Repurposing Content: Myths & Methods #216 - Content Strategy by Britney Gardner

Do you have a ton of great content that you’re not sure what to do with? Repurposing is the answer! In this episode you will learn:

Table of Contents

Repurposing content to save time and work smarter
Common myths about repurposing content
The ultimate goal of repurposing content

Some people think repurposing content is lazy, but it’s a smart way to work. If you’ve created good content in the past, there’s no reason not to share it again. The goal of repurposing content is to reuse it in new ways, on different platforms, and to build your own evergreen content platform.

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Highlights in this episode:

[00:01:02] – Content repurposing myth number one is that repurposing content is boring because your audience has seen it all before.

[00:03:05] – Do what others don’t–most people think about it is sharing somebody else’s meme or quote and then walking away.

[00:06:04] – Repost content all the time.

[00:07:01] – The ultimate goal of repurposing content is to reuse both old and current content in new ways.

[00:09:35] – The essentials of repurposing your content are to stop recreating good stuff and to start taking one 10th of your content creation time and use it to measure the content.

[00:12:29] – We’re multiplying the efforts that we put in to create that content in the first place.

Blog Post

Let’s start talking about repurposing. Repurposing your content, saving time, multiplying your efforts. And yes, we are going there on working smarter and not harder. We’re going to cover myths, what you’ve tried in the past and maybe why it didn’t perform so well, the essentials of repurposing your content, and the ultimate goal of repurposing.

Before we go all there, I want to remind you, multiplying your content efforts is one of my three M’s:

Make,
measure,
and multiply.

Busting Content Repurposing Myths

Let’s talk about myths around repurposing your content first.

Content repurposing myth number one is that you’re going to be boring if you repurpose.

Your audience has seen it all before. I’m going to do a real big pit stop here. You aren’t a broken record–period, exclamation point, end mark, whatever you want to call it–you aren’t. And honestly, no one remembers what you posted last month.

When it comes to this noisy, crazy world, you’re really not that important. I don’t mean that in a mean way. I’m just saying most of us are ingesting thousands of pieces of information every single day. So if you’ve only shared your marketing message seven times in the last month, your audience has maybe seen one, maybe they’d have to be an uber super fan to have seen more than one. If they haven’t acted on one of those pieces, then either the message was not resonating or you need to do some other kind of content work.

The point is, you really do need to share your marketing message more often, and that can be made easier by multiplying or repurposing your content. So that is that myth busted!

Content repurposing myth number two, which is you’re lazy for repurposing.

No. No way. You are not lazy. And repurposing is not lazy. It’s working smarter; work smarter, not harder. Right?

The reality of the situation is, if you’ve created good content in the past, you’re kind of silly to not share it again. If you’ve created good, lead-generating content, that one, entertains, and two, leads your audience on a journey and helps them get a quick win, you absolutely should be repurposing it.

And not repurposing it is worse than lazy. It’s like forgetting all the good things you’ve done in the past and then not being willing to share them with your audience. It’s almost a weird way of gatekeeping.

Content repurposing is key to a robust content strategy. So those myths are now busted.

Why Some Content Repurposing Doesn’t Work

Let’s move on to what you have tried already, and why it sometimes doesn’t work.

When I say repurposing content, what most people think I mean is sharing somebody else’s meme or quote.

Memes + Quotes

I have shared many a Schitt’s Creek or The Office or even Friends memes in my emails. They are community and cultural touchstones and those are wonderful.

What I’m talking about is using someone else in your niche or your field, their quote and just throwing it up on the ‘gram or whatnot, and then walking away. That isn’t going to share your message; it’s not going to further your purpose.

That’s building someone else’s authority. Build your own.

And the best way you can do that (if you want to share someone else’s quote or meme), is to share it and then give your own personal take on it. Sometimes I love somebody’s quotes. I’ve actually done whole episodes built around other people’s quotes. But then I’ve gone and digested them. I’ve actually metered them out and said, here’s how it applies to this. Here’s how it applies to that.

We want to make sure that we’re giving our own take on it and helping our audience deepen their learning on that quote or meme.

Reshares

The next thing most people have tried are resharing someone else’s content. Maybe not just like a pithy quote, but resharing someone’s whole article.

I’m going to give you guys the exact same advice as I did with quotes. Give your opinion, give your take.

