The Ultimate Guide to Repurposing Content

I recently heard from a friend on Facebook who was talking about the cost of content marketing. He felt that it was hard to quantify the value of content when compared to other advertising. After all, if you take out a paid ad and someone calls, that's a clear and direct ROI. Content marketing isn't always so simple.

My response is that, unlike a one-time, standalone ad campaign, content marketing continues to create an impact hour-by-hour, day-by-day. If you're creating your own content, the cost is almost nothing; if you're outsourcing, you pay once -- for a blog post, a social media campaign, or a graphic element -- and continue to gain SEO, share on social media, or include in email blasts for months or even years.

The other major advantage of content marketing is the ability to repurpose one piece of content into a variety of formats and platforms. Spend the time or money to create one blog post, then leverage that content in multiple ways that continue to create interest and bring in warm leads.

One Blog Post; Five Easy Ways to Repurpose

Imagine you write or purchase a blog post. It should be a minimum of 300 words, but most range from 600-800 words. Want big SEO impact? A 2000-word longform blog can really give you a boost.

For the purposes of this exercise, I'm taking as my model a blog post from a few months ago.

Quote Card

Now, you want to create a graphic element using a quote from the blog post. Perhaps you'll make this an Instagram graphic when you roll out the post. Maybe you'll use it as a graphic on Twitter once a week or on Facebook once a month to direct new followers to this piece of evergreen content.

A quote card like this will also make a lovely addition to your email blast, adding a visual element to the text there and directing your sphere to your blog post.

Video or Podcast

Next, if you have a YouTube channel or upload videos with Facebook Live or IGTV, you can use the information in the blog post to create a video version. Use the main points of the blog post as a guide and speak to potential clients in your own voice.

Have a podcast or participate regularly in someone else's? Use the blog topic as the jumping off point for your conversation. Here's a podcast based on the information in the Content Marketing v. Paid Leads article. It's an episode for my friend Kara MacDonald's Real Deep Dive podcast, and it got great response.

Infographic

Want to create a shorthand version of your blog post? An infographic is a great idea. I made this one in Canva -- a user-friendly graphic design platform. Infographics are fun, shareable, and communicate your message in a quick and easy way for those who can't or won't take the time to read an entire post.

Whitepaper

Want to add a graphic element to the full text of your blog post? A whitepaper offers you the opportunity to repurpose the original text with graphic elements that make it really pop. You can then offer the pdf of your whitepaper as an incentive when people subscribe to your email or blog, or when they reach out to you for information about your services.

Click here or on the image below to access a pdf version of the whitepaper I created to accompany the Content Marketing v. Paid Leads post.

Don't Forget to Distribute Your Content!

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is their failure to properly distribute their content. If you have a new blog post, video, or podcast episode, make sure you're sharing that link on social media and boosting those posts that get good responses. Join Facebook groups to get additional page views and more followers and likes.

Use a social media scheduling platform to roll out links and graphic elements. Buffer is a great way to pre-schedule your social media shares, or automate them across platforms with IFTTT (If This, Then That).

Have trouble remembering all of the different content and keeping up with when you last shared it? The answer may be as simple as setting up a schedule in your calendar with reminders of which article, video, episode, or graphic to post on which days.

Are you a big Instagram user? Don't forget to change the link in your profile to individual content pieces rather than keeping it permanently on your homepage. That way you can reference new content in your captions and help make followers more aware of the range of content you offer.

Need Help? Let me know.

Whether you're looking for content creation or just guidance, I'm here to help. Schedule an initial consultation at calendly.com/writingrealestate and let me know your goals. Let's talk!

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