5 Ways to Repurpose Content You Already Have

Ever stared at a blank page and wondered where you’re going to get your next content idea from?

Creating interesting, engaging content frequently can be a challenge and for some of you the Facebook news ban has added some extra pressure this month.

The key is to get smarter and not work harder and that means learning how to repurpose content.

Repurposing content is taking things you already have and finding new ways to use them – creating more content with less effort. Here are a few ideas for giving your content a second life.

ANNUAL REPORTS & BIG DOCUMENTS

A lot of effort goes into these materials so don’t let these resources go to waste with a link on your website and a share or two on social. Here are some ideas to turn these resources into a content gold mine.

–   Extract quotes and turn them into visuals for social media. This could be a CEO quote from your annual report or a testimonial from a donor or volunteer.

–   Take the printed materials and turn the content into a live video. You could talk about the report, highlight some of the key relevant points, tell people where to find it and take questions.

–   Break your materials down into smaller elements. Take some facts out and make yourself an infographic or pull out individual stories and make them mini social media features.

–   Share updates of things that have happened since it was released.

REUSE VIDEO

Videos can take a bit of work to prepare for, so don’t just share it once.

–   You can share the same video multiple times. Not everyone will see it on the first go around.

–   Chop it up. Take a longer video and extract smaller segments for sharing on Stories, IGTV or as video posts.

–   Get it transcribed using a service like Rev.com and turn the content into a blog post.

–   Take stills (screenshots of moments in the video) and share those as images on your social media.

–   Turn it into an ad and use it to reach a new audience.

BLOG POSTS

Don’t just share the link on your page and call it a day.  Every blog post is a goldmine of social media posts.

–   Create 3-5 visuals drawing on different quotes, facts or stories included in the post.

–   Create a short series of Stories with graphics introducing the post, highlighting 2-3 key points and ending with a call to action to read the full post on your website.

–   Combine multiple blog posts on a similar theme and turn it into a white paper or a download – it’s a great option for lead generation and list building.

–   A well written blog post can easily be converted into a live video by essentially reading it out loud to your audience.

SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Created a post that did particularly well? Don’t just leave it there. You can always find new ways to tell the same story.

–   Consider rewording the post in a new way and sharing it again.

–   Find a way to add to or expand the story. Maybe you can share what happened next or a similar story.

–   You could also change the medium – make a text post into a short video or mix up the image you used the first time.

–   Give it new life on another platform, take a high preforming Facebook post and share it on LinkedIn.

There are lots of ways to repurpose and reuse content. Spend 20 minutes thinking about all the materials your organisation already has and all the ways you can use it without having to create new ideas from scratch.