Are you struggling to produce enough content for your website, blog, or social media channels? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

The not-so-secret key to a successful content marketing strategy is creating high-quality and in-depth content. However, this takes a good deal of time, effort, and often money, all of which can discourage many businesses from taking full advantage.

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In fact, research shows that producing enough content is one of the top three challenges that businesses pursuing content marketing face.

However, there are strategies you can adopt to ease the process and make it a whole lot easier.

As I frequently cover on this blog, one such strategy is to repurpose your existing content as new content you can then publish, share and distribute. Repurposing content saves you time and money, while extending your reach.

Simply put, repurposing your content and sharing it in different ways via different channels allows you to reach (and attract) a much wider proportion of your marketplace. The larger the audience you develop across multiple content platforms, the more influence you have. This increases engagement, boosting your reach significantly through sharing and inbound linking.

In other words, the more content you repurpose and share, the greater the long-term benefits for your business.

In addition, it’s no longer enough to just publish content to your own site. As I advise frequently, you need to be where your marketplace is, not where you want them to be.

Repurposing existing content for other platforms allows you to achieve it relatively easily.

But how exactly do you go about repurposing content for social media?

We previously covered a broader set of 50+ killer ways to repurpose your content. However, in this post we go into more detail and dig down into the main social channels to help you determine:

  • Which content on your blog you should be repurposing
  • The strategy to use to repurpose it for each social platform
  • Which social channels to focus on most

Get the cheatsheet to know which social site(s) are right for your business.

Which Content Should You Repurpose?

Practically all content on your blog can be repurposed for social media in multiple ways, and for multiple benefits. In fact, my Content Authority Formula goes through the strategy to adopt for doing just that, as well as taking it beyond social media.

However, if you’re wondering where to prioritise, at least to get started, some of your content will naturally perform better than the rest.

These are generally the pieces of content that meet one or more of the following conditions:

  • Attract more social shares and other signs of engagement such as comments and likes
  • Are particularly inspirational
  • Have particular relevance to people in your market
  • Comprehensively, creatively and competently convey important information.

Wth this in mind, we can categorise it further into three main types of content to initially focus your repurposing efforts on for social media. This can also help inform the type of content you publish on your blog so as to get more bang for your buck.

Evergreen Content

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Evergreen content, or content that stays fresh for your readers, is ideal for repurposing. This content is sustainable and lasting, and is created to avoid becoming outdated or irrelevant.

It often includes posts that focus on fundamentals and how-to type articles.

Non-evergreen content would include content that relates to:

  • A specific date and time
  • To current affairs, including for your specific industry or niche
  • To seasonal celebrations where the content is irrelevant for much of the rest of the year.

Occasional non-evergreen posts are fine to take advantage of the current conversation in people’s minds.

However, for the most part you should focus on creating content with inbuilt longevity. That way, it can continue delivering ongoing value for your business potentially for years to come.

Popular Content

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Look for blog posts that stand out, are more popular, and seem to resonate more strongly with your audience.

This can include posts that:

  • Continuously attract comments
  • Are shared on social media months after original publication
  • Have received a higher level of traffic, shares, or engagement than most.

The odds are that such posts will interest audiences across other content platforms, and particularly on social media. This type of content is prime for repurposing.

Content You Can Break Down into Pieces

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Social channels are largely micro-blogging platforms. While your blog will generally house longer pieces of content, shorter pieces work best on social platforms:

  • People are more distracted on social. As a business, you’re often competing with friends, family, and content shared purely for entertainment or amusement purposes. Short and succinct content that grabs attention before it drifts away tend to get the best results.
  • Such platforms generally aren’t designed for the longer, more in-depth pieces your own blog might publish.

With that in mind, blog content that can be broken down into separate social posts are ideal for repurposing.

For example, list posts are ideal for this purpose. Here are some I’ve published recently (and partly for that reason):

Each list item within these posts can become a separate post for social media and lined up for publication over time.

Custom Strategies for Each Social Channel

Many people prefer reading longer content as a way to consume information, whether on your own blog or on other content platforms like Medium.

Others prefer to mostly consume information through shorter – often much shorter – pieces of content.

So, if your content marketing activities only cater for one group of people, and not the other, you’re ignoring a potentially significant segment of your marketplace.

Repurposing means you can more easily cover both bases.

However, each social media platform is different, and repurposing successfully needs a different custom strategy for each.

