I made a tweet the other day in response to part of a conversation the Triangle AMA was having on Twitter, and it got me thinking enough to blog about it. The topic: repurposing your content.
Honestly, I have no idea what the event was – a luncheon, maybe? A couple of people I follow were Tweeting it, so I had the luxury of listening in.
Anyway, at one point during the triaAMA conversation, @KeAnne said to: “Think how to repurpose content if you are a thought leader: blog to email campaign to white paper.”
Brilliant idea. In fact, many of the smart(er) info-marketers (and presumably, their web copywriters) are doing just this. But I wonder how many people are planning content in this manner? As a forethought, that is. There are so many ways to re-purpose your web content these days that I believe re-purposing should be part of your content planning to begin with.
Which is my response to @KeAnne’s tweet was: “Why not create content with re-purposing as part of the planning process…and not an afterthought?” To put it another way – why not make repurposing a part of your strategic process.
Indeed – why not plan for re-purposing?
If you’re planning to write an ebook – save a version of those neatly-typed chapter notes and condense them into blog posts you can use as teasers for your ebook. Condense them even further into Tweets you can use to gain followers that can then be sent to your ebook sales funnel.
Or, make a plan to take 2-3 comments/questions posted your blog each month (nobody said you had to be limited to repurposing YOUR content) and expand them into blog posts. Specifically mention why the posts came to be. You’ll gain respect and trust from your readers – especially the ones who inspired the posts.
You can also take things out of the written world – if you’re planning an ebook, record yourself reading the book and sell that, too.
Writing a how-to blog post? Make a video that gives the same lesson so people can connect with your content on AND of your site.
I’ll concede that many small businesses simply don’t have time to plan their content and its subsequent repurposing. But even going so far as to take a few gems from a blog post you’re writing and add them to a document of wisdom you can Tweet when you’re low on things to Tweet about can put you at an advantage over others who simply churn out content.
So, the next time you sit down (or pay somebody to sit down) to write that next blog post, article, press release or Tweet – think about the life of that content beyond the task at hand. Questions like “Who else can this content help?” and “Can I condense this into a Tweet?” are goos starts.
Make repurposing your content something that happens before you start writing and see where it takes you.
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