Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Last week on the podcast, we were talking about marketing jargon, and today we're going to jargon it up again. Today we're talking about repurposing content. What now?
Melanie
So this is where you create content and then find different ways to put it out to different platforms, different audiences, and at different times. So let's start with one process. Okay? And the whole purpose of the content could be a blog. Let's say start with a blog, something written. So why would you want to repurpose content in the first place, Esther?
Esther
Well, because there's no point in reinventing the wheel. You've already spent hours possibly writing the blog.
Melanie
Definitely with a blog.
Esther
Yes. So you've done all the research, you have written all the words, you found all the keywords, you have put images into it, etcetera, etcetera. You have taken your precious time to make that blog. So if you only use it once, then you're missing a trick.
Melanie
And even repurposing content in the form of, so you put it up on your website. I think sharing it on platforms like MissingLettr or QuuPromote is also repurposing the content because you're putting it on other platforms to be shared elsewhere.
Esther
Yeah. If you don't know what Melanie's talking about, go back through other podcasts, because we have talked about these platforms before. So what you're saying, Melanie, is that basically, okay, I write a blogpost and I share it for the next ten years, and that's me done. Well, why are you laughing? If it takes me 10 hours to make it, I'm going to share it for ten years, right?
Melanie
Well, it has to also remain evergreen as well, and even when it does
Esther
More jargon.
Melanie
Yes. So evergreen means that it stays relevant for as long as possible. Now, it doesn't have to be forever. In fact, we were only looking at a blog a few hours ago, and it was for a certain topic, and it was written in 2019. However, it was updated in 2022. So you can go back into your old blogs, because I would highly recommend you do this and update them to keep them evergreen instead of, like you say, reinventing the wheel from the beginning.
Esther
Okay, so we have our blog post. We put that blog post on our website. We then share that blog post link on all our social medias. But is there any other way of sharing things from the blog post on socials?
Melanie
Well, we can take sound bites from it, so sentences and relevant text and even relevant images. We can share those into our social media stories. So that can be on Instagram, on LinkedIn, which do a format of stories these days, and onto other platforms as well, TikTok included. So, although it's not giving the whole blog, it could be snapshots that can take people back to the blog. So in essence, it is repurposing.
Esther
Okay, so we don't just copy and paste the entire blog onto Facebook or LinkedIn and reshare it that way.
Melanie
We can, but it would be less useful. What we're trying to do is build awareness and traction and build a rapport and a relationship. So taking people with those little snapshots, those little bits of useful information to entice and excite, then that would be a really valuable way to repurpose. But there's other ways we can repurpose as well. And one of my favourites, which is one of your absolute dreads, is video. So we can actually recreate that entire blog post. We'll have to sort of rescript it, if you like, because when you're writing a blog, you're writing one way and when you're trying to speak to people in a slightly different way. So you would turn your blog into kind of like a conversation. You could get somebody to fire questions from you. That could be the headings of the blog, let's say, and then you respond by answering the questions or the headings through commentary. Or you could take literal things from a blog, so maybe you're talking about squares and circles and houses and whatever terms you're using within the blog. You can actually then take people on location and sort of help give a visual representation of your text.
Esther
Yeah, so along those same lines, if you're like me and don't like doing videos, you could create an infographic, or you could create on Instagram the carousels that basically give the low down of the information from the blog post in different snippets or sound bites. But obviously infographics and the carousels are less information because it's a smaller space that you're going to have. So if you want to write a 10,000 word blogpost (I don't recommend that, it's far too long) maybe turn that one into an ebook and expand on your blog post.
Melanie
Absolutely. You can do a series, you can answer with one 10thousand blog post, or you can do ten, 1000 blog posts in a series. And don't forget podcasting like we're doing right now, so you can repurpose doing a podcast as well. We already repurpose. We repurpose for show notes. We also do written blogs as well. So there's different ways that you can repurpose. It just depends on the time that you have, the budget you have, and whether you want to do it or not, Esther
Esther
You're still talking about video there, but it is a very important tool. I mean, it's not essential. You don't have to do it with every single post that you make or every single blog that you write. You don't have to repurpose it. But think of all the time that you spent on it. Think of all the time for only that one piece of content when there are so many other things that you can take out of it. You can take, like Melanie was saying, the snippets, you can take the headlines, you can take the, if it's got a lot of statistics and stuff, take those out, share those. If your audience is interested in the numbers and figures, give them the numbers and figures and you can always redirect them back to the full blog post for them to read more.
