The faith in SEO has been shaken. Yes, you heard it right. With AI around, writing SEO-friendly content has never been easier. At the same time, it is harder to rank and longer to see results, hence SEO is way more expensive than it was, say, five years ago.
So here is the question ‒ will you continue chasing top rankings in competition with me-too AI-generated content or take a smarter approach and experiment with alternative channels that you previously ignored?
At Zmist & Copy, we hate it when content goes to die on a blog. It often does, unless you have something truly exceptional, or give it a generous boost in the form of paid backlinks. To make sure your content can be seen and live longer, we recycle it by turning it into social media posts, video scripts, podcasts, emails, or ebooks.
Content repurposing is not about sharing links through your company's LinkedIn page. Nobody clicks links anymore anyway, so there is no point in doing it. By repurposing content, we mean completely reshaping it to maximize its reach and impact across different platforms.
What does sustainability have to do with content repurposing?
Plastic recycling and content recycling have a lot in common. When you recycle plastic, you essentially give it a new life – the plastic is reborn into useful and sustainable products. Same with content. Instead of creating entirely new content from scratch every time, you repackage or reformat your existing content to reach a wider audience or extend its lifespan.
It’s something we can call the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, and recycle. We didn't come up with this term. The 3Rs are part of an environmental approach aimed at promoting sustainable living and resource management (this is where our plastic metaphor comes from).
The same method can be applied to content creation: reduce the amount of content you produce, and instead, reuse and recycle the best-performing pieces by transforming them into different formats and sharing them across different platforms.
For example, Eleken, a UI/UX design company, repurposed this blog article into this YouTube video by creating a script from the content they already had.
Oh, here’s another example.
Brocoders, a software development company, asked us to help them create expert-driven content that they can use to spread the word about their services through organic channels.
One of the ideas we came up with was intended for their Chief People Officer – one of the key people in the company. It was about attracting Gen Z talent. We created a blog post titled “Attracting Gen Z Talent: How to Build a Perfect Workplace for the New Generation,” and further transformed it into a catchy LinkedIn carousel.
As you can see, the same information can be presented in completely different ways, on completely different platforms.
Let’s look at all the benefits that content repurposing provides.
Why should you recycle content?
- Expand the content reach. Transforming a blog post into a podcast or creating social media assets allows you to get wider exposure for your content across different platforms. The more people see your content, the better it will perform.
- Create more content with less time. Instead of beginning from square one every time you need to hit publish, you can adapt and modify your existing content for different platforms. This is much faster than writing new pieces and allows you to maintain the consistency needed to get results from content marketing.
- Experiment with new channels. Content repurposing lets you experiment with diverse channels such as Spotify, YouTube, or LinkedIn and discover where your audience engages the most, which ideas resonate better, and how to optimize your content strategy for maximum impact.
- Try out new content ideas and quickly evaluate them. Don’t wait months until your blog post starts generating traffic – create a post for LinkedIn and see the immediate reaction. This will help you decide whether to invest your time and energy in writing long-form content.
- Build a loyal audience. Sending emails, posting on LinkedIn, sharing videos on YouTube, and doing podcasts help you build a loyal audience of subscribers and followers. It’s not just some random organic traffic you know nothing about. It's a valuable marketing asset that can turn into a dedicated community and new business.
What does content repurposing look like?
Content repurposing is straightforward. Here’s what you need to do:
- Write a blog article.
- Break it down into several LinkedIn posts.
- Make a script and shoot a video for YouTube.
- Record yourself reading the article and transform the audio into a podcast.
- Take data from the blog post and transform it into catchy infographics to share on X.
- Rebuild the article into a short newsletter or a series of newsletters.
- Expand the article and create an ebook or whitepaper for lead capture.
- Take the title and conduct a live webinar to discuss the topic with your target audience.
You can do all that and even more with just one article. Repurposing is great as it allows you to reach different audiences with different types of content. Yet, it is not that simple.
Imagine putting loads of effort into creating a whitepaper, but no one wants to give you an email to access it. What if you share a post on LinkedIn, but it gets three likes – all from your own team? What if you spend tons of time filming a video only to get 50 views?
Content repurposing isn’t just about adapting content to a specific platform and audience – it’s about having a well-thought-out plan.
Content repurposing is part of the content strategy
Content repurposing is a tactic needed to increase the visibility of content. But it has to be aligned with your overall content strategy.
Here is how it works at Zmist & Copy.
Build a strategy
We always kick off by understanding who our clients' customers are, and coming up with content ideas that resonate with them. This involves selecting pillar topics, angles, and a tone of voice tailored to their specific audience.
When we are ready with the "who," the “what,” and the “whys” ‒ the goals we want to achieve with each piece of content, we proceed to the “where" – the channels we plan to use for content distribution. We research the platforms the target audience usually engages with.
Finally, we think of how we are going to execute the strategy. We develop a content roadmap that outlines what we're going to create, for whom, where we're going to distribute it, when, and who is going to do that.
Write content
We write content following our strategy and roadmap.
Repurpose content
When a piece of content is ready for publishing, our team repurposes it for the channels defined in our roadmap.
Distribute content
We provide a client with content pieces for different platforms and give recommendations on when to publish them. We align our repurposed content with the unique characteristics of each platform, ensuring that the content is optimized for its intended audience.
Assess the results
Every month, we assess the results of our content efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of our strategy across different platforms.
Plan the next steps
The ongoing assessment allows us to refine our approach, focusing on what works best and optimizing our future content efforts. Based on the results achieved, we can double down on what worked, launch a few quick experiments, and adjust our content strategy.
Let's now focus on the repurposing itself.
4 steps to repurpose content
Define where your target audience consumes content
Before committing to platforms like Google or Instagram, make sure your audience is there to discover your content. Research where they hang out online. Remember, audience preferences change, so stay adaptable.
Start with two or three channels
Start with a few key channels. Test these channels to ensure they're effective. Then, gradually introduce new channels and evaluate them. If a channel isn't delivering results, consider pausing it to focus on what works best.
Create content that aligns with your audience's needs
It makes no sense to create content about advanced machine learning algorithms and data structures for business owners with a background in marketing and administration.
Based on Animalz's advice, as a general rule of thumb, you should target the end users with tactical content (eg. How to Automate Data Management), and decision-makers with strategic content (eg. The ROI of LIMS).
Here is an example from our experience.
Brocoders is an IT staff augmentation company. To spread the word about their services and expertise, we chose the following content pillars: external partnerships, team building, and hiring.
Among the target audience that might be interested in their services, they distinguish three buyer personas:
- Software company business leader (CEO)
- Tech leader (CTO)
- Head recruiter
To connect with each of the three buyer personas, we tailored the topics within these pillars to align with the interests of each persona. For example, under the hiring pillar, we had "Hiring tech talent on a budget: Your options" for CEOs; "Can you trust AI vetting for software engineers?" for CTOs; and "Is cultural fit that important?" for head recruiters.
This approach ensured that all our content served a unified purpose – promoting Brocoder's team augmentation services. But how we promoted it was finely tuned to match what each type of buyer cares about, helping us reach more people.
Optimize content for a chosen platform
When selecting a content format for a particular platform, you should ensure it aligns with the audience's expectations for that platform. Very few people click links on LinkedIn. Instead, they tend to consume information on the platform.
Observe what works on your target platform and customize your content accordingly. And remember, every piece of repurposed content, whether it's a visual, text, or video, should have the ability to exist as an independent piece of content.
Over to you
So, is content repurposing worth the candle? It's up to you to decide but we’d love to hear your opinion. We're going to repurpose this blog post on LinkedIn, so shoot us some comments there. If you want to follow us, click here.
