥 😭
On the other hand, I repurpose everything. I mean it.
So much so that I’ve repurposed my head as a walking billboard for Traffic Generation Café…
Why on earth?…
Because I KNOW the power of repurposing content.
And I am on a mission 🥁⚔🛡️ to show you how YOU too can take your archived content and spring it into action… by repurposing it.
What is content repurposing?
CONTENT REPURPOSING is a multi-channel marketing strategy that puts your business message in every format and on every platform your potential customers are looking for it.
YOUR content
YOUR target audience
EVERYWHERE they search for it
If…
Content marketing is all the marketing that’s left.
Then…
Repurposed content is the new reality of content marketing.
~ Ana Hoffman
Not everyone agrees though.
Why content repurposing gets thumbs down from Chris Brogan
Here’s what Chris Brogan told me he thought of content repurposing:
I’m not into content repurposing. When I see it, it tells me that the person has very few ideas.
It means they’re struggling to be creative and have enough varied and unique perspective to bring information to the world on a regular basis. Which means, to me, at least, that they’re not the right person to follow.
I’d rather follow people who go to sleep still STUFFED with ideas, and who are dying to share their take the next day and every day. Those are who I follow.
~ Chris Brogan
(❤️ you anyway, Chris! 😉)
Responding to my raised eyebrows 🤔, Chris clarified:
I see people copy/paste, change a dozen words and call it good.
I’ll sum up what Chris is saying this way: people who repurpose content lack creativity and imagination.
I beg to differ.
I say folks who think that aren’t clear on what content repurposing is.
They see content repurposing as content reusing, recycling, syndication (which, by the way, there’s nothing wrong with – that too should have a place in your content marketing plan.)
Instead, I want you to think of content repurposing as content reinventing, reimagining.
Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman put it this way in the fifth “rule” of Content Rules:
…repurposing suggests something that might happen as an afterthought – like you might reuse an old Cool Whip container to store leftovers – whereas we’re talking about something far more intentional, as something that happens in the first phase of your content plan development.
Rather than repurposing, try reimagining.
Well said indeed.
BEST. #ContentRepurposing. Advice. Ever. Thanks, @AnnHandley! Click To TweetRepurposed content redefined
Since there’s so much confusion about the word ‘repurposing’, I propose we start with a clean slate.
Repurposed content is currently referred to in many different ways:
- reformatted content
- reformed content
- relocated content
- restructured content
- regenerated content
- reworked content
- reimagined content
- reinvented content
- recycled content
- reused content
(Truth is it makes NO difference what you call it… as long as you know exactly how to use it to benefit your business… BUT it does help to be on the same page.)
Let’s repurpose the phrase ‘content repurposing’ into
RECONTENT = REPURPOSED CONTENT
Recontent is NOT about reusing an old piece of content again and again.
It’s content reimagined and reinvented.
Recontent has to be every bit as good, creative, compelling as the content it’s based on.
As a prospect discovers your recontent across various platforms and channels, she forms an impression of you and your brand.
That overall impression is what, in the end, will determine whether you get the sale.
Amy Porterfield on content repurposing
👠 👠”Show off your best content multiple times, in multiple places, in multiple ways,” says @AmyPorterfield.Click To TweetThink of it this way. If you bought an expensive pair of shoes would you show them off once and then hide them away in your closet, never to be seen again? No way! Same goes for your best content. Show it off multiple times, in multiple places, in multiple ways. It’s just too good to take it for a spin once!
~ Amy Porterfield
AmyPorterfield.com
Brian Fanzo on content repurposing
🛑 Stop creating content for content sake! says @iSocialFanz. What then?Click To TweetI believe content isn’t king. GREAT content is king and brands must focus more on creating great content and getting it in front of the right audience.
I “Up-Cycle” my content, which means I take one great piece of content and transform it into different types of content for each platform.
For example: record my podcast on Facebook Live, upload audio to iTunes, create a blog post, take 4 best quotes from the episode and create graphics for Pinterest, take 4 clips from a months worth of episodes and create a 2-minute video to use as a Twitter video.
It takes 30 minutes to record the video and it turns into 6-7 pieces of content.
~ Brian Fanzo
Isocialfanz.com
Why bother with content repurposing /recontent/?
So why would you, a busy business owner, want to take on an entirely ‘new’ content marketing strategy as opposed to sticking with what you already know and do – continuously churning out new content?
Below is a conversation I had with Ralph Moorhouse, my Traffic Hacks email list Subscriber who owns a site dedicated to vacation rentals in France.
Ralph: I feel your pain – constantly trying to write blog posts to support my vacation rental business – other things always get in the way.
Ana: Why do you keep writing content for the site? Who’s reading it?
Ralph: Basically I haven’t a clue – just hope [misguided it seems] that I will start getting traffic [bookings] through website.
Unfortunately, Ralph’s story is a way-too-common cautionary tale of the content that never could.
Here’s how it goes…
You, the business owner, create content.
You have great hopes for it – traffic, leads, sales…
Yet nothing happens… the content just sits there… on your website… right where you put it.
What’s the problem? Location, location, location!
How’s your content going to fetch you traffic and sales if all it does is… yep, just sit there! 🐶
Now, imagine your website is a cute little chocolaterie off the beaten path.
Sure people would go nuts about your chocolate… IF they knew your shop existed!
So what do you do? Can’t just twiddle your thumbs waiting for customers to miraculously show up at your doorstep, right?