Melanie
And remember if you're creating videos for Facebook, so let's say you're maybe doing a live on Facebook or doing a TikTok, you can repurpose those live videos, then download onto your phone as a recording and put them in a YouTube channel, which again, is a valuable place to be found in search is on YouTube in a Google search. And you can do tags that will help you get found in search there as well.
Esther
Yeah. And you can also, when you're doing the videos, have the subtitles and then download the subtitles and have those as extra content. And then if you're first doing the video, use the subtitles to expand on it for a blog post. Then you're not starting all over again from scratch or having to watch your video back and go, what did I say there?
Melanie
And if you're like me, I also do public webinars as well as private webinars, and when you're speaking at events and that sort of stuff, and you've perhaps created a PowerPoint presentation or a presentation doesn't have to be PowerPoint these days, does it? Then you're welcome to share it in the likes of SlideShare. It's not as easily navigable as perhaps other areas that get found in search, but it is an area where people do look up presentations and download them, or view them, at least. So SlideShare is another option.
Esther
Yeah, there are tonnes and tonnes of options out there. What we want to get you thinking about today is how you can take content that you've already written, content that you already have, be it video into text, or text into video, how you can make more out of what you already have. So think of all the time again that you spent researching, that you spent writing, that you spent recording, that you spent editing, just for it to go out once?
Melanie
That would be insane.
Esther
It would. It's one of those things that, I mean, us as experienced marketers still struggle sometimes because we're going but, yeah, I wrote that blog post about LinkedIn six years ago. Okay, just go back. I'm sure some of it well, in LinkedIn's case, probably is still relevant today. If it was about Facebook, you'd have to start from scratch. No, I like LinkedIn because it doesn't change as quickly as the other ones do, right? So you can learn LinkedIn and keep learning little bits at a time, whereas the other one goes, you learn Facebook and then a couple of months later go, no, that's no longer relevant. I'm exaggerating here, guys. I'm totally exaggerating. You can really just keep up with everything, but yes, depending on the topic, you might not have to change too much even if you wrote it 5-10 years ago. Okay, go back through what you already have and find ways to do that. I know it's something I'll be doing over the holidays.
Melanie
Is that really what you're going to be doing over the holidays?
Esther
No, but it's something that it's on my list of things to do. And if I get a bit of time over the holidays, then I might while the kids are playing with the Christmas presents.
Melanie
Do you know what I try to do actually over the holidays is I go over not just look at my text of my past blogs, but I also change the image. Because if I'm using a platform like Quu Promote or MissingLettr or indeed any other, like Post Planner, that's another one that you can recycle as well as Agorapulse you can recycle content, is people think, "oh well, I've seen that picture, I've seen that picture, I've seen that picture, so I've obviously read it." Whereas if you change the actual featured image on the blog, people go, oh, I haven't seen this before. And then they open it and they've either never ever read the blog or they can't remember reading it. And it actually encourages people to come back to your website. So periodically, normally it's during the Christmas break, I go through and change my featured image on my website and it just gives it a refresh.
Esther
And it does too, because some images get used so often, especially if they're free images. So if you can find one that even has very little to do with what the topic actually is, it can draw attention in as well.
Melanie
Or create one yourself. I mean, we've all got the resources to do it these days.
Esther
Exactly. Canva has come a long way.
Melanie
Or photos, take photos of your own office, of your own location, and it helps people feel that little bit closer to you.
Esther
That's very true as well. So guys, we hope that you take some of this information. You don't have to take it all and find ways to repurpose. We'd love to know what it is that you're going to do with your old content and keep us tagged in everything that you're doing.
Melanie
Awesome.
Esther
All right, so that's it for another week, guys. We'll be back next week with more Monday Morning Marketing. Until then, bye bye.
Melanie
Bye, guys.