Just this morning, I reshared someone else’s post on LinkedIn. To me, it wasn’t even business-related, but it was something that will build that connection with my audience. The person shared that their best advice to anyone before they get married is to go to Ikea, shop together, buy something, bring it home and build it together. And if you survive that harrowing experience, you’re probably going to be okay in your marriage.

I laughed because, let’s be honest, we’ve all been there. And then I reshared that and added, hey, what’s your couple moment? For my husband and me, it was not actually Ikea. It was joining our boxes of cords (all those extra chargers and connecting cords that probably went to something important, but you’re not really sure what it is at this point and, oh my gosh, I better not get rid of it because I’m probably going to need it in a month).

My husband will tell you when we first got together, the hardest thing he did was join our two separate boxes of cords. Because once those two boxes were joined, they were never going to be split up. Ikea wasn’t really our litmus. It was a cord box.

I shared that. And surprise, surprise, it’s one of the most engaging posts on my LinkedIn profile right now. And it’s because it brings the message home, right? It connects all of us together. It shows that I am a real person. And yes, I’m going to offer you some good marketing advice, but I’m not some crazy person who doesn’t live a real life.

Alright? So same on the reshares. You want to give your own opinion, give your own take, build your own authority.

Reposts

Finally, what you’ve probably also tried in the past is simply reposting your own content. And this, I am a huge fan of!

I repost content all the time and not one person has ever called me out for doing so.

Last week I reposted a story about learning a biz lesson from my toddler’s speech therapy and before posting it I simply altered the 2-year-old reference to a 4-year-old reference and then updated the call to action. Nobody noticed I had posted this before.

That’s the way you repost old content. You update anything that makes it feel seasonal or makes it feel old and you update the CTA if you have old offers that have changed, or if you’re trying to launch a new offer. That is how you make reposting your own content work for you.

The three things you’ve probably tried in the past to make use of repurposing, and some quick fixes on how to use them better in the future–because these are great ways to build community with your audience.

The Ultimate Goal of Repurposing Content

Now let’s move on to the goal, the ultimate goal of repurposing content and that is to reuse both old and current content in new ways. This can be done in quite a few different ways, but I want to reference that you’re using your old stuff and anything new that you’re making in more than one way, more than one avenue, whether that’s platforms like Facebook versus Instagram versus TikTok and more than one delivery method.

Cover different platforms with different delivery methods, using different angles–that’s the ultimate goal when you repurpose content.

Here’s a few ideas on that:

You could create an infographic from a blog post or an article that has been published on your website before. If like me, you have a podcast and you’re delivering something that has three steps, for example, you could easily put those three steps into a worksheet that people can download. If you are saying that there are three ways or four ways (as I’m about to share that you could repurpose content) you can create that infographic and show the different ways in the infographic and post that with a blog post on your website or right along the podcast on your website.
Another thing you could do is turn a blog post into a video by adding voice over narration and or images and videos for visuals. Video creation software like Camtasia Studio can help you do these kinds of things. There are also really cool like cartoon graphic software options out there now that can kind of make little animated cartoons that go along with your words.
If you don’t want to do video, another idea is turning an article into slides with accompanying text. You could use SlideShare for something like it; a lot of speakers do that, for example.
And then another fun idea would be to publish an article as an e book on Amazon Kindle or create PDFs, kind of this worksheet that I was mentioning earlier to accompany any videos or podcast learning options that you have on your website already.

That’s four ideas; there are a ton more. And to be fair, all four of those options do require additional work, and they’re probably best for major pieces of content like cornerstone content, pillar kind of content.

The Show Up System that I teach my clients is a simplified, every week kind of content repurposing system that you can easily incorporate into your weekly workflow. And then my Be Seen Method workshop teaches you the mechanics of reusing the same topic over and over as different pieces of content. It gives new angles.

Those are two different options I have for you guys that can help you repurpose your content in different ways. One that would put content into different platforms, and then one that would cover the same topic from different angles.

So now that we’ve covered the goal, the myths, things you’ve tried in the past, let’s just talk the bare bones basics.

The Essentials of Repurposing Your Content.

Stop recreating good stuff.

You probably already have really good stuff out there. You don’t need to recreate it. I just spent several weeks reposting old podcast episodes. For a couple of them, I simply made a new intro and outro and reposted the whole interior.

