Repurposing Content: What is it And How to Repurpose Content

Creating new, high-quality content is important. But effective content creation is not easy, and it is definitely not fast. It takes a lot of time to research and select content topics and even more time to produce high quality content. But what if you could create new content by recycling and reusing content you already have. Well, the good news is you can. It is called Repurposing Content. In this guide we will give you some creative ways to reuse old content and turn it into new content. This will help you maximize the content you already created and is an efficient way to boost your content production without starting from scratch. So if you do not have the time to consistently generate new content you will definitely want to read this quick guide.

What is repurposing content?

You can think of repurposing content like recycling materials, such as plastics and metals. When you recycle materials you take them, break them down, and transform it into something new. Think of water bottles being recycled and used for apparel. Think of scrap metal being melted and used for new metal products.

Repurposing content is similar to recycling materials, but with the exception that it is content vs. materials. You take existing content, events, materials, etc. and repurpose them into something new. In general, the goal is to recycle old content into new content, potentially in multiple new formats that you can use.

In general this involves taking your old content and creating it in a new format. For example, you can take a video, webinar, or presentation into a blog post (or series of blog posts), a guide, or an ebook. You can even use content from a virtual or in-person event and repurpose them into new forms of content. Or you can take a long-form video and break it down into multiple short videos. The possibilities are endless.

Why repurpose content?

Everyone has heard the phrase “content is king”. But creating effective content is not easy, and it is definitely not fast. It takes a lot of time to research and select topics that are worth creating content about. An unfortunately, it takes even more time to actually dig in and produce high quality content.

Can you repurpose content to help maximize your content marketing?

Yes.

We are not going to lie and say it is fast and easy to repurpose content. It does still take time and effort if you are doing it in-house. And if you are using a content marketing service then you will have to weigh the cost of it.

But if your marketing strategy has an emphasis on growth through content marketing it is definitely something that you want to utilize.

Why? Because it will allow you to reach your goals more efficiently and effectively. That is because repurposing existing content allows you to put your content creation efforts on steroids. It allows you to maximize the value you get from creating content, hosting an event, etc. This is because it allows you to create multiple (potentially A LOT) of content from each piece you create.

Benefits of repurposing content

Some of the benefits of repurposing content include:

PRO: Content repurposing maximizes your available time and money

Creating quality content takes a lot of resources. From research to execution to promotion, content creation is time consuming. That is why repurposing multiple pieces of content from one single piece is much more efficient than creating unique content alone. You can maximize the amount of content you create while saving on the research and planning activities for each.

In other words, you can greatly increase the efficiency of your content marketing.

PRO: Helps boost brand awareness and content reach

Repurposing content allows you to create the same content in different formats.

There are a few benefits for this, including:

• It increases the amount of content you have
• It allows you to increase your reach – reaching audiences on more (different) channels that may not have seen the original content

For instance, the reality is that not everyone will read your blog posts.

So how do you maximize your reach for this content you worked so hard to create? You can recycle it. For example, you can turn each of your blog posts into a video (or series of videos) or repurpose them for social media. Similarly, you can turn it into a slide deck and share it on slide sharing sites. Or, you can take a series of related blog posts and turn them into an e-book or comprehensive guide. As another example, you can take a study or post and turn it into a more shareable infographic.

Repurposing the content into multiple formats and putting it on multiple channels increases the amount of people that will consume it. This in turn, greatly amplifies your brand awareness and reach.

PRO: Increases organic traffic

Another benefit of increased reach and brand awareness is that it helps drive more eyeballs back to your website. Using your website as your landing spot for your content on every channel will bring a larger audience from multiple channels to your digital home. You can be strategic and link to specific landing pages or content that you want to boost.

PRO: Maximizes your return on investment on events

Another benefit is that you can repurpose things like virtual or physical events into usable, consumable content. Events, whether virtual or physical cost a lot to attend and put on. Establishing new contacts, increasing your industry knowledge, and generating leads is usually the goal of this type of marketing. But you can also maximize the ROI of your events by strategically repurposing them into usable, sharable, valuable content. For instance, you can take key learnings or topics and turn them into blog posts or videos. Or you can take video footage from the event and turn it into consumable videos you can share on your website or social media (as allowed).