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I’ve said it many times. I’m all about doing things efficiently. Whether it is finding ways to bulk manage Twitter followers or increasing digital marketing productivity , I am always looking for ways to get the most out of my efforts and my clients. One other area this approach holds true is through repurposing content.
What exactly is repurposed content you ask?
It’s just a fancy way of saying that you are going to take something you have already done and basically convert it to another media.
How do you repurpose content?
Let’s keep is easy and let’s take a look at 8 different ways you can repurpose your existing content.
1. Blog Content
Most of the time, blog content will be at the core of your repurposing efforts. It typically takes minimal effort to produce a blog post compared to other initiatives that I will go into later in this post.
However, using any of the other mediums below as the first piece of content you create can easily lend itself to become a new blog post.
For example, did you create a SlideShare presentation? You can easily create a blog post that goes into more detail for each slide. This will provide readers with great insight into what the presentation was about without actually being there. Best of all, you can embed your SlideShare presentation directly inside your blog post.
Maybe you created a lengthy ebook. You could take a section from the ebook and massage it to become a stand alone blog post. As an added bonus, at the end of the blog post you could have a call to action for readers to download the ebook that covers this topic and more.
Perhaps you have a pretty sweet infographic. Why not embed it into a new blog post and provide some content around the infographic? Speaking of infographics…
2. Infographics & Images
Infographics are a great visual piece of content that allow people to easily understand data or concepts. If your business has access to some interesting industry data, you can take the data and present it in an easy to understand image.
Allowing people to see things visually typically lends itself to a better understanding of the information. No longer will you have to worry about the eyes of people glazing over with boredom from a dry Excel spreadsheet.
Aside from using data to create an infographic, you can use an infographic to show the process of how to do something.
3. Slideshare
Do you ever create a presentation for an audience? Whether you initially present for a handful of people or an auditorium full, taking your Powerpoint presentation and uploading it to SlideShare is one of the most simple wins for repurposing content.
You already have the deck ready, you just need to simply upload it to SlideShare.
Another approach for utilizing SlideShare is if your blog post is centered around a “how to” or “top 10” list. You can easily break up the steps or list numbers into slides. It might take some time (depending on your graphical skill set), or you can always hire someone to do it for you . In the end, you will have a visually engaging piece of content to upload to SlideShare.
Ian Lurie of Portent does some really awesome presentations. No matter what event he is speaking at, he always uploads the presentation to SlideShare.
Related: Three Secret Steps to Finding the Most Engaged Twitter Users
5. Guides & eBooks
Guides an ebooks are a great way to repurpose content. For example, you may have written a blog post that was really high level about a particular topic. Creating an additional guide or ebook allows you to go into greater detail with the reader as well as expand into additional topics.
Providing guides and ebooks to your website visitors is a great way to generate new leads. It is common practice to ask users for their name and email address in exchange for downloading the guide or ebook.
By increasing your leads, you can ultimately increase your business. Hubspot offers a variety of ebooks in exchange for some of your information.
6. Podcasts
Podcasts have many uses. Whether you are interviewing someone or simply talking through a particular topic, podcasts are a way to provide your website visitors with audio content. The advantage of podcasts is that a user can save them to their phone or MP3 player to listen to while on the go. They don’t have to be tied to a computer to listen to what you have to say.
For the task of repurposing content, podcasts are an easy way to turn a blog post into audio format. The easiest way of doing this is to simply read the blog post and record the audio of you speaking. If you are not into listening to your own voice, you can always hire someone to do a professional voice over instead.
No matter which route you go, providing an audio format of your content is an easy way to have your readers listen to you on the go.
7. Webinars
Webinars are another great way to repurpose your content. For example, if you created a slide deck for a group presentation, you can easily use the same deck and topic to hold a webinar. You may also find that a particular blog post you created generated a lot of buzz or questions that could best be addressed through a webinar.
Running a webinar allows you to go into greater detail than that of a slide deck. By running a webinar, it allows you to hold a Q & A session at the end with users to answer specific questions that they have about the topic. This can lead to great additional conversation with the webinar audience.
In addition to repurposing your slide deck, you can even repurpose your webinar by recording it. Simply record the screen and audio to later add to Youtube. Then you could even create a new blog post about the webinar and embed the video along with the slide deck. See how this repurposing stuff starts to work together!
Related: Nine Ways to Crush Your Branded Search Results
8. Social Media Updates
You might not have thought about using social media for repurposing content. However, it is a great channel to do so. For example, let’s say your blog post has some witty or memorable quotes that can be pulled from it. You can take these quotes (which are typically a sentence or so) and use them as the basis for your social media post. Then you can add the link back to your blog post.
You can take this a step further and combine it with the image repurposing approach. You have no doubt seen countless images of famous quotes in your social streams. Why not make your quotes part of someone’s stream?
Simply take your quote and create a nifty image with it to share on your active social profiles. Be sure to link back to your blog post or piece of content it originated from.
Repurposing Your Content
Repurposing your content isn’t difficult. In fact, when you look at all the options available it is relatively easy. With just one piece of content, you could literally spin it into 3 or more additional pieces of content with minimal effort.
However, you should always take into consideration which media options make the most sense for the content you are repurposing. Not every option will make the most sense and you shouldn’t do something just to do it.
Are you already using your existing content for repurposing efforts? What successes or failures are you seeing? What do you like or dislike about repurposing? Do you have questions?