For Amy Woods, “oldies but goodies” is more than a nostalgic saying. It’s her life’s work, captured in Woods’ Content 10X company and podcast.
She talked with entrepreneur and internet marketer Madalyn Sklar about strategies for success in content repurposing.
Good content is a terrible thing to waste. Anything that can revamp articles, blogs or videos brings you more content and goodwill than a one-shot wonder.
“You expand your audience reach, connect with more people, improve search engine optimization and get the max return from the time and effort you put into creating existing content instead of always creating new content,” Woods said. “Having a strategy can help you create content that will repurpose easily, too.
“Your strategy should include the fact that content repurposing shouldn’t be an afterthought,” she said. “Create content with repurposing in mind from the onset.”
Write content with “evergreen” in mind. As you write or go back and edit, try to purge dates and special occasions. Then it’s easier to reprise mid-winter articles in July and vice versa. It’s a little extra work at first that saves more effort later.
“Think of it less as repurposing content, and more as communicating your message in a different way,” Woods said. “Look at the core message in your existing content, such as a video. Work out if you could communicate that message in a blog post, on LinkedIn or Facebook.
“You also want to focus on repurposing evergreen content and content that is performing well,” she said.
Good content will have different aspects that can be played up via repurposing. Take a blog, tweet different subtopics, mix with different hashtags such as #TuesdayThoughts, and you can happily bring more eyes to your product many times over.
“Think about the different formats that you can communicate with,” Woods said. “That could be written content to video, video to audio, audio to visuals. You will connect with people who like to consume content in different ways and places.
“You must always respect the platform,” she said. “Consider why people are on the platform, what kind of content they engage with, and repurpose with that in mind. It’s never copy and paste.”
A concept Woods calls “opposite angle” attracts a new audience segment.
“This is something I have talked a lot about recently,” she said. “It’s communicating your message from a different perspective: Same point, made differently. If you did the ‘How to’ guide, it’s the ‘How not to’ guide.
“Another example is ’10 Ways to do…’” Woods said. “Then you could also come at your points ‘10 Big Mistakes to Avoid When…’ Some people are more drawn to messages communicated in certain ways. You have done the work already. Just flip it: One as blog, the other video.”
Businesses that participate in Twitter chats can readily play up their interaction. Recreate the give and take featuring their answers in blogs and even live after-chats.
“Take the discussion to a Facebook Live video to YouTube,” Woods said. “Take audio from the video for a podcast episode. Create a blog post about the topic. Share quotes or comments in visuals on other social media platforms. Use video on both Instagram and Facebook Stories.
“Create an Instagram or Facebook Story about each question asked in the Twitter chat,” she said.
Video content is key on social media. Woods has several ways to repurpose video content and get through to a new audience.
“If you create long videos, edit them to short videos with captions for Facebook, Instagram and other platforms,” she said. “Create written content such as a blog post. Do keyword research for good SEO.
“If possible, extract audio for a podcast,” Woods said. “Create visuals, even just from still images.”
Basic analytics will tell you which content gets the most traction. Then factor in timing and other influences. With that, you know which content potentially will keep giving you more.
“Look for your best performing content on your website with Google analytics,” Woods said. “Look at social media analytics: What topics are most popular? If repurposing a podcast, look at download numbers.
“Review the questions that you get asked over and over again by clients and your audience,” she said. “If you repeat yourself a lot, there’s your hot topics to repurpose.”
Don’t be afraid to cross genres.
“You could leave it be, but if it’s a podcast, what about non-podcast listeners?” Woods said. “If it’s a blog, what about non-readers? How about video and non-video watchers? You could be losing out.”
She and Sklar followed their own advice, repurposing their chat into a Facebook Live conversation.
