Carrie Hopkins — April 11, 2018 Remember in 1996 when Bill Gates said, “Content is king?” Well, his statement still rings true today in the world of inbound marketing. Your content can be so powerful, and it deserves to be seen by as many eyes as possible! However, your audience won’t always be in the same channels—so why not leverage your existing content and meet your audience where they are?
Why repurpose old blog content?
Your audience is sure to be online, but not always in the same place. Each reader may also process information differently. Repurposing your content gives your audience an opportunity to digest the information in different places and in different ways.
Creating a stellar content calendar is a great first step. Coming up with effective content that will have a positive ROI is the tricky part! If you’re like me, cranking out content doesn’t come naturally. Even if it did, keeping up with a content calendar can be an overwhelming task for a team. It’s important to publish plenty of content that is relevant to your audience, but it doesn’t always have to be shiny and new. You can refashion old content for a creative new look!
Speaking of 1996 takes me back to my childhood. As the baby of the family, I was always in a sea of hand-me-down clothes. My older sisters always got the new threads from the latest JCPenney catalog, which left me stuck with last year’s duds. However, I wasn’t about to let my 5th grade class know that! I took that hand-me-down sunflower dress, threw a fanny pack around it, slipped on my jelly sandals, and tightened my side pony. Voila! A brand new look built on last year’s foundation.
Content works the same way! You can take the bones of your original blog content and spice it up by reframing the delivery method. Here are some tips for repurposing old blogs into winning social media posts.
Blogs can be a nice way to connect with your audience while showing the personality of your brand. This makes Facebook a perfect platform for driving traffic to this content. Pick out three main points of your blog that you believe will represent the content well.
Get design involved and create a visual. Infographics are a great way to fit several key points into one image. Or, split them up for three separate Facebook posts with their own images.
If you don’t have access to a designer, there are a lot of user-friendly and free tools that can help. We at SmartBug Media love using Canva to create things like this!
Gifs are another great way to add some life to your Facebook post! You can simply add animation to your design element to create a little flare.
Twitter is all about the short and sweet nuggets from your blog. You’ve got less real estate to work with, so you want to find your golden goose. It can be a powerful pull quote, dynamic statistic, or compelling statement from your blog.
Don’t forget to leverage your images! Using images with your Twitter posts is a great way to increase engagement. We are visual people that take in information quickly. Need help with finding quality photos? Check out this advice from my friend, Amanda. She dives into how to choose the right stock photos.
Bonus! You can also use Canva to create images for Twitter.
LinkedIn is a great way to showcase your team’s expertise in your space and increase your influence. Your posts don’t always have to be jam-packed with statistics or focus exclusively on your serious blog content, but LinkedIn is a great place to gain authority.
Find an authoritative statement or statistic from your blog and start there. You can also pose a question that resonates with the theme of your blog. As with Facebook and Twitter, don’t forget to include an image in your LinkedIn post!
So, which blog do you choose?
Don’t worry about finding the perfect blog to turn into social content. A blog that didn’t originally perform as well as you’d hoped might be outstanding for a social media repurpose! Test evergreen content, well-performing content, and blogs that appeared to be duds. You may be surprised to see what you get from repurposing your content.
Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all good places to start a conversation with your audience. Test what you put out there and note what people are engaging with. You may even gather some great quotes and social proof to use later. Putting social proof on your website or landing pages is just another way to repurpose your content!
Content is still king, and marketers must continue to find ways to drive more traffic, increase leads, and gain authority. Let your content work for you. And if you need to spice up last year’s apparel, I hear fanny packs are making a comeback.
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