Creating content to promote a company is a time-honored practice, and so you might be thinking of new ways to repurpose your content. After all, the Internet has multiplied the use of content for marketing and entertainment to mind-boggling proportions.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a blogger, podcaster, course creator, infopreneur, digital product creator, coach, online business owner, consultant, or something else. If you create content of any kind, you’ve probably felt the pressure to produce new content so that you can remain relevant. The public’s appetite for new content is voracious, and it can be challenging to keep up. This is especially true in an era where entrepreneurs and businesses strive to produce high-quality, original content consistently.
One way to take the stress out of creating original content regularly is by repurposing content. To be clear, repurposing should not replace the creation of new content. Companies must continue to develop original content for their business.
However, when they add repurposing to the mix, they can be much more consistent and reach a wider audience. The most successful content marketers strategically plan out content that will genuinely move their business forward and devote the time to develop it fully. This approach effectively helps their overall content marketing strategy rather than simply following their editorial calendar to the letter.
In this article, we will look at some effective ways to repurpose content. Before we do that, let us look at what content repurposing is, why it is essential, and when companies should do so.
What is content repurposing?
Repurposing content is also known as recycling content. As the name implies, it is the practice of companies reusing their content or parts of it to increase the reach of that content. A piece of content can be converted into an image, infographic, or video, or it can be used as is on a different platform. The main idea behind content repurposing is to repeatedly generate new traffic from old content by reaching new audiences who prefer a different content format.
Companies may have a list of blog posts that went viral for a short time and then faded away under the weight of the new blog posts they continued to publish. While it’s always great to produce new content, older content also deserves to be recognized, especially if it was popular when you first published it. This is why content repurposing is such a great idea. By repurposing their content, companies can breathe new life into old content while continuing to add value.
Why is content repurposing important?
Stagnant organic traffic is the last thing any company wants to see when reviewing website metrics, but it’s a problem that every digital marketer faces at some point. These fluctuations in traffic can be caused by changes in the industry, changes in the interests of their audience, the amount of new content produced, or the relevance of their old content.
Sometimes all their content requires is a gentle nudge to keep their audience engaged. Here are a list of benefits that companies can enjoy from revamping and republishing old content.
1) Helps reach new audiences
The most significant advantage of repurposing content is that the content creator can continue to reach new audiences. When a company publishes content for the first time, the reach and interaction may be mediocre. Then, gradually, it picks up the pace and performs slightly better. When they repurpose it and publish it in new formats, it will reach audiences who would not have found it otherwise. It will also reach those who have recently begun following their account or those who prefer to consume content in different formats from the original one.
2) Boosts organic visibility
No matter how much a company spends on paid advertising, organic reach is more effective for any website. Repurposing structured content in various forms will significantly increase their organic exposure and traffic. They will also benefit from building backlinks for their website if they publish their content on multiple sites.
3) Strengthen the message
When discussing the benefits of repurposing content, experts agree that repetition is essential in marketing. According to the rule of marketing, a company’s target audience must hear a specific message at least seven times before making a purchase decision.
Companies must implement a content repurposing strategy to deliver their message consistently to their target audience, rather than covering a topic or issue once and letting it fade into history. This works well when they begin with high-value, reliable content. It also makes it easier for them to devise new ways to emphasize their message.
4) No need to start from scratch
When businesses repurpose their content, it makes it much easier to scale. In other words, they do not have to create every blog, infographic, or video from scratch. A single blog can be used in various ways and shared on different platforms. They may use new content as the foundation for blog posts, videos, social media posts, webcasts, and other forms of content. For example, they can take a previously written article and turn it into an infographic or even a YouTube video.
When should companies repurpose content?
1) When their site needs new content quickly
When a company launches a new website or implements major updates on an existing one, it could benefit from new content. However, the content creators should only do so if they have the resources to hire a writer or learn SEO and create their own content.
When the company is in a pinch, repurposing content can make sense and save time in the long run, especially if a company doesn’t have much money to spend on writers. This is a relatable problem, considering how competitive freelance writing rates are these days. If done correctly, repurposing also gives businesses more bang for their buck than creating original pieces from scratch, resulting in a higher return on investment.
