Content creation is a task many people love to hate. It can be challenging coming up with ideas, finding the time to develop content, then knowing how best to share your work. If you’re going to put so much time and energy into creating content, why not make your content work for you instead of having to work for your content.
As a blogger, I produce a lot of content. Over the months and years, it can add up. But instead of just letting a blog post be one piece of content, I’ve found ways to leverage it to produce multiple streams of content.
Here are 5 easy ways to reuse your content.
1. Social media post
Very few people visit websites without being directed to go there. That great newsletter, video or article you wrote needs eyeballs on it to make your efforts worthwhile.
What highlight or key fact can you pull out of your work as a social media post, which then directs people to the content? If you have a few tidbits you want to share, even better. Create a series of social media posts that you can schedule to run over the next week or month or even year, depending on the lifespan of your content.
When creating social media posts, try to edit the copy and/or visual to fit the channel. Don’t simply share the one post on all channels as each channel has its own unique purpose and audience. Example – LinkedIN is business-to-business or professional-to-professional versus Facebook which is more casual and community based.
2. Infographic or visual
Thinking of the nuggets you pulled above can you turn some of them into visuals or even an infographic?
Looking at this article, I can see a simple infographic highlighting how to reuse content. I can also create a visual for each item, which will attract people’s attention in a social media post, newsletter article, on the website and more.
With the average reading level in Canada being Grade 6, visuals are a key tool in sharing information. And if you can’t break your content down into a series of visuals or an infographic, it is likely too complex for the average reader. Very few people have the time or energy to read every word of a report, article or lengthy email. Rather, people tend to scan for the key information – just like you’re doing now.
3. Video
Even if your piece of content is a video, there are still ways to reuse your content by creating new videos. This could include using Facebook Live to discuss some of the highlights of your video. Or creating a shorter version of your main video for social media (30 seconds is ideal) then directing them to your website to watch the full video.
For other content, consider how you use video to share the information. For me, I often create YouTube videos about my blog topics to share on my YouTube channel or post on social media. Some people prefer watching videos to reading (due to learning disabilities such as dyslexia or just wanting to listen to information while getting ready in the morning).
If you’re struggling for content to use on Facebook Live or YouTube, simply go back to the content you’ve already created and see how you can turn it into a video.
4. E-book
This is a tip I love to use. Over the years I’ve created a series of topic specific e-books that are a compilation of my blogs. When I write a blog, I save the Word file in a folder on my computer. Every year or two, I go through the folder, looking for themes in my articles. When I feel I have enough copy on a subject area, such as presentation skills or crisis communications, I turn it into an e-book.
After a quick copy edit to make sure the content flows and is not dated, I then turn it over to a graphic designer who does his magic.
I then sell these e-books on my website, on Kindle, include as a value-add in my speaking contracts and share with clients. These compilation e-books tend to be between 30 to 100 pages.
I’ve also turn individual blogs into short 8-to-10-page e-books that are highly visual. Some examples include 5 Tips for Impactful Storytelling and 5 Steps to Creating a Crisis Communications Plan.
These short e-books are an easy way to bring a blog post to life and give it legs.
5. Idea generator
My final tip is to look at the content you’ve already created and see what content has gotten the most traction with your audience. If it’s housed on your website, what insights can you get from Google Analytics?
If it’s on social media, what content gets the most likes, comments and shares?
The idea here is to find out what content has had the most impact and look at how you can either leverage the content or expand upon the idea with new content. Find out what people like and give them more of it instead of trying to come up with fresh ideas.
If it’s been a while since you posted a piece of content that’s still performing well, why not reshare it on your social media channels? A blog post I wrote 4 years ago on 4 Reasons Why You Need to Stop Saying You’re So Busy, continues to be one of the top viewed pages on my website. So much so, that I was asked to speak on a podcast, years later.
I then reshared this content, and subsequent podcast interview, on my social media channels. Which in turn, generated even more traffic to my website.
I hope these tips have sparked some ideas on how to reuse your content. Instead of getting overwhelmed by all the tips and implementing none, pick one tip you can act upon to reuse your content.
Get comfortable with that tip, then look at how you can implement another tip – one step at a time.
The goal is to work smarter not harder when it comes to content creation. It’s about finding ways to share your genius with the world.