9 Creative Ways to Repurpose Your Content

Content creation is a very important part of PR & Communications and building brand visibility. But when it comes to content creation strategy many small business owners and "professional influencers" (employees who use their social media platforms to raise their personal brands and be brand ambassadors for their employers) can find it difficult to remain consistent when ideas start to dry up or they become tired. In the fast paced nature of the digital world we are under so much pressure to create and consume content that we have very little chance to take stock or consider the impact of our content. It also becomes very difficult to be intentional and strategic if we put so much pressure on ourselves, we end up with digital burnout if we're not careful. But there are ways in which you can still communicate effectively to your audience without becoming inconsistent or constantly feeling overwhelmed but repurposing also works in reminding new followers/members of your audience about your past work. You can never simply assume that people know everything you have done and by bringing it back to life you keep your content live and maintain awareness.

Get into the habit of repurposing and resharing content.

You're surrounded by evergreen content but you're letting it sit there gathering dust. Keep posting and reposting for as long as it's relevant.— Ronke Lawal (@ronkelawal) February 24, 2020

Here are a few simple things you can do to repurpose your content whether it is for your business brand or for your personal brand so that you can remain connected with your audiences and maintain brand visibility:

1. I've already used an example in this post - use your social media posts in blog posts and online articles like this. Not only does it keep your tweets/status updates/instagram posts alive it illustrates the cross-platform capabilities of social media. Social media doesn't have to be stagnant you can use it to inspire more content and reuse it on your sites or even other platforms. Take a look at some of your brand's most popular tweets and see what you can use and how you can use them - whether it's to embed them in a piece like this or use a screenshot on another platform to keep the conversation going.

2. Don't waste pictures! It's absolutely OK to use pictures from the same day more than once - the #Throwback hashtag is also a good example of either resharing a picture you have already shared in a new way or sharing a picture that hasn't been shared in a way that encourages followers across multiple platforms to re-engage with your memories.

3. Use tools from platforms like Buffer and Hootsuite (find out about more tools via my eGuide) or on wordpress a tool like Revive Old Posts - to reshare old posts and videos. Your videos, blog articles, podcasts etc don't have to remain dormant especially if the content is relevant. Share them regularly to remind your audience about something significant that your brand has done.

4. Re-share clips from audio or video interviews  - similar to resharing your pictures why not share clips from any audio interviews or if you have videos as part of your comms strategy share clips across social media to remind your audience about that content. Remember that the purpose is to reinforce the idea of community building with your stakeholders (customers/clients/colleagues/industry figureheads). If you filmed or recorded something which you don't like in its entirety carve up the parts that you do like and share clips on social media.

5. If you have spoken at an event or created a presentation you can use a platform like SlideShare on LinkedIn to publish the slides to share after the event or simply write a summary of the event. If you're feeling lazy you can use an event hashtag to collate all the social media conversation (usually twitter) about your talk and embed them into a post with a short review about the event.

6. Share your expertise with the media -why not bring add more depth to your tweets/status updates by offering to write an opinion piece for a media platform or blog. You can also rewrite an old post that has become relevant in some way.

7. If you are building your personal brand as a subject matter expert you can use blog posts to create Guides (internally and externally).

8. Use a comment or question from one of your posts to inspire you to either create more content (yes that's work but it's worth it) or post the question on your social media platforms to allow your followers to share which is another way to build a community.

9. If you have a newsletter (you should have a newsletter by the way) you can repurpose old blog posts and use them for content. You can also use blog posts for podcast and video ideas too which is another example of the cross platform nature of content.

The lesson here is to not let good content go to waste. You are surrounded by so many great ideas which you can use for yourself as the brand ambassador for your business/organisation or for the business itself.