As inbound marketers, it’s our job to come up with insightful and compelling content. Whether it’s a new blog post, e-book, webinar, or Facebook video, content marketers are in a constant battle to try to create well-received, high-performing content. But for all of the hours spent each month brainstorming new content ideas, how many hours are spent repurposing existing content? How much effort are you making to build on content you’ve already worked hard to create?
In this blog post, we’ll look at seven ways you can repurpose content to earn more website traffic and build up a library of premium content.
1. Turn Your Post into a Podcast
At SmartBug, our writers spend hours researching and writing for every blog post we publish, whether it’s for our own blog or for clients. Every article that’s published is a chance to showcase expertise, rank in search engines, and build a database of helpful, educational articles for users. But if you’ve ever written a blog post, you know it takes time to see results and for a post to prove its value. We’d love it if every post we published immediately gained thousands of eyeballs and ranked on the first page of Google—but we all know this isn’t how blogs work.
So one way you can repurpose your blog is by turning it into a podcast. Have someone at your company narrate the blog post and record the audio, then share it on social media and on the blog itself. People are busy and may not have time to read a full post, so give them a second option to digest your content.
2. Turn Your Blog Post into a Short Video
In addition to turning a post into a podcast, you could also try turning it into a short video.
Have a blog chock-full of great statistics? Try creating a video to showcase them, and post it on social media. Video is dominating social platforms, and many companies are just starting to experiment. So get started early and try creating some short, compelling videos based on interesting stats or case studies that support your company and claims. See what works in terms of format, length of video, and other factors, and adjust accordingly. Companies that can master quick, quality video production will have a leg up on competition in the coming years as video continues to expand.
3. Turn Your E-books/Guides into Slideshares
E-books and guides take a lot of time to create. Research, writing, design, editing, and approvals are all part of the creation process. These premium content pieces often showcase case studies and comparisons and help answer users’ most frequently asked questions. And for B2B companies, there’s arguably no other piece of content more valuable to gain leads and educate prospective buyers.
4. Create a Reaction Video to the Post
If you’ve ever traveled down a YouTube rabbit hole, you may have stumbled upon some “reaction videos.” For example, when new music is released, many users create reaction videos to the song, which is simply someone reacting to what they are seeing or watching. It’s an interesting format, and one that has proven to be successful. In fact, some people are using reaction videos to earn extra money.
One way you could repurpose content is by creating your own reaction video to a blog post. Yes, you’re probably aware of all the information in the post, but offering some fresh takeaways or feedback is another way to showcase your expertise. Is there a super-interesting statistic in the blog post? Talk about it in your video and explain what it means for users. Reaction videos continue the conversation that you start in a blog post, and they’re a great way to keep people thinking.
5. Turn Statistics from a Blog Post into an Infographic
Ideally, every article you write should include statistics. Otherwise, it’s really just an opinion. Statistics help you support your claims and can help show future trends. But because people have the attention span of a goldfish, sometimes text statistics within blog posts get lost.
To get your information in front of the most people possible, try turning your stats or research into an infographic. Infographics not only help people visualize data, but they’re much more shareable on social networks. At the end of the day, your most persuasive data or research needs to be seen—and infographics are a fantastic way of doing this when done right.
6. Turn Interviews and Testimonials into an Expert Advice Book/Guide
Most companies have testimonials or interviews with customers. But so many of these testimonials go unused until a potential customer asks for them. Why?
One way to repurpose testimonials or customer interviews is by turning them into expert advice guides.
You shouldn’t wait until prospects ask you for references. Be proactive and offer these references to them! Testimonials are usually full of answers to questions your potential customers are asking. By answering these questions and providing advice from your current customers, you can really help showcase why your service will be a great fit.
7. Take Frequently Asked Questions and Start Answering Them in Quora
Quora has taken some major steps to attract advertisers. The main benefit of Quora is that it provides another platform for companies to answer users’ questions and, if done right, gives you another opportunity to rank in search engines.
If you’re just getting started with Quora, see what people are searching for and then write a blog post to help answer their question. After you finish the blog post, go back to the original question in Quora, answer it, and then link to your more detailed blog post. Doing this serves two purposes: You start to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and you provide another way for people to find your post.
As content marketing continues to evolve, repurposing content has never been more important. The internet is already filled with so much content, and creating new content every week, month, and year simply isn’t feasible for the majority of companies—nor is it even necessary. So if you haven’t started experimenting with different formats yet, it’s probably time to get started. Repurposing content is essentially about working smarter, not harder and getting as much exposure from your content as possible.