Yet that’s exactly what you do with the content on your blog.
How about this:
- you hit the busy city streets (third-party platforms)
- …with samples of your incredible chocolate (repurposed content – REcontent)
- …and business cards with your store name and address (your call to action).
Do you think THAT will fetch you customers and sales?
You betcha!
And this, my dear online business owner, is exactly why you MUST repurpose your existing and future content.
Michael Stelzner on content repurposing
😲🤔 Are you doing your business a disservice? You might be, says @Mike_Stelzner. Click To TweetI think businesses that invest a lot in creating valuable content but don’t think of creative ways to slice and dice it in different mediums are doing themselves a disservice. There’s wisdom is taking what works and reapplying it to different formats.
~ Michael Stelzner
SocialMediaExaminer.com
Jay Baer on content repurposing
#ContentRepurposing in a nutshell. @JayBaer lives it. You should too.Click To TweetThe content you make is not THE thing, it’s just the FIRST version of that thing.
~ Jay Baer
ConvinceAndConvert.com
Ted Rubin on content repurposing
If your content is good, you should be able to ride it until the wheels fall off. Re-sharing and reposting the good stuff is a critical distribution tactic that can help you get the best mileage and is a key to unlocking the content puzzle.
By sharing quality content multiple times on multiple channels, you expand the reach of your marketing efforts and make it that much more likely to build a loyal following. In addition, repurposing and syndicating good content will be a powerful tool that builds on your most successful ideas.
Syndicate, Syndicate, Syndicate, Repurpose, Re-use, Re-think, and Syndicate some more. I syndicate everywhere I can. So I post on TedRubin.com (or whoever I am being paid to write for, then TedRubin.com), then LinkedIn, then Medium, HuffPost, and TheSocialCMO. Usually from each around 2 weeks apart… then socialize via all my social platforms, including FB, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, each time I post.
Stay on track by developing a strategy and processes for sharing good content over and over, and you’ll establish better thought leadership and keep your brand, and content, top-of-mind.
~ Ted Rubin
TedRubin.com
Blog early, blog often
Let’s look at content repurposing from another point of view – cold hard stats.
Did you know?…
- In a survey of over 1,200 people, when asked “What is an effective way for a company to attract your business?“, 53% of respondents said providing free content about a topic of interest. (Frac.tl, 2017)
- A study by Frac.tl and Moz concluded that inbound marketing tactics like content marketing can earn your brand nearly 200% more views than traditional advertising. (Frac.tl, 2015)
- Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic and about 4.5X more leads than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
- Companies that published 11+ blog posts per month got almost 3X more traffic and about 4X more leads than companies that published 0-1 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
- 42% B2B marketers publish new content daily or multiple times per week. (B2B Content Marketing Report, 2015)
Whoa!
Do YOU create nearly as much content to compete with those numbers?…
Mike Allton on content repurposing
Some of the most recent studies in content marketing suggest that it may take a business 50 or more pieces of content before they will begin to see exponential improvement in traffic, leads and sales. Therefore, businesses that blog once a week can expect to wait a year to really begin to see dramatic improvements.
A year. Who wants to wait that long?!
It’s the savvy business owner who sees that repurposing their content into a variety of ways and channels can significantly amplify and accelerate that process!
~ Mike Allton
TheSocialMediaHat.com
Some time ago, I experimented with blogging every day for 30 days – to see if my traffic would go up. And it surely did!
Of course, the quality of my content went down, but no surprise there.
The surprising part was the quality of the increased traffic. My page views, engagement, lead quality went down significantly to correspond with the quality of my content.
Lesson learned? Less is more.
Blog early, blog well
Fast forward to 2017, and ‘less is more’ is more of a case.
In the B2B Content Marketing Report 2017,
- 70% B2B marketers from companies of all sizes are creating more content from the previous year,
BUT…
- 76% prioritize delivering content quality over content quantity.
- Content Quality remains the bedrock of success, according to the hot-off-the-press Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors: 2017 edition. (Search Engine Land, 2017)
Sounds like more and more marketers are realizing that…
Creating ridiculously good content is hard, which is why you have to squeeze every drop of juice out of whatever content you create.
~ Ann Handley
AnnHandley.com
Blog less, promote more
Creating great content is great, BUT… not nearly enough to drive traffic and engagement on its own.
BuzzSumo says 50% of content gets 8 or fewer shares and 75% gets zero links. 😱😰
I am sure that comes as no surprise to you. You know exactly how hard it is to drive views/traffic to your content!
Truth is…
(source)
Promotion might be more important than content creation, says Mark Schaefer. Now what?Click To TweetIan Cleary on content repurposing
I believe that to stand out in the crowded world of content marketing, you need to deliver more strategic content that takes more time to deliver but delivers you better results.
When you do invest the time in this content, you need to maximize the value you get from it and that’s where repurposing comes in.
Spend more time on bigger pieces of content and then work out how you can distribute this content in as many relevant places and in as many different ways as you can. Create a presentation about it, create social media updates that you share for months about it, create graphics about it.
It’s NOT about producing lots of lower quality content. Produce higher quality strategic content and repurpose.
~ Ian Cleary
RazorSocial.com
Content promotion trumps content creation.
Blog less, promote better
Promoting great content is great, BUT… it’s smart to make it more promotable first.
How?
