Save time, money, and your soul by Repurposing Content on Social Media
What do you mean by repurposing content?
By design, repurposing in the content world means smart work, not smart work.
It means you create one piece of content that is primary and, you mold it into different ways for other platforms.
To give you an example:
Let’s say you made a 1500 word long-form blog post. You did a lot of research, the blog came out to be good, and it’s great for your website.
But did you do so much just for one post on your website? Probably not.
If you sprinkle some repurposing magic on it:
- You can tweak it to make a full-fledged script for a youtube video.
- Add graphics and squeeze the pointers into a carousel for social media
- And, squeeze it, even more, to make a Twitter thread out of it.
I might be short on ideas right now, but you can do much more.
You see the point, right?
The point of one blog post leads to 4 different content pieces and 4 unique ways for your audience to consume them.
That’s the magic. Surprisingly, it’s more work and less work at the same time.
What do most people do wrong while repurposing content?
Repurposing on social media is way too trendy now. But the problem is-this popularity stems from all the wrong reasons.
To most people, repurposing is synonymous with copy-pasting blindly. Resulting in a bland customer experience.
In fact, it’s not just about poor customer experience. It reflects laziness on the brand’s reputation sheet too.
You can’t call it a multi-platform strategy and then go on copy-pasting your one piece of content. Literally everywhere.
It just doesn’t work that way.
To avoid that,
Here are 5 things to look out for if you want to repurpose content for social media
- Optimization: Optimization to social media is what a tailor-made suit would feel for you. Stitched to perfection sorta deal.
You can’t post a carousel on Instagram and Twitter at the same time. Twitter would mess up the order.
If you want to post the same thing on Twitter, it’s best to make a thread out of it. That’s what fits the bill better on a platform like Twitter. Because it has its own rules and doesn’t like them to be broken.
2. Audience: Your audience is the same everywhere, but the same kind of content might not interest them everywhere. Sometimes to feel fresh, all everyone needs is a change of scenery.
Like, they might want to see your personal side on Instagram v/s your professional side on Linkedin. It’s not a rule, but it’s what the platforms are better suited for.
Doesn’t mean you can’t interchange the two, but it can get a slightly unexpected response both, in good or bad ways.
3. Timings: Your audience might not use all social media platforms based on your posting schedule. So, choose timings according to what the analytics show you.
Your Instagram audience might not check it at morning 9 am. But the same cannot be said for the Twitters or Linkedins of the world. Considering they are info-heavy platforms.
4. Features: Each social media platform offers distinct features. If you create one piece of content and copy it everywhere, you’re not giving it a chance to grow.
Meaning a listicle-type reel would work well on Instagram. But on Linkedin, it might be better to convert it into a text-based long post.
To each, his own holds true here.
5. Engagements: One thing that’s common for all platforms is the ability to give you means to a community. While that’s great, engagement differs from platform to platform.
Like it’s best to engage by retweeting a tweet on Twitter. Whereas on Instagram, sharing a post in your story would be better to show support.
Although, commenting is a common engagement strategy shared by all major platforms.
Final words…
Repurposing is an art form. And, it’s an important one for all content marketers. Because they know repurposing is the only way to stay ahead in a game that changes every day.
It’s just too tedious.
Repurposing your content is like saying, “Hey, we have other options from this collection too.”
If done right, your audience would look forward to your next piece. No matter if they know or don’t that it originated from within the system itself.
It’s exciting, effortless, and strategic. Those adjectives make it sound like a splendid deal to miss out on, and if you ask me, you shouldn’t.