Get the cheatsheet to know which social site(s) are right for your business.

It doesn’t mean you have to repurpose for each one. Prioritise those social channels that predominantly attract the people in your marketplace.

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Facebook

Facebook is the largest and popular social media channel, forecast to hit 2 billion monthly active users in 2017. The vast majority of businesses should include it within their content repurposing activities, and it deserves the most attention here.

However, organic reach for Facebook Pages does tend to be limited, and is generally still declining.

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So how do you get around it and make your repurposing activities for Facebook more worthwhile?

Here are three key tips.

Firstly, share video more often – and use Facebook native videos (including Facebook Live) rather than sharing a YouTube video for example.

A recent study from quintly showed that Facebook native videos had a nearly 500% higher share rate than YouTube videos, and a 186% higher engagement rate in general.

The more engagement and interaction your post receives, the higher your reach will of course be.

Secondly, treat Facebook more like a paid platform.

Rather than expecting higher levels of organic reach and being continually disappointed, accept low organic reach as a reality.

Focus on what you can control by investing in boosting your posts so they reach more of your fans and others in your marketplace.

Thirdly, I’ve noticed the following:

  • Posts linking back to pages on your own domain seem to get the least organic reach.
  • Content-based posts, without links back to your site, get quite a bit more reach and engagement. Sure, this doesn’t translate into direct traffic, but you gain in other ways. You could also experiment by including a CTA within an image, with a short easy-to-type URL for more info.
  • And here’s the really interesting bit… I’m still experimenting with this, but posts with links to content you’ve repurposed on other authoritative content platforms can get something like 10x-20x the reach you otherwise would. More info on this in a future post…

Repurposing content for Facebook

Here are a few approaches you can use:

  • Create a mini-series of posts to simply share useful info with your audience rather than attract traffic directly. For example, repurpose a list post as a series of updates scheduled out over time. This builds a relationship with your audience while attracting your marketplace. Those interested will seek you out anyway.
  • Base a video (or video series) on a post. Upload to Facebook as a native video, as well as sharing to YouTube and other platforms like Pinterest and Twitter. Display your domain name within the video as branding and to attract traffic.
  • Create a Facebook Note, and either repurpose the blog post directly within the Note, or share a group of posts all pertaining to a single topic as an ICYMI (In Case You Missed It). To boost reach, link back to your site within the Note rather than the post itself.
  • Rather than trying to share your blog post directly and getting low reach, repurpose your blog post on an authority platform as say a Quora blog postMedium post, or even a SlideShare. Share that new content on Facebook, and help build your audience (and influence) on those platforms too.

Twitter

Source: WikipediaWith short and simple posting, Twitter provides the easiest way to repurpose content.

For example, using vWriter, someone on my team is tasked with creating numerous Tweets each time a new post is published here. Those Tweets are then scheduled out over time.

Each Tweet can focus on different aspects of the content, attracting the attention of different segments of my audience.

Remember to set up Twitter cards so the content is displayed for optimal levels of engagement.

You also don’t always have to Tweet with links back to the post itself. Instead, create separate, purely informational Tweets repurposed from a particular post. Try using a distinct hashtag to group the Tweets together over time.

Again, you can create these once, and then just set to be scheduled out over time.

Or for more visual impact, gather some particularly significant quotes from a post. Create an image for each one using a tool like Canva, and similarly tweet them out over time.

LinkedIn

Source: PixabayYou might not immediately think of LinkedIn as a publishing platform. But it’s actually another significant place for you to benefit from repurposing your blog posts, particularly if you’re in B2B.

LinkedIn Pulse

For example, you can repurpose blog posts directly on the platform as a Pulse article, almost as easily as a general update.

 

Once done, the articles are shared with your network and published on your personal authority.

Doing so helps build your personal authority and influence, and helps expand your network.

There are a couple of different approaches you can take for publishing these articles:

  • Write a few paragraphs based on the original post, and then link through to the original article on your blog for people to read more.
  • Repurpose the original post as a brand new article for publication on Pulse. Link through to other resources on your website or blog to help drive traffic, just as you would link to other posts on your blog itself. The same article can be published on other content platforms like Medium, a Quora blog and even Google+

Use images liberally, including a header image, to attract attention and engagement.

While you can only publish on Pulse through your personal LinkedIn account, share the content too through your Company page.