I’ll give you a hint…
Vision trumps other senses:
- In the brain, neurons devoted to visual processing take up about 30% of the cortex, compared with 8% for touch and just 3% for hearing. (Discover Magazine)
- MIT neuroscientists say we can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds (MIT, 2014)
- Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%. (Brain Rules)
- Colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. (Xerox, 2014)
- Eye-tracking studies show readers pay close attention to information-carrying images. In fact, when the images are relevant, readers spend more time looking at the images than they do reading text on the page. (Nielsen Norman Group)
- People following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations. (Research)
- Articles with an image once every 75-100 words got double the amount of shares of articles with fewer images. (Buzzsumo, 2015)
- Facebook updates with images had an amazing 2.3x more engagement than those without. (Buzzsumo, 2015)
- 52% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. (Syndacast, 2015)
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Traffic Generation Café, 2016)
Including visuals in your content makes it more
- findable,
- readable,
- enjoyable,
- promotable,
- lead-generatable,
- convert-able,
- revenue-bringable.
Recontent is the answer to all of the above.
After all, ‘reimagining‘ = ‘telling the story in images‘ = ‘visual storytelling‘, remember?
Bottom line…
…and avoid this extremely sad statistic:
- On average, 75% of ideas are turned into a content asset, published once, and never reused or repurposed again. (Kapost)
How will recontent benefit your business?
You might be thinking,
“Content repurposing sounds great… for content marketers!
That’s not me. I’m just a small business owner with too little time and too much to do as is.”
Oh, so you are NOT a content marketer?
But you ARE creating content hoping it’ll help you to break through to your target audience?…
And you do understand the way to your customer’s wallet is through content marketing?…
As Jon Morrow said:
FACE IT: you ARE a content marketer.
Without content marketing, your business is next to doomed.
And without content repurposing, your content marketing is next to doomed.
Neal Schaffer on content repurposing
Imagine a smartphone without a data plan… I know! 😭 #ContentRepurposing (#recontent) defined by @NealSchaffer.Click To TweetContent repurposing is to content marketing what marketing automation is to email marketing.
~ Neal Schaffer
NealSchaffer.com
Now that we’ve determined you need to continue reading this post, let’s take a look at the benefits of recontent.
Content repurposing increases your chances to be heard
‘The rule of 7’, first defined by the marketing expert Dr. Jeffrey Lant, says that your prospects need to come across your message at least 7 times before they really notice it and take action.
It’s based on a psychological phenomenon called the mere-exposure effect, which states people tend to develop a preference for things simply because they are familiar with them.
In other words, your target prospect needs to see your content multiple times to become familiar with you => develop trust for you and your brand => enter your conversion/sales funnel.
Repetition increases the chance that you get heard.
Repetition also increases … the authority and believability of what you have to say. Listeners go from awareness of the message to understanding to trust.
…
Saying it twice may in fact be twice as good as saying it once.
How are you going to expose the prospect to your content on a repetitive and consistent basis?
By creating even more content?… that quickly drowns in your blog archives?
Joel Comm on content repurposing
🤔👍 Shouldn’t your audience see your content wherever they want? @JoelComm says yes!Click To TweetYou put a lot of work into your content. Why not make sure your audience can see it wherever they want? I like to do live videos, edit them in iMovie and repurpose them to YouTube, Facebook, my blog and iTunes.
~ Joel Comm
JoelComm.com
Sam Hurley on content repurposing
Recycle your content! Else it gets old, stale — and you’ve wasted all your time and money using a multi-use product just once! #ContentCrimes
~ Sam Hurley
Optim-Eyez.co.uk
Content repurposing increases your website traffic
Content repurposing is the most effortless way to improve your search engine rankings.
Here’s why.
Every time you publish a piece of recontent, you get at least one backlink to your site.
The more recontent you publish, the more backlinks you get.
Some of those links might be more valuable than others, but don’t obsess over it.
Focus on creating a strong CTA (call to action) in every piece of recontent and bring prospects back to your site – that’s your priority #1.
SEO value of backlinks is a by-product of driving actual traffic.
Since you publish it on sites with high domain authority, your recontent is likely to rank on search engines for the topics (keywords) you optimize it for.
For instance, SlideShare gets over 75% of its overall traffic from search engines; thus, your SlideShare presentations are very likely to see some of that traffic.
That’s why it’s so incredibly important to make your recontent findable (search engine optimized) as well as readable (reader optimized).
When your recontent ranks on search engines, it sends indirect search engine traffic back to your site, as in
Google => recontent => strong CTA => primary site
The more you recontent, the more ‘visible’ you become.
Your potential audience sees you everywhere they go.
Whether they come to your website right away or not, they now perceive you as a niche expert.
And when they DO need what you offer, you just might be the first one they come to.
That’s the TRUE power of recontent: being recognized as THE one with a solution to a problem.
The by-product of growing your brand and niche expertise through recontent are
- mentions on other sites
- backlinks
- referral traffic
- higher domain authority of your primary site
- higher overall search engine rankings
Stick with repurposing your content and you’ll see ALL of the above as a result. I guarantee it.
Eric Enge on content repurposing
Content marketing is an incredibly powerful tools for businesses to gain substantial exposure. However, it only works if you invest the time to create high quality content, and that can be quite expensive to produce each piece. For example, imagine you spend 10 hours creating one fantastic piece of content, and it gets some great results. Sounds great, right? But wait, who has the 10 hours these days, and how many times per month can you find 10 spare hours to create the next great article?