2) When their audience has high conversion rates
For this purpose, we define high conversion rates as at least 25% or higher. This percentage may not appear to be significant. It is, however, if a company optimizes their site for conversion rates. After all, a high conversion percentage indicates that the site is ranking well and receiving visitors who are engaged enough to click on an ad or fill out an inquiry form. If that’s the case, repurposing content may be more critical than ever.
3) When their content doesn’t get much traffic
A company may have strategic (rather than random) content that doesn’t get much traffic when it’s first published but has the potential to rank well and bring in new business over time. Building traffic to this content will only require slight alterations to the original piece to help it get more attention from new audiences.
4) When they see multiple links going to their site
If their site is ranking well for new keywords and receiving significant traffic, it may be worthwhile to repurpose some of the content they have already created. After all, others will want to learn how to get more mentions/links from credible sources like Forbes magazine, Huffington Post, or Entrepreneur. Creating content to share your link-building strategy can help boost your content even more.
Converting an existing piece (a blog post) into an infographic or eBook/eGuide may make more sense in this case. This is because this kind of long-form content ranks higher than ordinary articles on most sites due to their lengthier nature and overall greater value.
5) When they don’t have time to create new content
Companies may not have much time in their schedule to devote to writing new pieces while learning SEO and building a brand. If that’s the case, they can learn SEO from scratch by repurposing their blog content rather than writing something completely original. It just takes a little more effort on their part upfront because they’ll have to rewrite parts of the article, tweak headers/titles, and break the piece down into more information-rich sections (such as turning an article into a free eBook/eGuide).
6) When they have new targeted keywords/topics they want to focus on
Another scenario is if a company wants to rank higher for keywords such as “SEO agency,” “learn SEO from scratch,” and “learn SEO in 2023.” If they can learn SEO from the ground up by repurposing their previous content, they will be able to target those keywords with less original work.
7) When they are trying to create content for a new niche/sub-niche
By far, one of the best reasons to learn SEO by repurposing content is when businesses want to create new high-quality content, either from scratch or based on existing articles, but don’t know where to start. This is a more common scenario than most people realize. After all, there are so many possibilities out there and it can be challenging to know which techniques to learn about first.
8) When their website receives an overwhelming amount of traffic
If a company’s website receives high traffic from Google’s algorithms (because it ranks well), learning SEO through repurposing may be the best option. This is especially effective if their content isn’t getting enough shares/links/mentions on social media or elsewhere online. The truth is that some topics receive more attention than others, and businesses should repurpose content, thereby allowing their websites to receive more attention.
9) When they are trying to promote multiple products at once
Some businesses want to promote multiple blog posts or products. In this case, repurposing content is an excellent option because it teaches the company how to use different topics and keywords relevant to each blog post. It’s also a good way for businesses to learn as they try to promote more than one product or service on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. Furthermore, there are other websites besides Facebook where this type of information can be pretty valuable.
10) When they want to rank higher than their competitors
Just because a company’s competitors rank well doesn’t mean they deserve all of the attention; after all, they could be doing nothing more than regurgitating old SEO tactics from the past or previously SEO-optimized blog posts. Of course, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but it’s still a good business strategy for companies to keep an eye on their competitors’ blog posts. Repurposing some of this content can be effective. After all, their competitors could be using some techniques in their SEO campaigns that will help these companies beat them down the road.
11) When their website increases its domain authority
Learning SEO for beginners may be difficult at first, but repurposed content will help a company’s blog become more trusted and higher ranked more quickly. As a result, businesses do not have to wait years before Google starts depending on its newly created website as it does other websites with a long history of good performance. Businesses should also keep an eye out for new techniques when researching keywords.
10 creative ways to repurpose content in 2023
Repurposing content entails taking a company’s best ideas and repackaging them in a fresh and engaging format. Here are some of the most compelling and creative ways to repurpose content for audience engagement.
1) Create clips from existing video content
YouTube has over 2.5 billion monthly active users, making it a top choice for video content creators. TikTok, on the other hand, is one of the fastest-growing social media networks and video-sharing platforms today, with a billion active monthly users as of last year.
The good news is that most businesses will not need to create new content, especially if they have already created a YouTube channel. They can choose their evergreen content and repurpose it for TikTok or create multiple snippets from a single long video.
