How to Repurpose Content and Why You Need to Do It

Creating brand new content can only get a brand so far. Repurposing your content for other platforms or similar topics can benefit your content strategy greatly. Revitalize the content you’ve already created to bring in new audiences and support your current content plans. Learn how to recycle your existing content to drive new traffic to your site with little effort.

What is repurposing content?

Repurposing content is the act of using all or parts of existing content to create new pieces of content that can be distributed across multiple channels. It’s more than simply copying and pasting the content on a new website or social channel, though.

When you repurpose existing content, it typically takes on a new format, such as a blog post becoming an infographic or a webinar video becoming a podcast episode. Repurposed content can breathe new life into your content without the heavy lifting of creating a piece of content from scratch.

Why is content repurposing an important aspect of marketing strategies?

Aside from the fact that most of the work is already done, there are other benefits to repurposing content, such as:

• Easier content distribution. When you are taking a single piece of content and turning it into a micrographic for social media, an infographic for your newsletter, and a video for Youtube, you can promote content quicker. Instead of focusing solely on new content creation, you can distribute content on a single topic across multiple channels much quicker.

• Reach new audiences. By serving content in different formats, you can to serve content to customers that you might not reach just from content on your site. In the same manner, not everyone enjoys simply reading content, so by creating content in say podcast format, you can get your content in front of people who would have never found it before. Repurposing content allows you to give individuals the exact type of content they resonate with the most. 

• Support your SEO strategy. Creating pieces of content around a specific topic will help you rank organically for keywords for a topic. By creating more content around that topic, you can target more keywords in that corner of the internet. Posting content on other sites can also provide you with links back to your site, helping you build even more authority on a certain topic. 
  
  

Choosing the right piece to repurpose

Not all content should be given another life, and deciding which pieces to repurpose might be a difficult choice to make. The first place to start when trying to figure out which content should be recycled is your blog. Go through the archives to find content that has performed well in the past or topics that are relevant at the moment. These pieces of content typically prove to be the most valuable when it comes to your repurposed content strategy. Other ways to determine the best content to repurpose include:

• Look for evergreen content. You might create a blog post about the latest swimsuit trends for the summer, but come fall this topic won’t be relevant anymore. Creating additional content around this won’t provide value by the time you can distribute the content. By reusing topics that will stay relevant for years to come, you can create multiple points of entry to your site that will stick around for a while.

• Pick your highest-performing blogs. Look through your analytics to find the blog posts that have performed well among your audience. If these pages are resonating with your current audience, there are probably other people out there who will also find your content interesting but haven’t had a chance to find it yet. When you put it on other platforms, it can make its way to those who don’t search for blog content regularly.

• Find content that can be added upon or broken down. One of the easiest ways to repurpose a piece of content is to break it down into other content or add more details that you couldn’t get in the original copy. Search for content with listicles within them and create content around each of those points. Take a long-form whitepaper and chop it up into multiple blogs or videos.
  
  

Steps to repurpose content

Now that you’ve found the pieces of content you want to breathe new life into, what’s next? There are a few steps to take to develop this content effectively. 

1. Determine your goal

Before creating any new form of content, determine what your goal with your content repurposing strategy is. Are you looking to fill the gaps in your current content? Do you want to reach a new audience you haven’t tapped into yet? Are you wanting to create supporting content for one of your main drivers of organic traffic? Make sure you know what your goal is so you can choose the best piece of content and use it in the proper formats to drive those goals.

2. Pick the right piece

Once you’ve determined what you want out of repurposing the content, it’s time to revisit your list of content prime for repurposing. Choose a piece that opens a door for you to excel in your goals. If you’re looking to highlight a certain service or product your company provides in a new market, make sure you are using a piece of content that discusses that product or service.

3. Decide the channel

After aligning your existing content piece with your repurposing objectives, you’ll need to determine what channel will be most effective. Some formats you can use when repurposing on-site content include

• Social media posts
• Youtube videos
• Podcasts
• Guest posts
• Online courses
• Ebooks
• Newsletters
• And infographics

Choosing the channel you intend to use will help determine the steps you need to take to actually develop and distribute the content.

4. Research and development

The next step to repurpose your content is performing competitive research. Perform a content gap analysis to find gaps in your keywords that you can use to guide the direction of your new piece. Research what’s currently ranking for the keywords you intend to target and see where you can improve upon that content. Once your research is complete and you know what the best content format and keywords are, it’s time to develop and distribute the content! Get your fresh content out in the world and monitor its performance.

Ways to Easily Repurpose Content

The main goal of creating any new piece of content should be to provide value, and the same goes for repurposed content. Below are some ways you can create value by expanding on your current content.

Write a guest post

Reach new audiences on sites outside your own while also gaining backlinks and building authority on certain topics.

Record a video or podcast version

Take your written content and make videos or record a podcast for those users who prefer to listen instead of reading.

Answer questions on popular forums 

Provide answers to highly sought-after questions on popular forums like Quora. Not only will you drive traffic to your site, but you’ll establish yourself as an expert in the industry.

Design infographics

Many people prefer visuals over written content. Turn key takeaways and data into a visual representation that can be used elsewhere on the website or in newsletters. Take it a step further, and break your infographic out into multiple micrographics to share on social media channels.

Combine content into ebooks 

If you’ve found that you have a handful of smaller content pieces that follow a similar theme, combine these into one single ebook that you can put behind a gated landing page, so customers can find all their answers in one place. 

Break out longer content into smaller blogs

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you can take whitepapers and other long-form content into individual blogs. Certain sections of content can be expanded upon to provide more insight into a topic and target new audiences.

Creating new content doesn’t have to be your only way to drive your content strategy forward. Repurposing content provides many benefits to your marketing efforts and saves you hours on content creation. If you’re interested in learning how Jordan Digital Marketing can help drive your content marketing efforts forward, contact us today!