An effective content marketing strategy requires fresh and engaging content. However, creating something truly original each time can be time-consuming, especially when creating multi-channel marketing content that covers similar topics.
Content repurposing allows businesses to maximize their existing content. By leveraging your published content through different forms and content types, you can maximize minimal resources for optimal results. This is why content repurposing is a staple among content distribution plans for driving audience engagement and establishing a business as an industry expert.
If your business hasn’t implemented a content marketing strategy that includes a content refresh or reused content, here’s what you should know about content repurposing.
• What Is Repurposing Content?
• 5 Benefits of Repurposing Content
• Don’t Search Engines Punish Duplicate Content?
• When Should You Repurpose Content?
• 5 Best Practices for Repurposing Content
What Is Repurposing Content?
Content repurposing or content reuse or recycling, involves taking existing content and transforming part or all of it into different formats. It’s not simply copying and pasting content onto a new platform; this new content has similar information to the existing content but can be presented from a different angle or delivered in a different method.
Content repurposing isn’t only about recycling old content. It can also include a content refresh that ensures your content maintains its relevance and effectiveness. For example, if you have a blog post on your website that’s optimized for search engine optimization (SEO), you can turn the data into an infographic you can share on social media.
Another example of repurposing content is if you have separate websites for your business in different countries. You can take SEO-optimized content from one website, translate your content into another country’s language and share the content.
Repurposing content aims to leverage its message in new ways that fit different platforms, audience preferences and your overall content marketing strategy. This can enhance your content’s value and impact with minimal effort, as you don’t have to continuously create new content.
5 Benefits of Repurposing Content
“[The goal of content repurposing] is to leverage the best content in different formats and on different platforms,” said Brandon George, Thrive’s Director of Content.
By taking advantage of content reuse, you can have a multi-channel marketing plan that can:
1. Extend Reach to New Audiences
Repurposing content allows you to share the same message across multiple channels and platforms that cater to different audience segments.
“You want to give your best content the highest potential of success, get it in front of as many eyes as you can to impact your target audience in a way that improves your brand awareness and/or sparks conversions,” George said.
For example, users searching for your products or services on your website might prefer in-depth blog posts. However, social media users who may still be at the start of their buyer’s journey may prefer shorter and more digestible content. You can repurpose bits of your long-form blogs to create social media posts to capture attention and engage your audience.
2. Improve SEO and Increased Visibility
Each time you repurpose content and publish it on a new platform or in a new format, you create additional opportunities to be discovered through search engines. Repurposed content provides a good opportunity to share outbound or internal links, optimize for keywords and many other on-page or off-page SEO benefits.
Additionally, consistent content distribution across various formats reinforces your authority on the topic and helps boost your online visibility. This can improve how users engage with your online presence or browse your website, affecting how your SEO benefits from a content refresh.
3. Boost Cost and Time Efficiency
Writing high-quality content from scratch takes considerable time, effort and resources.
Repurposing allows you to maximize the return on your investment by reusing existing content in new formats. It saves time, reduces workload and increases productivity without compromising quality.
For example, if you have a well-written blog post, you can take key points and share them on infographics, webinars, podcasts or shorter blogs. This provides additional value to your content distribution plan.
4. Enhance Audience Engagement
Different formats appeal to different preferences. While some users prefer reading blogs, others might be more attracted to visual content or audio formats. Repurposing allows you to engage your audience in various ways, increasing the chances that your content will resonate with them.
Creating multiple touchpoints with the same core message can reinforce your brand’s presence and increase audience engagement. This allows you to expand your reach, casting a wider net for users who prefer different content types.
5. Drive Content Longevity and Relevance
Over time, even the most high-quality content can lose its relevance. Some types of content become irrelevant when they discuss statistics or current events. Repurposing allows you to refresh old content with updated information, ensuring your content remains relevant.
For example, think of the content written about managing a workplace in the middle of a pandemic. While this topic would have gotten high traffic from 2020 to 2022, it’s safe to say that it has become irrelevant today.
However, this presents an opportunity for reuse by repurposing irrelevant content into evergreen content. Rewriting it along the lines of managing a remote workplace can make the topic more relevant to the present.
