Maximising Your Marketing Strategy: The Importance of Repurposing Content

In our fast-paced digital world, today more than ever, content remains king. But with so much content being produced every day, pushed out to consumers in an endless scrolling feed, notifying us at all hours, it can be challenging to keep up and ensure that our message is not only seen and heard, but relevant, engaging, and useful. 

Enter: content repurposing. 

Repurposing content is the practice of taking existing content from your business (online or offline) and presenting it in a new format or to a new audience. This could take the form of repurposing blog content, or perhaps you need to repurpose content for social media. By repurposing your existing content, you are essentially getting more bang for your buck: you can maximise your marketing strategy and reach a wider audience, in a more efficient manner.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the importance of repurposing content and provide some tips on how to do it effectively, including how to repurpose content, how to repurpose content for social media, how to repurpose podcast content, content repurposing tools, and content repurposing workflow. We hope it will induce a sigh of relief from your marketing planner or content coordinator – for anyone who is in the captain’s seat of the arduous, day in, day out act of content creation, this is a game changer. 

Why should I repurpose content? 

Repurposing content is an essential part of any successful marketing strategy. In fact, you need a content repurposing strategy in itself. Here’s why:

1. Reach a wider audience: by repurposing content into different formats or for different platforms, you can reach a wider audience that may not have seen your content otherwise. Put simply, different people like different things, including word-counts, visuals, delivery method, and location. We want you to attempt to please them all.
2. Improve engagement: repurposing your content can help improve engagement with your audience. By presenting your content in a new format or to a new audience, you can capture their attention and keep them engaged. Once you start to see the analytics rolling in, the data will inform how your audience best receives content, which can inform future production: you’ll be able continue to optimise and evolve your content, as your audience likes and dislikes evolve too.
3. Save time and resources: repurposing content can save you time and resources. Instead of creating new content from scratch, you can repurpose existing content and use it in new ways. Long blog posts can be summarised in short social media captions. Website copy can be turned into brochure copy, key messages can be applied to billboards or digital ad headlines, the list goes on.
4. Build your brand: repurposing your content can help build your brand by reinforcing your message across different platforms and formats. The more people see an evolving but consistent message, the more likely they’ll be to reiterate or repurpose the content themselves, be it in a photo taken, an online post shared, or a verbal conversation.

How do I repurpose content?

So we’ve established the importance of repurposing content, now let’s explore some tips on how to do it effectively.

1. Start with your best-performing content: (the likes, shares, saves and comments, as well as page views) – identify what’s working, and repurpose it into new formats or for new platforms. This will help ensure that your repurposed content resonates with your audience and drives engagement. Perhaps you change a heading, perhaps you change the tone, perhaps you include some examples, or visuals, that shorten or lengthen the word count or time taken to read, depending on the end user and new platform. 
2. Consider different formats: repurpose your content into different formats, such as blog posts, social media posts, videos, infographics, and podcasts. This will help you reach a wider audience and keep your content relevant and engaging. You’ll be surprised how easily a blog post can turn into a radio script, or an Instagram caption or EDM into a Linkedin Post etc. If you’re recording a podcast, try and capture video footage too – 30 seconds to one minute grabs that can be used across Instagram Reels or Tik Tok. 
3. Adapt your content for different platforms: each platform has its own audience and requirements. Adapt your content to suit the platform you are posting on. For example, Instagram posts may require more visual content, while LinkedIn posts may require a more professional tone. Just remember to use your common sense, put yourself in the reader’s shoes, and if it seems realistic and relevant, why not?
4. Keep your messaging consistent: when repurposing content, it’s important to keep your messaging consistent across all platforms and formats. This will help build your brand and reinforce your message to your audience. Make sure you have access to your brand or Tone of Voice Guidelines, to keep you on track. 
5. Use analytics to measure success: use analytics to measure the success of your repurposed content. This will help you identify what works and what doesn’t and refine your strategy accordingly.

With the advent of AI, there are several content repurposing tools available, including the highly debated ChatGPT. Some of the more popular and accessible tools may include features such as templates, drag-and-drop interfaces, and editing tools to make the process of repurposing content even easier. They can also provide analytics to help you track the success of your repurposed content and adjust your strategy accordingly. These include:

1. Canva: a popular design tool that allows users to create graphics, presentations, and other visual content. Its user-friendly interface and customisable templates make it easy to repurpose content into new formats.
2. Lumen5: a video creation tool that automatically turns articles or blog posts into engaging videos. Users can select a piece of text from their content and the tool will generate a video that summarises the main points.
3. HubSpot: an all-in-one marketing software that includes a content management system and a variety of marketing tools. Its content optimisation feature analyses existing content and suggests ways to repurpose it for different channels.
4. Repurpose.io: a tool designed specifically for content repurposing. It can automatically convert podcast episodes into videos or turn Facebook Live broadcasts into podcast episodes.
5. Hootsuite: a social media management tool that can be used for content repurposing. Its auto-scheduling feature allows users to schedule social media posts based on existing content, while its analytics tools help track performance.
6. Adobe Creative Suite: a collection of design tools that can be used for content repurposing. Its powerful image and video editing tools allow users to create high-quality graphics and videos from existing content.

To summarise, we’re going to walk our talk, or tell you how we did. This was written by repurposing previous blog posts, social posts, even internal emails and briefing documents, as well as reference materials and research articles found on the web. What might have taken a day to write, only took us just under an hour, with a break for tea.

We’d love to discuss your own content repurposing strategy, and how we might be able to help. Contact us for more information or reach out [email protected] to arrange a chat with one of our amazing staff.