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How to repurpose content for your social media

A blog on cover on how to repurpose your content for social media

Introduction

Repurposing or reusing existing marketing content to create other marketing content can be a huge time saver. And a fantastic use of your time, money and resources. It’s essentially recycling what you already have available. 

If you have spent time writing a blog, producing a video or preparing a talk, you will want to get as much mileage as possible out of it. The good news is that this can easily be repurposed for other platforms. 

In this blog, you will find out why content repurposing is so important. And how you can repurpose the following types of content for your marketing.

What is content repurposing?

Content repurposing is simply reusing existing content to create new content. It’s something we naturally do all the time (how many times have you told the same story to friends with a different spin on it?).

The aim is essentially to expand the reach of that piece of content and make it easier for you as a business owner to:

Why repurpose content?

Time-saving

Producing quality content takes time; unless you have an infinite marketing budget, you and your team won’t constantly have time to create new content. 

Breaking down that blog, vlog or even a training deck into shorter posts will help you produce more high-quality content in less time. As you are editing and amending rather than coming up with a new idea and starting from scratch.

Consistency 

Think about the brands or businesses you love. I bet you can clearly articulate what they stand for and understand their message. Why? because they have shared the same message repeatedly until you, as a customer, can clearly articulate what they stand for. 

When we think about this, it’s often the big brands that spring to mind.

But consistency is crucial for small businesses and your brand, particularly if you are looking to grow or just starting out.

A consistent message that runs through all aspects of your marketing will ensure you stand out and your audience understands what they are getting. Repurposing existing content will help to keep you consistent and on track.

To avoid feeling like you have parrot syndrome

Parrots are renowned for their repetitive speech. If you are launching a new service or doing your own marketing, the likelihood is that you will, at times, feel like you are repeating the same message so often that people must be sick of hearing it.

Repurposing your existing content can be a great way to overcome this because it is less of an emotional investment. You’ve already done the hard part (generating the idea and getting it out there). Now it’s just a case of reworking or resharing it.

Overcoming writer’s block

Even if you absolutely love writing content, producing videos and doing your own marketing. There will be times when you feel like you have nothing to say or you just don’t know what to write.

Those nuggets you can pull out of a blog, email or social media post you can reshare are perfect for these times when you are stuck for what to say. And will enable you to quickly fill your social media calendar with the good stuff that actually works – yah!

How do I repurpose my content?

In this section, we look at some ways you can repurpose content.

Written content (blogs and website copy)

Your website is the gateway to your business and is where people will end up when they are looking for the products and services you offer or are keen to work with you. 

The downside is that the internet is a hectic space, and even if your content search engine is optimised, it can be difficult to rank in search – particularly if you work in a competitive industry. 

The good news is that you can easily repurpose that content to turn it into social media posts. You could even have a monthly theme related to that content. Remember to include a call to action telling people where to access the longer-form content.

Moreover, regularly publishing new content on your website will help your ranking. 

Here are some ways you can repurpose your blog and website content.

  1. Share a link in your social media posts to the content to encourage traffic to your website
  2. Share a link in your bios and profiles so people can easily access it when they come across your profile. 
  3. Use the blog as a transcript and record it as a podcast or video.
  4. Be your own consumer and read back through the post, noting all the key nuggets of information or subheadings. Then turn those nuggets or sections into shorter social media posts or carousel posts that break down that information.
  5. Create a series of short videos or reels using the key headers as your guide. 
  6. Use the blog as the basis for your email marketing – by condensing the information and sharing a link to it.
  7. Use that blog as the foundation for a short talk or Q&A session at a networking eventS

Webinars and videos

If you deliver webinars, talks, training sessions and or make videos, you have ready-made content to repurpose with the added benefit of having people’s comments and feedback to include. If you are delivering this online, make sure you record the session to repurpose later on.

  1. Start by listening to the playback and note the key things you said and the comments, questions and feedback you got. 
  2. Upload the slides to Slideshare or create a carousel post or document with the key points.
  3. Turn that content into an ebook or piece of gated content. You will need to elaborate on each point, but this will enable people to access all that information in one go, with the added benefit of growing your email list. 
  4. Transcribe the webinar using Otter.ai or a similar tool and turn it into a blog post on your website.
  5. Create a series of video snippets from the recording – perfect for social media content. 
  6. Upload the recording to YouTube, Vimeo or your website.
  7. Share a link in your email so people to the video or talk. 
  8. Create social media graphics and short posts on each point (remember to tell people it’s from a talk you did to build your social proof).
  9. Break the recording down into a series of short video teasers or outtakes perfect for sharing on social media.
  10.  Use the comments and questions from the session in your social media content. This gives you a fantastic insight into what people really want to know.
  11. If you have got feedback from the talk – then use it. It will make a fantastic testimonial and allows you to follow up with that person.

Comments and questions

Your emails, comments on social media posts, and questions you get asked at networking are a gold mine for finding ideas for content.

Obviously, you can’t share your entire conversation or email trail. But using extracts from your email or feedback on social media posts will help you unearth the things that people want and need to know about your business.

You can use these to:

  1. Create blogs, videos, emails and social media posts that address this problem.
  2. As part of a training session, talk or presentation. 
  3. As an FAQS page on your website, if people ask those questions, they are probably searching for the answers online. 

These questions will also help you understand what to focus on when it comes to your future marketing and develop a strategy which tells people exactly what they need to know.

Social media content

I often get asked if it is ok to reuse your social media posts. And the answer is 100% yes. The reality is that a very small percentage of your audience will see your content and probably won’t retain that information. So reusing or repurposing past posts (the successful ones) is advisable.

It can be time-consuming wading back through those old posts, though. So it is essential to be organised and make sure you use a scheduler, google doc or something to store all that information with dates and times! Trust me, it’s a huge time saver. 

Repurposing content for your social media should form part of your strategy.

If you need help with this or would like a content review, I would love to hear from you. Just pop me an email: melanie@thesussexsocial.co.uk, and we can arrange a chat.

Need a social media strategy that includes content repurposing and so much more? Then download my free guide here: 10 steps to social media success – here.

Finally, here are some resources to help you repurpose content

Canva: A great design tool for creating templates, resizing documents and simple video editing.

ChatGPT: Simply ask it to pull out the relevant points and ideas from your blog or training deck.

OtterAI: Great for transcribing video content.

Meet Edgar: Great for breaking blogs down into social media posts. 

Streamyard: Record your live stream and share it across other platforms.