Content repurposing is about getting more value from each great piece of content you create. Imagine you still spend 10 hours to create the first piece of content, just as outlined above. What if you could take pieces of that content and break it out into many different incremental pieces, each at much lower cost? Here are some examples:
- Extract 10 to 20 social shares from the post, and share them over time on social media
- Record a related YouTube video using all the same concepts from the article
- Reach out to third party sites and pitch them on guest posts which cover the same topic area. Don’t send them the exact piece of content, but rewrite it to fit their audience (note this will take some time, but a lot less than 10 hours)
- See if you can get interviewed by people on topics closely related to your post
- Take the original content, put a little more time into it with some key additional ideas and offer that as a PDF download which you use to capture email addresses
These are just some ideas, all of which leverage the original content you created, and they can all help multiply the total return off the initial piece of content!
Lastly, from an SEO perspective, content repurposing helps create a lot of additional exposure for your content, and this can lead to more links and traffic back to your site.
~ Eric Enge
StoneTemple.com
Content repurposing helps reach a much wider audience
A research by the child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that:
- about 30% of the population strongly uses visual thinking,
- another 45% uses both visual thinking and thinking in the form of words,
- and 25% thinks exclusively in words.
So… if your primary form of communicating with your audience is words – blog posts, for instance – you are only reaching about 25% of them effectively.
The rest needs you to show it to them.
Content repurposing allows you to appeal to multiple audiences with various content preferences.
Henley Wing on content repurposing
Repurposing is important because it opens up different entry points for potential readers/customers to discover you.
It’s like using an original pick-up line that works like crazy attracting women in a bar.
Why not reuse that pick-up line in a different setting? Chances are very few, if anyone would’ve heard it the first time.
~ Henley Wing
BuzzSumo.com
Content repurposing breaks through multi-screen reality
Your target audience is constantly plugged in, using multiple devices and services at a time.
- 83% of consumers globally are constantly plugged in, using, on average, 2.23 devices at the same time. (Adobe, 2016)
On the other hand,
- 47% of global device users admit feeling distracted by multiscreening. (Adobe, 2016)
Duh!…
What’s a content marketer to do?
Repurpose your content into videos, SlideShare presentations, and images.
Your prospects might not want to read an in-depth blog post on their mobile devices, but they might watch a 2-3 minute recap of the post. Or flip through a slide deck. Or listen to the audio version of the post.
- With limited time (15 minutes or less), 57% people opt for videos over text and 63% for shorter stories over long articles. (Adobe, 2016)
In other words, it’s a great disservice to your business to fail to optimize your content for this multiscreen reality.
So… recontent, recontent, recontent!
Rich Brooks on content repurposing
Content repurposing is a multiplier. It’s the triple word score on Scrabble, except you’re not limited by triples.
Once you’ve developed a piece of valuable content–valuable to your audience–it’s about taking the same content and using it in multiple places to reach a wider audience with a minimum of additional work.
A video becomes a blog post. And that becomes an infographic. And that becomes a slide deck, which begets a series of tweets and status updates. And then you can create an “evil twin” post and submit it for a guest blogging opportunity, or do some podcast outreach to become a guest one someone else’s show.
The possibilities are limitless.
~ Rich Brooks
TakeFlyte.com
Rebekah Radice on content repurposing
❤️ what @RebekahRadice said about #contentrepurposing - get more bang for YOUR content buck!Click To TweetContent repurposing isn’t a new idea, but it certainly is an underutilized one. When you repurpose, you take one piece of content and turn it into many. And the beauty behind this tactic? You get more mileage out of your content, a higher impact, and all at a lower cost. In other words – more bang for your marketing dollar.
And there’s so many ways to repurpose your top content. You can turn it into a Slideshare of 3-5 tips, a Youtube video, infographic, podcast, webinar – the sky’s the limit. Tap into your creativity and test what works, drive traffic, and increase your social media engagement.
~ Rebekah Radice
RebekahRadice.com
Content repurposing saves time
I know, I know… content repurposing sounds great! AND extremely time consuming…
But what’s the alternative?
Creating even more content that rots in your blog archives?
That’s how I got into content repurposing to begin with.
I needed to find a better way to get my existing content in front of more people. To give my content more shelf life.
My recontent journey started with SlideShare.
Often referred to as the ‘Sleeping Giant of Content Marketing’, SlideShare is the largest presentation and document hosting platform in the world. It’s owned by LinkedIn and now Microsoft and has about 70 million active users.
So…. as a complete newbie to SlideShare, here are my very first recontent results:
- 30 days.
- 9 presentations.
- Over 243K views.
- Several first-page Google rankings.
- 1,400 clicks to Traffic Generation Café and my Facebook fan page.
- Over 400 new Facebook fans.
- SlideShare became my second largest referral traffic source.
243,000 views!!!
Imagine trying to do that on YouTube… 🤔
Learn more about my SlideShare success and how you can do the same for your business:
How did I find the time to do all of that?
I stopped creating new content.
Instead, I promoted my existing content by repurposing the heck out of it.
As a result,
- I spent less time creating more content (9 presentations vs my typical 3-4 blog posts in 30 days)
- I leveraged high-trafficked platforms where my target audience spent time
- I drove a LOT more traffic and conversions than I ever had via traditional blog post promotion on social media.
Less effort and a LOT better results, in other words.
So if you are overwhelmed, overworked, and discouraged by your current content marketing efforts, you can’t afford NOT to repurpose your content.