General Updates

You can also of course take a blog post and break it up into smaller chunks as more general updates, adapting as required and sharing over time.

Link back to the full post so people can get more info and to help drive traffic back to your site.

Here are some more ways in which LinkedIn can play a key part in your content marketing.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a highly visual, image-centric social media platform, so avoid text-heavy content here.

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Look for posts that can be easily converted into an infographic. The eye catching design of infographics is perfect for Pinterest and can attract a lot of engagement.

A well designed infographic will be shared, liked, commented, and in turn can drive traffic back to the original post the content was pulled from.

Plus of course the same infographic can be shared on other networks, as well as added to the original post.

Or take an image you’ve used within a post before. Add some relevant text from the post using an image editor, and link back to the post you pulled it from.

This re-introduces your post in a new way which can attract new readers to your content who wouldn’t have otherwise found you.

Remember, results on Pinterest depend on people re-pinning your content and otherwise engaging with it. The more eye catching it is, the more successful you’re likely to be on the platform.

Google+

Source: PixabayWhile some believe Google+ doesn’t have much relevance compared to say Facebook or Twitter, it depends on your audience.

It’s a particularly popular social network for business users. So if you’re in B2B, it shouldn’t be ignored.

It also appeals to certain online communities of enthusiasts in particular areas. This includes anything from bread making to board games to photographers.

In other words, depending on your business, you may just find your own marketplace here.

Sharing content on Google+ can also help boost your natural search visibility. This includes content you’ve posted to Google+ itself and content on your own website.

Google’s top brass has said that your participation on Google+ is part of what it considers when ranking your website on search results. In other words, if you ignore Google+, Google will ignore you.
Joan Stewart, PublicityHound.com

In fact, based on this information, it’s surprising it’s not more popular and active than it is.

Here are some repurposing approaches you can use.

Share a summary of your post on the network, with links back to your site for more information.

 

You can share the content just on your own page for your own followers, or with a specific Community relevant to your market.

Create longer standalone posts on the network from time to time – for example, by repurposing a blog post into a shorter version – and then drive traffic to it by sharing the link on your other social networks.

This can help build your Google+ audience, helping to build engagement for other posts in future.

As suggested for Twitter above, create and share an image based on a quote from your post, and add a link to the post it originates from. Include your logo (preferably with your domain name) to help with brand recognition and general familiarity with your business. As well as Twitter, the same image can be shared on Pinterest.

Tumblr

Source: Google Image SearchContent on Tumblr generally tends to be a mix of shorter text-based posts, images, video, and audio clips.

Unlike Facebook and LinkedIn for example, the content is indexed by search engines, potentially giving you more search visibility.

You can also take advantage of their video sharing capabilities. As mentioned for Facebook above, try repurposing a blog post into a video.

Either recap the post in a quick, informative way to catch your viewers’ attention, or expand on the post’s content in a more engaging, visual way.

The reblog feature on Tumblr allows your audience to not only share your content with their followers, but engage directly with you through commentary and tags. When someone reblogs your content it increases the note count for your post which encourages further engagement.

For more information on how to take full advantage of Tumblr, see Using Tumblr for Business: The Ultimate Guide.

Source: Pixabay

Which Channels Should You Focus On?

Reworking existing content for different social media channels allows you to reach new audiences who wouldn’t otherwise have come across you.

While each requires a different approach, you will have noticed there’s also a lot of overlap. For example, by repurposing a blog post into a video, you can upload directly to Facebook and YouTube, and share the YouTube link across multiple other social platforms.

However, not all social channels will be relevant to your particular market, and so won’t necessarily be worth the effort of building your audience on them.

Instead, pick a couple that seem most relevant to your business and focus on those.

Get the cheatsheet to know which social site(s) are right for your business.

As you get those mastered, you can then expand into any others as required, taking further advantage of repurposing.

To Conclude

As we’ve seen, there are numerous ways in which to repurpose your blog posts for the different social networks.

For best results, it helps to create content in the first place with repurposing in mind. For example, when deciding on your next blog post, think about how it will adapt for the different networks to allow you to extract as much value as possible.

Start by repurposing blog content using a single technique. Once you have that mastered, and you’re doing so consistently, add other methods into the mix.

Gradually build up a repurposing strategy that works for your business, and enjoy watching your reach and influence – and, of course, your business – grow.