You may have seen us use, on LinkedIn, the (somewhat ghastly) term ‘Content-aggedon’ to describe the enormous amount of content that is being created every day. In a bid to inform, communicate, and stay informed, we are producing and consuming content like never before.
The content list is perpetual and includes blogs, website copy, social media profiles, email marketing campaigns, press releases, speeches, thought leadership articles, video tutorials, and so on.
There’s a lot of content out there, and it’s tough to make sure yours stands out. You need to find new and interesting ways to share your content if you want people to see it.
One great way to do that is through content repurposing.
Content repurposing is re-using existing content and presenting it in a new format to expand its reach and lifespan. As you create new content, you can plan for a variety of different ways to share a new piece with content repurposing.
In this guide, we’ll talk about what content repurposing is, how you can use it to maximize the reach and lifespan of your content, and some tips for getting started.
Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle Content
We’ve ‘only’ been writing for 5000 years. According to the British Library, writing systems were invented at least four times independently. The first being Mesopotamia (Iraq) between 3400 and 3300, followed by Egypt circa 3200, then China in 1300 BC, and between 900 and 600 BC writing appeared in Mesoamerica cultures.
Fast forward to today and, according to this site, every day, around the world, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day. That’s a lot of bytes. In the U.S. a quintillion is 1 followed by 18 zeros, whereas the Brits say it’s 1 and 30 zeros. Or a quintillion equals 2.5 million terabytes of data.
Just as data is described as being the new oil, content is the new gold.
In content terms, panning for gold means finding nuggets (angles), refining into a gold bar (writing), smelting (polishing), selling (distribution) and creation (using the information for a story).
But there’s one more step. If we take the same gold bar and melt it down into a liquid form and pour it into the shape of an ingot, we can use that again, either in the same or in a new form. This is reusing and repurposing content.
Here’s another way to think about repurposing content. Say you have written an article for the company newsletter, think what else you can do with that piece of content. Maybe you can:
1. Turn it into an infographic
2. Post on the website
3. Tweet out the title with a link to the original article
4. Create a video tutorial, podcast, or webinar
5. Post it on LinkedIn
By repurposing your existing content in different formats, you are extending its lifespan and increasing its exposure to potential customers.
And it’s not just the written form but also repurposing video content, images, audio content and more.
Here are three tips to getting started:
1. Audience Engagement
Think about the different media that your audience engages with. What channels do they use most? What formats work best for them? Once you know this, it’s much easier to plan for content repurposing.
2. Success First
Consider what existing content has already been successful in reaching your target audience or generated leads. What did people like about it? What resonated with them? You can then use this as a starting point for your new content pieces.
3. Develop A Plan
What content do you want to create? What platforms will you use? What formats will you employ? Having a clear roadmap in place will help organize your efforts and keep things on track. This might be a spreadsheet or even a whiteboard to map out where you’re going with the content and in what form, number of words, and resources required.
We wrote another post about content writing services, check it out here
At Eight Public Relations, we have experience in creating and repurposing content. Get in touch with us at www.eightpr.com or eight@eightpr.com for a chat about how we can help with your content writing requirements.
Eight Public Relations is a PR agency in Hong Kong. We help technology and legal clients enhance their profile through public relations, media relations, content development, corporate reputation, thought leadership programmes, and digital communications.