Don’t Search Engines Punish Duplicate Content?
Search engines like Google prefer unique and informative content, but it’s important to understand how Google sees and defines duplicate content and why it differs from content repurposing.
For search engines, duplicate content refers to large content blocks nearly identical across pages and websites. If your website has similar content identical to other websites, this could be considered duplicate content and could negatively impact your SEO.
Repurposed content, however, involves reformatting and rewriting content. Your content can be in a different format, explain different contexts or angles or be tailored to a specific audience. As long as you approach repurposing effectively, your content marketing strategy can boost your SEO efforts while providing fresh content to audiences.
When Should You Repurpose Content?
“Any content that performs well should be considered for repurposing. And it doesn’t matter whether the content is old or new,” George said when asked about content optimization.
“You should start thinking about the potential of repurposing content even before it’s created, from that very first brief. Look at the brief and consider if what is being written would be an ideal fit for repurposing the content into a different format, on a different platform.”
5 Best Practices for Repurposing Content
The best strategies for repurposing content can vary between businesses, industry practices and the quality of your existing content. Here are some general best practices for handling content optimization through repurposing:
Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content remains relevant and accurate long after its publication date. While not everything can be evergreen content, especially in industries where regulations and practices can change, focusing on evergreen content ensures that your content can be repurposed and reposted repeatedly with little to no updates.
For example, evergreen content in digital marketing would be topics such as “What Is Content Optimization” or “SEO Benefits of Internal Links”. The content would remain relevant over time and can be repurposed into content for videos, infographics or social media snippets.
Use Analytics To Review Performance
Keeping track of your content’s performance can help you find areas of opportunities where content repurposing can boost high-performing content.
“If the content has driven strong engagement or produced a lot of traffic and/or conversions, it’s something that obviously resonates well with your target audience. That’s a great fit for content that should be repurposed,” George said.
One example of repurposing high-performing content is turning a high-performing blog post into a social media post. The message from the blog post clearly resonates with your audience, so try to transfer the key messages in your blog content onto an Instagram carousel or a Facebook post.
Adapt Content for Platforms
Adapting content for platforms helps you diversify your audience base and extend your reach. Many businesses practice cross-posting, posting the same content on multiple platforms. While this can sometimes work, ideally, you should repurpose content for various platforms rather than cross-posting. This allows you to adapt to the platform’s strengths and cater to the different expectations of target audiences.
For example, if you have video content, YouTube is good for long-form content in the traditional video format. In contrast, short portrait-style videos are best for TikTok or Instagram Reels. Additionally, copywriting social media content for LinkedIn should be tailored for business-to-business audiences, while platforms like Facebook should be targeted to consumers.
Break Down Long-Form Content Into Short-Form
Long-form content such as eBooks, whitepapers and comprehensive guides may be valued by those looking for more information about your business or industry. However, it may not attract as much attention for boosting audience engagement and attracting users in their early stages.
Instead of creating new content, you can break down existing long-form content into shorter digestible pieces. For example, you can take the data and make a visual infographic.
“You should also look to turn a blog post into an infographic, something that could be really eye-catching but still tell the story you’re trying to get across in a much more digestible way for your readers,” George said.
Preserve the Key Message
“Don’t lose the crux of a piece’s idea when you adapt it,” George said.
“It’s important to maintain the integrity and intent of the piece of content when you repurpose it into another format.”
Content repurposing goes beyond copying and pasting content from one platform or form into another. However, it’s important to ensure that the key messages that resonate with high-performing content should still be present in repurposed content.
Create an Effective Marketing Strategies With Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
Content repurposing can maximize existing content and boost content marketing efforts. There are plenty more ways to boost engagement and keep content relevant, especially with the right digital marketing team finding the right opportunities to boost online engagement.
Thrive Internet Marketing Agency understands the key to effective repurposed content. Whether sharing guest posts with quality internal links or establishing your brand’s industry authority, we create content that’s primed for your goals.
Not sure where or how to start maximizing your content’s potential? Our content writing team can help you learn how to strategically repurpose your content to drive more traffic, engagement and conversions for your business. Get in touch with Thrive today to improve your content marketing efforts.