The less time you have, the more you should repurpose your content.Click To TweetWhat does it look like to reimagine your content?
Did you know Thomas Edison was by far not the first one to invent the light bulb?
In fact, some historians claim there were over 20 inventors of incandescent bulbs prior to Edison’s version.
So why is Edison the one popularly known for the invention of the light bulb?
Edison was the first one to recognize that the bulb itself was nothing without a system of electricity to make it truly useful.
So not only did Edison create his version of the bulb, but also developed an entire industry of power generation and supply to go with it!
Tim Brown, Founder of IDEO, wrote in Harvard Business Review:
Edison’s genius lay in his ability to conceive of a fully developed marketplace, not simply a discrete device. He was able to envision how people would want to use what he made, and he engineered toward that insight.
What is the ‘marketplace’ for your content? How would people want to take it in?
Would they want to read an in-depth blog post? Or prefer to watch a video on a mobile device? Or listen to an audio on the way to work?
It’s not enough to create a useful piece of content.
You need to build a recontent ecosystem around it to get it into the hands of the right people at the right time in the right format.
Recontent Ecosystem in action
Think of your content as a set of legos that could be shaped into endless forms – your Recontent Ecosystem.
What does it look like?
The recontent ecosystem above works best for
- content creators with a stockpile of existing content
- people who write as their preferred content creation method
SIDE NOTE
Your starting point will depend on what your primary way to create content is.
If you are a vlogger, start with Step 5.
If you are a podcaster, start by… recording your podcasts as videos! It always amazes me how many podcasters don’t even think of doing this, yet it should be a no-brainer. Same amount of effort – double the content.
Going back to bloggers: your recontent starts with a blog post.
RECONTENT STEP 1
Scout your blog archives for a post:
- that’s evergreen (update it if necessary)
- solves a problem for your target prospect
- has a relevant call to action (remember: recontent is not about website traffic per se, but converting that traffic into customers!)
More worthy reads on creating best calls to action:
- How To Write A Call To Action In A Template With 6 Examples – Julie Neidlinger at Coschedule.com
- 8 Call-to-Action Tips Getting Real Results for Marketers Right Now – Darcy Coulter LeadPages.net
RECONTENT STEP 2
Believe it or not, this is one of the most challenging parts – turning a full-sized blog post into a bite-sized outline.
Takes a bit of practice going from some 2,000 words to 300-400 (that’s about how long your outline should be), but soon becomes second nature.
Here’s the BEST editing advice I’ve ever read:
RECONTENT STEP 3
Next, your outline will become a slide deck (a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, in the other words.)
Why?
Because a presentation is, essentially, a collection of images.
And how can you repurpose images? The sky’s the limit!
RECONTENT STEP 4
Once you have a presentation, turning it into a video is a cinch.
Simply record yourself reading through the slides with any screencasting software.
I cover recontent steps 3 through 5 in a bit more detail in this post:
RECONTENT STEP 5
There are several simple ways to separate the audio from your newly created video.
Here’s the easiest one: once your video is published on YouTube, go to ListenToYouTube.com, enter your YouTube video URL, and press Go.
This free service will quickly strip your video voice-over and turn it into an MP3 ready to be distributed to various audio sites, like SoundCloud.
Here’s a helpful video tutorial by Ileane Smith:
RECONTENT STEP 6
Your slides ARE images.
Some of them are transitional images that only make sense within the context of the presentation.
But many of them could be used as standalone images to be shared on social media, added to blog posts, articles, etc.
Just make sure those images:
- contain a completed thought
- have your branding
- (optional) include your call-to-action URL
RECONTENT STEP 7
Creating an infographic doesn’t have to be intimidating.
It could be as simple as stacking a few slides together – as long as the end result contains a complete thought.
Like I did in this post:
RECONTENT STEP 8
This one is easy-peasy and EXTREMELY valuable – sharing images as social media updates certainly beats spitting out links in terms of engagement and clicks.
Don’t just share an update once though. Rinse and repeat.
Learn more about why you should share your social media updates more than once (or twice!):
- How To Promote Your Blog With Social Media – Garrett Moon at Coschedule.com
- Tweet And Repeat: The Power Of Sharing And Sharing Again – Mark Traphagen at MarketingLand.com
- The Art of Aggressive Social Sharing – Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick at hbr.org
RECONTENT STEPS 9 & 10
In these steps, you are going to use and reuse everything you’ve created thus far: slide deck(s), video(s), images.
Embed them in your posts and in articles you publish elsewhere – guest posts, LinkedIn Pulse articles, Medium publications, and so forth.
Needless to say, everything you see in this post was created according to the recontent ecosystem chart above with one exception: since I wasn’t repurposing an existing blog post, I started with an outline, then created a SlideShare presentation based on that, THEN wrote the actual blog post.
outline
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SlideShare presentation
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blog post
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presentation images added to the post
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images added to Click to Tweet CTAs
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YouTube video (also used as native video uploads to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
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all of the above continuously used in social media updates
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all of the above embedded in various articles [LinkedIn, Medium, etc.]
More examples of recontent at Traffic Generation Café
7 Simple Tips to Create Traffic-Driving Mobile Friendly Emails
blog post
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infographic
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SlideShare presentation (using infographic images)
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infographic and presentation images added to the post
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images added to Click to Tweet CTAs
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YouTube video (also used as native video uploads to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)
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all of the above continuously used in social media updates
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all of the above embedded in various articles [LinkedIn, Medium, etc.]
