4 Ways to Repurpose/Re-use Your Content
Posted September 16, 2016
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One of the biggest problems in creating web content is keeping it constantly fresh with new ideas and targeting pain points for a specific audience. You already know that running a business in addition to creating content potentially brings roadblocks. You may simply have no time to find new ideas to write about every day. The same goes for finding time to create something relevant in the first place.
Re-purposing content is the answer to your problem. It’s a process you shouldn’t disparage if you ever have. Re-using content is more common than you think and helps to keep your content fresh in positive ways.
You can also do re-purposing in a way that makes your content look like it’s new. Changing content over to a different media format frequently improves a subject, or it can give purpose to forgotten content from long ago.
Here’s four ways to repurpose/re-use your content so you can keep readers coming in while still saving you valuable work time.
- Updating for Relevance
Some of the content you write about is perhaps frequently topical, and it’s easy for it to become outdated quickly. This isn’t to say any content couldn’t become irrelevant in a time when things change in the blink of an eye.
Whether it’s a subject about a pain point or something technical, you may feel like you have to discard half of what you’ve written due to changing tastes. Don’t do this, because simply adding updates (or annotations) to content could still make it a powerful piece.
Look at the details and see what sentences you can update to make it fit in with the current times. Remember, fresh content is essential for high search engine rankings, and it’s possible even with content several years old.
- Using a Different Channel or Medium
Here’s where re-purposing content can become fun. Switching to a different format is an exciting way to re-use your content because it may improve the piece from what it was.
Maybe you wrote a textual blog once on a particular industry subject. You could take that and turn it into a video using the same general text as your script. Or, maybe it’s vice versa where an outdated video works better as an infographic with updated statistics.
Look back at all your past content and see what might work in different contexts. Also, consider other channels when posting to reach new audiences.
- Regularly Scheduled Topics
Some topics may come up you can continually make relevant every month or year. For instance, a piece related to a particular holiday could become a great way to re-use a popular blog annually and far into the future.
A pain point piece could have relevance every once in a while if it relates to a particular news story occurring at specific yearly intervals. Using marketing automation tools, you’ll be able to schedule this content to post during strategic times.
- Tailoring Your Content for a New Audience
It’s possible you want to reach a new demographic now after re-branding your company. As a result, you likely have a huge database of old content you have to decide whether to discard or re-use.
Pick out pieces that could realistically work toward reaching a new audience. Sometimes you can simply change a title, add new photos, or add new stylistic touches to sentences/statistics to reach new people.
If the basic points in your piece can relate to all age groups, tweaking some details could immediately save you time creating customer personas first to figure out your new reader base.