For a couple of other ones, I combined two older episodes. I did that for my Sticky Content and Monopoly Content episode, for example.

And then for another one, I gave commentary on an episode from a year and a half ago, just kind of updating a few things that I wanted to clarify, stuff like that.

You already have good stuff. My podcast example is one tiny little example. If you’re a heavy Instagrammer, scroll your posts from a year ago. I promise you there’s some good stories. Storytelling sells. Reuse that stuff! So that’s essentials number one.

Start taking 1/10th of your content creation time and use it to measure.

When you prioritize a bit of your time for measuring the effectiveness of your content, you know WHAT to repurpose. Are you in a list-building process? Repurpose the content that brought in subscribers in the past! Are you launching? Look at past launch content, even if it was for a different offer, and pay attention to what got not only the most clicks, but the most follow-through to a sale.

If you don’t want to do that, you could just hire me to set up an automatic measuring system for you. The Content ROI Dashboard is available. I have a price right now if you’re reading this in current time, at $1,000. That includes your two favorite major platforms for measurement.

Look for thought provoking things.

I already kind of said this. If you’re an Instagrammer, look back to a year ago. If you’re a Facebooker, you’ve got Facebook, the business meta suite. It has archives of everything you’ve ever posted. If you’re a blogger or a podcaster, you’ve already got the archives, and they’re already on your own system.

When you do that, start cross referencing different things. Every time I mention a different episode, in an episode that I’m recording on my podcast, I cross reference it in my content database.

That way, when I want to repurpose either episode of it, I can see six months down the line, oh, I mentioned that here. Maybe there’s a story in the other one that I could use to introduce this topic.

All of those thought-provoking things are time pockets for you. Anytime you’ve made a good analogy, used a good story to introduce a concept, you don’t have to spend the time coming up with it again. You don’t have to spend the time writing that out again, when you cross reference it in your own back end system. All of those good visuals–don’t spend time recreating them.

Those thought-provoking pieces are the things that move the needle for your audience. Those are the things that get them thinking differently about their problem and about you as a part of the solution. So those are the things that you want to mark, star, or favorite in your own system.

Why The Multiply Method is Different Than Other Content Repurposing Methods

And then finally, I just want to talk to you guys briefly about why my multiply method is different than a lot of other people’s. There are other people talking about content management or content repurposing. But when I say multiply, I’m not just multiplying the pieces of content I am putting out there. I’m multiplying my efforts. And for that, I want to simply say that when we’re repurposing only our lead generating content, we’re multiplying the efforts that we put in to create that content in the first place.

That focus on the customer journey moves people from your audience into the lead generation phase, into the nurturing phase, and then eventually into the client phase. I’m not repurposing content that simply got likes in the past. I’m focusing more on content that drove action.

And that right there, friends, that is why I spend much fewer hours on content creation than most people. Even though I live and breathe it, even though I do it for other people, even though I do it for my clients and me, I’m spending less time on creation because I’m making use of those efforts I put in a year ago or two years ago.

That’s what I want for you! I want for you to know that whatever time you’re putting into your content schedule right now, it’s not just time that’s going to serve you this week or this month. It’s going to serve you for years to come.

That focus on the customer journey moves people from your audience into the lead generation phase, into the nurturing phase, and then eventually into the client phase. I’m not repurposing content that simply got likes in the past. I’m focusing more on content that drove action. And that right there, friends, that is why I spend much fewer hours on content creation than most people.

I love being able to repurpose my content, and what I really love is teaching my clients how to do it for them. Because when we first start, if I do like a full, done-for-you content plan for a client and it’s lasting three months, that three months can feel like a bit of behemoth the mountain that you’re climbing in the moment.

But when you get to the end and you have the ability to start repurposing and multiplying the efforts of all those pillar and cornerstone pieces of content, things start feeling easier. I’m all about organizing my business around my life. You know, I don’t want to spend 60 hours a week working. I really hope I never, ever have to do that. In fact, getting beyond 20 might be difficult for me at this point, and I like that.

I like living my life. I like having time to do all the other things. So if that’s something that you can sign your name to, you owe it to yourself to find a way to start multiplying your efforts.

Ready to live out that third M and multiply? Let’s see if we’re a good fit.