5 Brilliant Ways to Go Blog-to-Video with Content Samurai [Review, Tutorial, Discount]
blog post
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SlideShare presentation
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blog post video trailer* [short YouTube video]
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full video tutorial [YouTube video]
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all of the above continuously used in social media updates
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all of the above embedded in various articles [LinkedIn, Medium, etc.]
So you see, each piece of recontent was created to amplify the original as well as serve as a standalone piece of your recontent ecosystem.
How to make recontent work for you
Repurposing your existing and future content is no longer an option – it’s a must.
I hope you understand it by now.
And if not… oh, well. It’s like Jay Baer says,
“That’s okay. More opportunities for the rest of us.”
…AND your competitors.
🙄 😲 😱
The only thing that might stand in your way is… the lack of skills.
That’s why you should download “How to Repurpose Your Blog Content for Maximum Impact” PDF now and learn how to put recontent to work for your business – and be ahead of the pack… for a change!
Content Repurposing: Marketing Takeaway
No more rotting in blog archives.
Your content is now working for you 24/7 on high-trafficked sites where your potential customers are RIGHT NOW, branding you as an expert in your niche, and bringing those potential customers back to your site in the form of traffic.
The ultimate circle of content life! Or recontent ecosystem, I should say…
WHY do you create content? Who is reading it?
Thanks to recontent, EVERYONE.
Off to repurpose… something,
From Ana with
Hey Ana!
Great content! I loved browsing through this post.
Content repurposing is an amazing way to accelerate your marketing efforts. I will surely repurpose my content more often. I would love to get notification of your future posts.
Much appreciated, Johnny!
Thank you Ana,
great post and tons of ideas that come with it. It sure changed my view on repurposing. Very valuable.
Thank you so much,
Marta
You are very welcome, Marta; hope you put content repurposing to good use!
This is such a perfect example of “work smarter, not harder”! Great guide, Ana.
Much appreciated, Fred – thanks for coming by!
Inspiring content! I’ll be recycling my jokes on dry days I think.
Ha! Indeed… Although I don’t think you’ll have a shortage of material with our current president! 😉
Hi, Ana!
I love reading long blog posts like Content Repurposing: Getting the Most Bang for Your Content Buck.
Why?
It’s because a post like this one delivers so much value.
Content Repurposing: Getting the Most Bang for Your Content Buck was no exception.
One aspect your Slinky-story can teach us reader of your blog is that success often comes from trying over and over again 🙂
Christian Affiliate Marketers or Christian Bloggers discuss content repurposing lesser than one might think, so I appreciate your addition to this topic.
We need the reminder on taking our content of the shelves one more time.
It’s so simple, but yet so easy to forget.
In your posts, you mention multichannel marketing?
If I asked you a question, it would be this: Do you think multichannel marketing is suitable for all Christian bloggers, new and more experienced?
I understand Chris Brogan’s point, and I agree to some extent.
Some Christian bloggers are good at content repurposing for other reasons than lack of new ideas.
You say “Truth is it makes NO difference what you call it… as long as you know exactly how to use it to benefit your business… BUT it does help to be on the same page.”
That’s a great way of seeing it!
Perhaps one could also say as long as we know exactly how to use it to benefit the users/customers in our business 🙂
Amy Porterfield’s example with the shoes is a good way of remembering why content repurposing is so valuable.
By the way, I love the way you integrate quotes/Twitter and OP in your blog posts.
The ‘Did you know’ boxes work well.
My favourite part of this particular blog post was the idea of blogging less and promoting more.
I’ll share it on S. M. Thursday, September 7.
Kindly,
Edna Davidsen
Hi, Edna – always a pleasure to see you at Traffic Generation Café; love it how you take you time to REALLY go through a post and digest it!
No exception with this one… ?❤️
I am surprised how little people in ALL niches think of content repurposing… In part, it’s because they don’t quite understand what it means. The other half is lack of time and skills.
However, if one finds time to create content that generates NO results, wouldn’t he/she rather spend that time making the content they’ve already created work for their business by repurposing it?… To me, that’s a rhetorical question, but I am a minority, no doubt.
To answer your question, multichannel marketing is a MUST for ANY business.
Take me, for instance. I am a strong believer in Christ. To reach me, you need to be ‘in my face’ in all kinds of ways and on various platforms. Otherwise, how would I ever know you even exist, right?
(Of course, by ‘YOU’ I don’t mean you specifically, Edna, since you’ve already made an impression on me by leaving tremendously thoughtful comments on my post; thus, I know exactly who you are!)
And… before I let you go, I must say your compliments to my soul are like like butter to bread – they make me better! ? Thanks for taking your time to be my butter, Edna. I appreciate you!!! (and your social media shares, needless to say! ❤️❤️❤️)
Long post, will have to go back through it. I have been repurposing my content lately, but it changes forms along the way. For instance, if I write a story about writing a blog post, I might write an email follow up that incorporates some of the elements of the original story but is completely different. So I stick to the subject and some content but write a completely new article. I find that works better for me than copy and paste.
I know exactly what you mean, Brian! That’s how my mind works as well… In the end, you help more people in shorter period of time than you would if you were to create everything from scratch… again, and again, and again.
Thanks for stopping by, Brian; pleasure to meet you!
Nice piece on recontent. Looking forward to learning more from this blog.
😉 Thanks, Piyali!
