Benefits of Repurposing Content

Today’s digital marketing world depends on continuous content creation. Generating ideas for new content, however, can be time-consuming and expensive. Repurposing content is an effective way to create quality content from older posts.

Perhaps you posted a series of videos detailing your latest product. The videos were a success, gaining more views than your daily blog content. As the weeks pass, however, your successful videos fade into the depths of the internet, lost among old content.

But there’s good news: you can revitalize that video series through content repurposing. By transforming your video series—or any content you’ve created—into social media posts, newsletters, or e-books, you can create new content from a previously successful project.

From blogs to podcasts to infographics to webinars, the opportunities to repurpose content are endless.

The benefits of repurposing content go beyond sourcing ideas for your blog. Your transformed content can also help you interact with your social media followers, drive traffic to your website, and improve your content marketing strategy.

Advantages of repurposing content

Time is money. Tedious tasks, such as content creation and blog article proofreading, can eat up your day. So instead of spending all your time brainstorming ideas for new content, remember to source ideas from existing content too.

And it won’t just save you time. Repurposing content can have a number of benefits.

Broadening your base

Content purposing is a potential way to expand your reach and broaden your audience base. Turning an old blog post, for example, into a video or slideshow can help it appeal to different users. While some people like to read an article, others might prefer to watch a video.

Additionally, creating posts across different social platforms, such as your website, YouTube channel, and social media accounts, will increase your online presence and spread brand awareness.

Finally, repurposing content is a way to increase organic visibility. When you transform old posts into new content across a variety of platforms, you are creating opportunities for backlinks.

Backlinks help search engines find and rank your site. A higher rank leads to increased user visibility and traffic.

Reducing your business costs

Whether you are a company with an extensive marketing team or a small-business owner, repurposing content can save you money.

Repurposed content is a way to maximize your initial investment in your old content. Rather than spending money on generating ideas for new posts, you can focus on generating more content.

You can also increase sales. In a study conducted by Aberdeen Group, researchers found that companies that prioritized content marketing had a conversion rate five times higher than companies that did not.

As a result, repurposing content is a cost-effective way to focus on your content marketing strategy and drive conversions.

Saving your employees time

Starting with something is less time-consuming and daunting than staring at a blank page.

Instead of wasting time developing content ideas, your employees can transform evergreen content into new posts on different platforms.

Using old content as a source for new content allows you to determine which posts performed best with your audience. You can go directly to your social media pages or blog and see what content has the most likes and views.

Then, translate what worked into new posts on different platforms. This is an easy way for your marketing team to publish more content in less time.

The distinction between repurposing and plagiarizing

As a content creator, it is important to understand the difference between plagiarized content and repurposed content.

Although plagiarism is often associated with stealing another person’s work, it is also possible to plagiarize yourself.

If done correctly, however, repurposing content is not plagiarism. By analyzing your previous work and using online writing resources, you can turn your old content into new content with integrity.

Copying your own work without plagiarizing it

One way you can avoid self-plagiarizing is by acknowledging that you have created a post on a given topic in the past.

Let us say, for example, that you wrote a blog post describing the best way to outline a content marketing strategy. A month later, you wanted to repurpose this article into a condescended social media post.

If you were to copy and paste a paragraph directly from your original blog post into your new LinkedIn post, you would be plagiarizing yourself.

Additionally, your new LinkedIn post would be considered duplicate content, as the paragraph of text would appear on your blog and LinkedIn page. In general, you want to avoid duplicate content because it can negatively impact your search engine optimization (SEO).

So instead of copying directly from your blog, you can write an open-ended question that relates to your article and attracts your LinkedIn followers. Below the question, you can attach the link to your original article.

This will showcase your older blog post to your new followers while avoiding accidental self-plagiarism. Linking to your article will also generate backlinks, which will improve your SEO.

Identifying potential plagiarism

There are key red flags that indicate a piece has been plagiarized instead of repurposed. These include the following:

• outdated information
• uncited posts, facts, or ideas
• lines of text previously used in blog content

Rather than using your original content directly, use it as inspiration. This will help you avoid copying and pasting your previous work when developing repurposed content.

Checking your work for red flags

Before you publish, you need to check your work for potential plagiarism.

First, review your piece and ensure you have cited your sources. When you repurpose content and source an idea or statistic from an old post, you need to link the new piece to the old one.

From a user standpoint, providing attribution creates a necessary level of transparency between you and your visitors. From an SEO perspective, it allows you to add links connecting your blog posts, which improves your site’s credibility when crawlers read it.

After you have properly cited and linked your sources, you can also check your post for plagiarism using an online scanner. Quetext and Copyleaks are sites that allow you to paste your work into their sites for free plagiarism checks.

