Do you regularly share marketing content for your business to reach more of your ideal customers or clients? If you do, you know how time-consuming creating fresh new content week in and week out can be. Whether it’s writing blog posts, recording and editing YouTube videos, or hosting a podcast show, content creation takes hours out of your week. The good news is that you don’t have to produce brand new content every week. You can re-purpose your content instead. And you’ve probably come across this phrase before, but how can it benefit you and your business? Here are 3 practical ways for you to re-purpose your content to reach a bigger audience.

But first thing first – what do I mean by re-purposing?

What is content re-purposing? 

Literally, the word to re-purpose means ‘to purpose again’. So re-purposing content effectively means turning a piece of content into something else. And specifically, into something that serves a different purpose.

But what type of content can you re-purpose exactly? Both long-form and short-form pieces of content can be re-purposed. Effectively, any content that you created or have copyright over can be re-purposed into another piece of marketing content for your business. 

If you regularly produce long-form pieces of content as part of your marketing efforts, it means you’re already sitting on a goldmine of content you can re-purpose. Great news, right?

And in case you’re wondering what they are, long-form pieces of content are exactly what they say on the tin. It’s content that isn’t short and snappy (like, for example, social media updates, which I consider short-form).

Some examples of long-form pieces of content you could create (and then re-purpose) include:

• Blog posts.
• Podcast episodes.
• YouTube videos.
• White papers.
• Case studies.
• eBooks.
• Online courses.
• LinkedIn articles.
• Guest posts or articles you’ve published on external publications or websites.
• Newsletters.
• Presentations or talks you’ve given.

I could carry on.

Because when you start thinking about the different types of content out there, the list grows bigger and bigger.

But what can you re-purpose all this content into? And how?

1. Re-purpose your content to reach a different objective

Let’s be honest – the ultimate reason why we create content is to sell more.

But when you break it all down and think about the reasons why we (as business owners) create content, here are some of the most obvious ones:

• Selling. While not all our content is about direct selling (and content marketing shouldn’t always be about selling!), sometimes we share a piece of content with the intention or desire of making a sale from it. There’s nothing wrong with that, and direct marketing and advertising pieces of content are an example of this.
• Teaching or sharing information and training. For example, think of any “How to” pieces of content you may have created, just like this: How to create great show notes for your podcast.
• Sharing your values, messages, or opinions. This type of content tells your prospective customers or clients more about what it’s like to work with you. And it helps them decide whether you’re the right business for them. I did this with this piece: Why publishing your podcast transcripts on your website is BAD customer service.
• Reaching a bigger audience. You could argue that selling more of our products or services is why we ultimately invest in any type of marketing. But we all know that content marketing is a long game (i.e. it doesn’t give you tangible results overnight!). And the whole idea of creating and sharing content in the first place is to reach more people so you can attract more of your ideal customers and clients into your world and, over time, make more sales.

When thinking about re-purposing content so that it helps you achieve a different objective, you could, for example, turn something that was originally intended as a way to teach or inform, into something that helps you reach a bigger audience.

And how exactly?

• You could turn a blog post into a social media post.
• Or a podcast episode into a blog post.
• Or you could take snippets of information from your “How to” piece of content, turn them into an infographic, and share on Instagram or Pinterest, for example.

One key thing to remember is that re-purposing is not copying and pasting. If you’re changing the purpose of your content, you’ll need to change its wording or the way you position it. If you simply copy and paste, you may not achieve the objective you set out to achieve. And that would be a waste of your time and effort, wouldn’t it? We don’t want that.

2. Re-purpose content for different platforms

Regardless of the purpose or reason why you produce content, if you’re only sharing it on your website (via a blog or a podcast) or on your YouTube channel, you’ll only ever reach a certain amount of people. This will be people who already know you or people who (if you’re playing your cards right) find you on Google.

But if you share your content on more platforms you can reach more people.

Here are some of the various platforms where you could be sharing your content:

• Your website.
• Podcasting apps.
• YouTube.
• Social media – LinkedIn, Instagram (feed, IGTV, Stories), Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, etc.
• External and relevant websites or publications (influencers, industry experts, etc.)

I’m sure you can think of more platforms that apply to your industry or business. But hopefully, this short list gives you some ideas of the different places where you might be able to share your content.

Remember – re-purposing doesn’t mean lifting your content from one place and dumping it into another! Different platforms have different rules, so when you’re re-purposing your content, you need to change it and adapt it and play by the rules of that platform.

A YouTube video works best in landscape form, for example, whereas the portrait layout works better for IGTV. Or while an Instagram post needs to be visual and grab people’s attention in that way, a LinkedIn one doesn’t necessarily have to be.

3. Re-purpose content to different formats or mediums

So we covered purpose and platforms, but a very obvious way to re-purpose your content is to change its format or medium. This is about turning a written piece of content into a video or vice versa, for example.

Here are some of the formats that immediately come to mind:

• Written. Think of blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, lead magnets, LinkedIn articles, guest posts, eBooks, books, case studies, white papers, training material (like presentations or classes you’ve taught, etc.)
• Video. Live video (Facebook live, Instagram live, LinkedIn live, etc.) or pre-recorded video (YouTube, IGTV, Insta feed, etc.)
• Audio like a podcast show, a podcast interview, or a talk, for example.
• ‘Visual’. Think of infographics, blog post graphics, slides, Instagram Stories, etc.

Again, this isn’t an exhaustive list. And when you think about the fact that any of the above pieces of content can be re-purposed into any of the others, the combinations and possibilities are pretty much endless! 

If you have a podcast, for example, you can easily re-purpose your content to reach a bigger audience. You can do that by turning your episodes into blog posts or social media posts. Or by sharing your recording as a YouTube video, or by creating an infographic, or turning it into a training session. Can you see the possibilities?

And if you do have a podcast and want to find out more about why you should re-purpose your episodes into blog posts, head over to this article: 7 reasons why you should re-purpose your podcast episodes into blog posts.

Do you want to re-purpose your content to reach a bigger audience? 

Remember, re-purposing content never means copying and pasting. If you’re changing the purpose, the platform, or the format or medium, different rules apply.

When re-purposing your content, you have to ‘play by the rules’ to get the best results out of your content creation efforts. This often means re-working and re-structuring your content. For example, you can use the transcript of a podcast episode to create a blog post out of it. But in order to write a rockin’ blog post, you’ll need to do some serious work on your transcript.

Even when the medium is the same (and you go, for example, from a blog post to a social media post), you don’t simply lift the original piece and just slot it into your chosen social media channel. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way! You’ll need to first adapt and adjust the original piece to make sure it works in its new format. And while re-purposing in itself will save you time and mean you won’t need to develop new ideas on a regular basis, it still requires time and work.

If you need help to re-purpose your content to reach a bigger audience, here are the services I offer:

• I can give you a 90-minute tailored session on Zoom that will teach you exactly how to re-purpose content in your business to meet your specific goals.
• I can re-purpose your podcast episodes or your videos (pre-recorded or live) into blog posts.
• Or I can re-purpose your video/audio or written content into LinkedIn posts that will generate engagement.

If you want to discuss any of the above services in more detail, drop me an email at hello@sarabussandri.com or fill in the Contact Form on my website.