Hi Anna,
Again you wrote a nice piece of content. I read most of your blogs and always get some new ideas and news like here I get to know about Content Repurposing.
Thanks, Rahul!
hi Ana,
I started to follow your blog.. I will start repurposing content Asap.
Thanks
Flattered! And do hope you do, Santanu!
Hello Ana, As a beginner it was a good learning session for me about the repurposing content, the subject was covered nicely and i was easily able to grasp the informations. Thanks for the info on repurposing content.
Thanks for coming by, Zviya.
Very Informative post Ana!
After reading this I have to improve my work….
Thanks for sharing useful information….
Glad you found the post of help, Rakesh.
“Show not Tell” – Well said!!
Have to admit, you have re-purposed perfectly and guided me how to re-purpose as well.
Will follow your guidance in my forth-coming articles!!
Look forward to hearing about your results, Subbu.
Heaps of valuable insights, quotes and stats here, Anna – thanks! Too much for one sitting though. I’ll be back 🙂
I like the term ‘up-cycle’. Might slip that into my lexicon.
PS. I’m a fan of repurposing/up-cycling, of course. And yeh – it’s best to do it in creative ways, rather than a simple ‘copy & paste’ job or ‘transcribe your video and you’ve got yourself a blog post’ job.
BUT if you have limited budget, time and resources, these less-creative repurposing tactics still hold a lot of merit. People (including your prospects) consume content in different ways. Repurposing will help you reach more people. More people at the top of your funnel means more sales at the bottom. Simples.
That’s my two pence anyway
X
I absolutely agree, Konrad.
Content repurposing is not about a pretty ‘candy wrapper.’ It’s about providing unique value to your prospect. Going from text to video to audio does just that.
It doesn’t have to be time-consuming. It simply has to solve your prospect’s problem. But then again… that should go for everything we create, right?…
Thanks for stopping by, Konrad!
Hi Ana,
Yes, yes, yes 10 times… that’s for each of the Recontent strategies you’ve listed in the fab post.
It’s a full marketing course + private coaching session in one.
Even if a blogger were to implement 2 or 3 of these strategies, I know they’d increase traffic, improve their personal brand and build tons of trust among their crowd of followers.
Gotta be everywhere to be trusted.
Academic arguments aside (ie., what does re-content really mean)… this is the way to the top for bloggers who want to stand out in a crowd.
That’s because most the people lost in the crowd won’t begin to do these things.
You tell it, girl 🙂
-Donna
“That’s because most the people lost in the crowd won’t begin to do these things.” BINGO, Donna!
Standing out in the crowd isn’t that difficult… you just DO while others TALK about doing. 😉
PS Found your first comment in spam… ? Glad I did though; each Donna-comment brings a unique value and angle to the discussion; LOVE it!
Hi Ana,
You brought out an important and timely subject to the blogging world.
Yes, content repurposing is the need of the hour, yes let us look back to the vital ones we created and left it out as it is for years, make them into the shape of a new and energetic and informative piece to the present gen! Yes, I have noticed the suggestions and opinion about most of them you presented here are for content repurposing, yes, it can do wonders even without much effort for creating a new one. Great idea to implement it soon!
In a recent post on our page, one of the pro bloggers wrote on this similar subject, under the title, How to increase blog traffic without writing new posts” Yes, Çontent relaunching is a great idea to implement to get more traffic.
Thanks Ana for bringing out such an elegant post for the benefit of your readers.
I am so glad to say that I just curated this post in some of the top IM content curating platforms like, Inbound, BizSugar, Klinkk and Growthhacking.
I will surely make mention of this post in one of my posts.
Best Regards
~ Phil
“The need of the hour” indeed, Phil!
So glad you stopped by – always pleasure to see you around Traffic Generation Café. Your efforts to help me spread the word about the post are GREATLY appreciated!!!
Hi Ana
Much as though I’d love to finish and publish my next blog post, I’m still getting mileage out of the last one from 2 nearly years ago. The accompanying content upgrade I created is still generating new subscribers practically every day and the post is still getting social shares and blog comments.
This was all down to going that extra mile with the quality, visual appeal and depth of the content and getting it seen in as many different places as possible.
I’m not sure I’m a podcast and YouTube clip type of person – although I’m game for anything you can do in easy bite-size chunks.
However, there’s one repurposing trick I absolutely love. And that’s derivative content. You know – where you create a post about, for example, 7 things you absolutely must include on your writer website. Then you pitch the same idea to your clients in cloud computing, the dental profession or whatever.
So you end up with posts such ‘7 Things You Must Include on Your Cloud MSP Website’ and ‘7 Things Every Successful Dental Practice Website Cannot Do Without’ – where you tailor the content specifically to each industry sector.
OK, it’s not gonna get your own original version wider exposure. But it’s defo a way to get paid more for less.
Hear, hear, Kevin – makes a LOT more sense to promote what already works by repurposing it and exposing it to even more people than to create new content not really knowing whether it’s going to be a hit or miss.
Personally, I am a bullet-point type person… ? buuuuuut we all have to step outside of our comfort zones when in business of catering to multiple audiences.
Hey Ana,
What an epic post you’ve created here. One giant CTA filled with practical steps on how to go about it. Not just why. Oh, that’s included too. You delivered it all here, Ana, and this is indeed one to share.
I’ve got some archived stuff I want to apply this to. Thanks for sharing your naw-lidge with us on a topic I didn’t even know was controversial until you shared the Brogan take on it. LOL This post has it all.