Businesses can also repurpose these videos on other platforms that support bite-sized videos, such as Facebook and Instagram stories or reels.
2) Take quotes from existing content
Companies that can break down video clips into small snippets can also do so with written posts. Extract quotes and use them to create content such as tweets, images, and short videos.
The best thing about quotes is that they can be easily repurposed into evergreen content for businesses. They can even repurpose lines from time-sensitive blog posts into timeless nuggets of wisdom. How companies repurpose this content is entirely up to them.
3) Share UGC
There are numerous advantages to running a user-generated content (UGC) campaign. It can significantly improve a brand’s SEO and strengthen its online presence. If that’s not convincing enough, it can also encourage maximum engagement, and provide them with a variety of content to repurpose. Instagram is an excellent platform for sharing user-generated content (UGC). This type of content has been shown to help brands and individuals organically increase their Instagram followers. People trust reviews and recommendations more than branded content, which makes UGC an ideal marketing tool.
However, simply clicking the share button on each post will not suffice. Companies must customize their content to include branding to give it a more cohesive appearance. They should also remember to obtain permission from the owners of the original content.
4) Convert written content into podcast episodes
Turning written content into podcast episodes is another way to repurpose it. Companies can even do the opposite and convert a podcast episode into an informative and engaging blog post.
What we like best about this method is how quickly it can expand a company’s online reach. They can share their content across multiple channels to reach different audiences rather than limiting themselves to a single platform or format.
5) Create stories from Tweets & other content
Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Stories debuted in 2017. According to statistics, over a billion stories are published daily, with approximately two million produced for marketing purposes.
Stories are an excellent way to capitalize on the various habits of a company’s social media audience. While they can be challenging to keep up with, these short posts have been shown to convert.
Fortunately, they can always turn other types of content into stories, such as Tweets, screenshots from their most recent blog, or screen captures from their most recent video.
6) Create memes
Memes frequently go viral on social media and other digital platforms. Companies can even include memes in their written content. Even the cleverest story or blog post can’t compete with the most memorable meme.
Repurposing meme content from previous posts is straightforward, but creating memorable memes requires a brilliant content creator.
7) Create presentations
While presentations are not the most popular type of content, they can still be beneficial, especially if a company has a large amount of content that can be repurposed.
They should consider the demographics they can reach with published presentations. This includes people who don’t spend much time on mainstream online platforms. Once they’ve customized their content for these audiences, they should present all of their best content in a downloadable slide deck, FAQ flipbook, or brochure promoting their company.
8) Create an eBook
Writing an eBook from scratch can take significant time and effort. However, repurposing previously published original content into an eBook can expedite the process.
In order to write an effective eBook, companies should compile all of their written work, arrange it in a logical order, and add some images. They can also include other types of content (such as a video or a podcast) in their eBook; they must transcribe the piece first.
9) Create an online course
If a company has enough content to create an eBook, they most likely have enough content to create an educational course.
While they could go the long route and repurpose their existing educational blog posts, creating an eBook first will make a company’s content easier to repurpose into a course.
All that remains is for them to film some video tutorials. They can even go one step further by repurposing sections of their course on social media! Companies can create their comprehensive approach and then upload it to their website or YouTube, resulting in their own learning hub. From there, companies only need to implement a handful of tactics to market their online course.
Conclusion
Companies do not need to deplete their creativity by constantly producing new content. They most likely have a repository of pre-existing content waiting to be recycled. Content repurposing allows them to streamline their content creation process while adapting their existing work for different audiences and online platforms.
Content repurposing can be useful for a small business owner, a new brand or an experienced content marketer looking for new content. In fact, content repurposing can significantly benefit their marketing efforts.
For help with content repurposing or creating content from scratch, companies can turn to PR agencies like Pressfarm. The PR specialists, expert writers and certified graphic designers at Pressfarm are skilled at creating content that can entice media professionals and target audiences alike. Additionally, they can help provide advice if companies choose to go about their media efforts independently.
To further assist in developing meaningful relationships with the media, their Account Executive will create a customized list from their database of over a million media contacts. With this media list, companies can can reach out to respected media professionals personally and pitch their content to these people.
One of Pressfarm’s PR packages could give a company’s old content the new life it deserves.