Ideal content to repurpose

After you audit and remove old content, it’s time to start repurposing top-performing pieces. There are a variety of tools you can use to turn previous blog posts into new and engaging content that drives traffic.

Repurposing social media content

Updating old posts is a great way to repurpose social media content and interact with new accounts following you. But choosing the right piece of content is key when it comes to creating repurposed content that is engaging and successful.

First, scroll through old posts and pick out content with the most likes, shares, and retweets.

From there, narrow your selection further by finding evergreen content, posts that are always relevant. Breaking news, trends, and seasonal pieces are all tied to a specific point in time and, therefore, cannot be used outside of their limited time frames.

Thus, existing content that is both top performing and timeless is best suited for repurposing content.

Next, revise any outdated information. If the content remains relevant, add a new statistic, quote, or graphic. You can also reinvent older blog posts in Instagram albums.

Another way to repurpose content on social media is by finding quotes that relate to some of your previous blog posts. For example, if you published an article a few months ago on healthy eating, you could post an inspirational quote from a fitness instructor with the link to your article.

Repurposing podcast content

Podcasts are a great source for repurposing content. All you need is your original podcast and some creative ideas for translating that audio content into new outlets.

If you still have the script from your original podcast, you can create a transcript for each episode. While this is not necessarily repurposed content, it is an addition and update to your existing content.

Another way to repurpose podcast content is through social media posts. You can pull quotes from an episode of your podcast and pair them with an image that relates to the episode’s theme. These types of promotional posts are visually engaging for your followers.

Be sure to attribute the quote and link to your podcast episode. Also, including an open-ended discussion question within your repurposed post is another way to interact with and attract your followers.

Finally, you can repurpose your podcast through audiograms. According to WNYC, social media posts including an audiogram perform better than those without. On Twitter, for example, the average engagement for WNYC tweets containing an audiogram is eight times higher.

Using apps to identify and modify content with potential

There are a variety of apps that can make your content repurposing process less time-consuming. The following is a list of free apps you can download that will help you create repurposed pieces and improve your content marketing strategy.

• DeepCrawl, Botify, and Ryte are websites that crawl your written content. These online resources review your website and blog posts. You can then use their analytics to identify which posts need to be repurposed.
• Animoto is a video editor built for generating Instagram and Facebook stories. You can add customizable text, color, and sound to your vertical posts, generating stories that promote niche content.
• Canva is a graphic design app that helps you create visual content, including infographics, slideshows, and collages.

Best forms for repurposed content

In today’s digital world, there are endless opportunities to be creative during the content creation process. Social media, for instance, provides a variety of ways in which you can repurpose content and improve your content marketing efforts.

Transforming your own blog content

Once you have identified which pieces of old content you want to turn into new content, you can then focus on transforming your content. Different types of blog posts fit different types of platforms.

For example, a blog post that is heavily rooted in data suits an infographic better than a video. Piktochart is an online resource that helps you generate organized and engaging infographics.

Likewise, if your blog is mainly composed of written content, you may consider turning your articles into an e-book. Paste some of your articles into a single Word file. Using transitions, weave the separate pieces into cohesive chapters.

Finding new and creative ways to repurpose your own content

Oftentimes, content repurposing can take the form of social media posts promoting old articles. While social media is a great tool for displaying blog content, there are additional ways to repurpose your content.

Podcasts and webinars are a great place to start. You can use a popular blog post as a foundation for your podcast’s or webinar’s script.

If you know an expert in the field, you can invite them for a discussion. This is a great way to generate conversation with your audience.

Furthermore, using old blog content as source for an online class is another creative way to repurpose content. You can then promote your online class through Facebook and Instagram posts.

Another tip for repurposing content is to turn old blog posts into guides. Condense your articles into a listicle style “how-to” piece, and send it out in your newsletter.

Freshening up your old content

Targeting specific groups in your repurposed pieces is one way to make old content seem fresh. Text recycling is a great way of doing this.

For example, if you published a piece titled, “Top Books of All Time,” you can repurpose this single article into multiple new pieces that target different groups. “Top Books for Stay-At-Home Moms,” “Top Books for Inspiration,” and “Top Books for the Summer” are all new headlines that appeal to distinct demographics.

Key takeaways

Repurposing content can save you time and money. It can also be a way to drive traffic and interact with your followers.

When reviewing old content, consider which platform is best for repurposing your piece. Numbers often fit well in a visual display while longer blog posts suit webinars and podcasts.

Remember to also use evergreen content to avoid creating pieces that are seasonal.

After you have repurposed your existing content, it is always a good idea to have an editor and SEO expert review your piece. At Elite Editing, we offer professional content editing services. For additional information, check out our website.