Bravo,
Matthew
MUCH appreciated, Matthew!!!
And you certainly do have plenty of content you could get a lot more mileage out of, that’s for sure. Excited to see you start doing that!
I have only started to repurpose my writing but I have written about so much, that there is hardly anything I haven’t already written about. Why not use some in a different form?
And there’s yet another reason to stop writing and start repurposing!
Thanks for coming by, Brian.
I like Jay Baer’s point that first post isn’t THE thing… it’s the first version of the thing.
To quote good ol’ Hemingway… “The first draft of anything is sh!t”
😉
But it’s a whole lot easier to edit “sh!t” than it is to edit, spin, improve AIR… and therein lies the highest purpose of repurposing. That purpose is to strip down and refine the idea to its most helpful form.
Quick plug for ya Ana: I’m SOOooo glad to be a part of the Content Boomerang community. What you are doing for content marketers and bloggers and their intended audiences is beyond compare.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
Jay certainly knows how to pack it in – one sentence says it all!
And thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Kurt!
Hi Ana,
Awesome Post!
Providing buyers with quality content is part and parcel of B2B marketing, yet the process of creating content is often time-consuming and costly. One way to get more bang for your buck is by repurposing existing content into a variety of new formats and delivery channels.
For instance, one white paper can generate at least 10 other types of content, such as whiteboard videos, blog posts, infographics, webinars and more.
I will tweet your post.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Well said, Manish, and thanks for stopping by!
Hi Ana!
What a great article …. will you be offering your course Content Boomerang anytime soon?
Thanks so much!
I really do hope to finish it in a couple of weeks, Susan.
But then again… I said the same thing a couple of months ago! ? Life tends to dictate our priorities and I am just digging out of the unexpected personal twists and turns to come back to finish Content Boomerang.
Hi Ana,
I had the mindset of Chris Brogan. Maybe it is because I have read so many blog posts that were repurposed the wrong way…. i.e. they were posted as new posts from two years ago word for word and comment for comment.
You have clarified the meaning of repurposing for me. I’ve got my “toes in the water” these days by doing slide shares, Youtube videos, and whenever I can get myself off of the beach I will be doing more of Facebook Live presentations. (Too windy for the sound there)
But I get the point loud and clear just from studying this masterpiece you have written.
Now I’m all excited to go repurpose something……..
-Donna
First of all, thanks so much, Donna – what a compliment!
I was amazed to learn how many content marketers thought exactly that – content repurposing is just a quick-n-dirty way to fill in content holes.
That’s one of the reasons I got so passionate about this post… 😉 That and the fact that recontent is TRULY the only way to effectively promote content these days.
Thanks for coming by, Donna.
PS Poor duckling… tough life on the beach! 😉
A read worthy expert roundup I have come across in so many weeks. Great work Ana. And I really love the new design.
Thanks so much, Shaurya, and so glad you like the new design! ??
Wow, Ana! This is an epic post! You are such an inspiration. I know that I need to harness the power of recontent- especially SlideShare. You are the queen of content repurposing! I will be sharing this all over!
Thank you so very much, Robin!
Love it! I just had one post and a page I repurposed and BOOM! They are my #1 traffic generating right now.
I got a gazillion ideas from this awesome post – so good!!
Thank you, Ana!
From another Ana. 😀
So, sooooo glad to hear it, Ana – look forward to more great results from you!
Great post Ana!
Looks like i have a lot of work to do now 🙁
It will be worth it though, ha ha!
Thanks, Dan
Good to know I am doing a great job keeping you on your toes, Dan!
Improving the way we do business never ends, does it?… ?
I’ve never read such a nice piece for a long time. I recommend this Ana.
Well thank you, Byrone. ☕️
Hi Ana, Very nice and detailed information on repurposing content. I’m definitely going to try that out. Impressive stats with slideshare. Thanks so much for sharing this concept – of repurposing/creating content with repurposing in mind.
You are so very welcome, Tony; thanks for coming by!
Ana:
ReContent and using your quality work wisely, creatively, and extensively makes more than perfect sense for businesses, content marketers, and content creators, alike. Not only do you gain new audiences by reimagining content, you also appeal to people who want to receive content in various ways or learn better in a particular way, say visually. On top of that, condensing your message respects your audience’s time and may even make your message more impactful!
I love every piece of ReContent I have been learning with you and results are amazing so far:) This is my first look at the “ReContent Ecosystem” but, I think it’s a printable reminder any content creator can work from as a content checklist or cycle. Thanks for a great post and deep dive on a subject that’s becoming a personal favorite for me. Now I constantly work for quality content but, with a plan for ReContent to go with it…Thanks so much, Ana…Truly, Sue-Ann
You are the best student I could ever wish for, Sue-Ann!
Thinking ‘there’s NO box’ is exactly what I want people to see. I want everyone to understand that content is very fluid and shouldn’t be confined to the archives. It simply doesn’t belong there!!!
Imagine you just blogged, right?… No guest posting, no ‘getting out there’, experimenting, mingling? No FB?… ? ?
Blessed to have you, Sue-Ann – both as someone learning from me (honored!) AND a friend. All thanks to content repurposing! #truestory
Once again, Ana, you’ve demonstrated why you’re at the front of the pack when it comes to content repurposing. Your step-by-step process is one that EVERY blogger should be following, and I strongly recommend your course to businesses that want to better leverage their effort.
Well done!
Thanks so very much, Mike – honored!