One struggle faced by many a business owner or fledgling marketing campaign manager is the breadth of channels they have to get their message out through.

There are audiences waiting out there on a variety of platforms and once you’ve started building those audiences, you don’t want to lose them again. As such, you’re going to need valuable content to keep their interest.

However, rather than taking the time to create new content for every new marketing channel, you could instead get some of your best already-written content working for you. For many businesses, the blog is the most established channel of them all and likely has plenty of content.

Here, we will look at how you can start repurposing that content to make it a better fit for each platform you’re engaged with. Rather than linking to your blog on every channel (though you should be doing that as well), you can craft the content so it’s better suited to each channel you’re active on.

Why repurpose content?

It gives your channels more content. As the introduction states, repurposing content is done to help get your best content out across your various marketing channels. This has the benefit of giving you more ways to populate your channels without having to come up with brand new content, but it also ensures that your best ideas get the attention they deserve.

There’s no point saying something profound and highly valuable to only 10% of your audience when you could easily share it with 90% of your audience, for instance.

You reach different stages of the customer journey/sales funnel (or flywheel). Repurposing content can also be great for reaching customers at different parts of their customer journey.

For instance, a potential client who is just learning about your brand and the values of the products/services that you offer will be more likely to see content through your social media channel as opposed to one who is already actively a client, and thus more likely to see it through your blog or their email subscriptions.

You should have content for every part of the sales funnel, represented by different online channels.

(Source: HubSpot)

Hitting different buyer personas. You might have multiple different clients, each fitting different services, or at least belonging to demographics distinct enough to warrant a shift in tone or presentation when marketing to them.

These different personas may operate in different online spaces, for instance, some may be more tech-savvy and more likely to use digital media such as YouTube. Others may be more conservative and stick to Facebook. Repurposing your content allows you to reach both of them.

Where is your audience?

Before you repurpose content, you need to first identify which channels you should be repurposing them for.

For instance, there’s no point focusing on remaking content for Instagram if your audience isn’t likely to be there. So, how do you find where your audiences are?

Analyze your traffic

There’s a good chance that you already have a presence on some channels you’re considering using more frequently. Check the analytics to see if that’s the case.

Google Analytics can help you get a good idea of not only whether your content is seeing a lot of engagement on the blog, but it can also show where your traffic is coming from. So, if you see that you’re getting most of your clicks from Facebook users, it’s a clear sign that you have a sizeable audience of Facebook that you could get more engaged with.

Look for them

Start by identifying brands in the same business space as you, even competitors, and see where these brands seem to spend most of their time engaging with their audiences.

You can see whether they’re using blogs, social media, digital media such as podcasts and videos.

This way, you will see where the conversation is being held, which types of media they’re most likely to consume, and where you should prioritize your own efforts.

Ask directly

If you already have outreach methods like a mailing list or you’re running an event, there’s nothing wrong with asking about their habits directly if they’re open to telling you.

A lot of this can be done through opt-in forms, asking how they’ve found you, what social media sites they use, whether they listen to podcasts, read your blog, use YouTube, and so on. If you have a mailing list, sending out a survey can see you gather valuable data, especially if you’re able to offer an incentive for them to fill it out.

For the average B2B business, there are a few channels and mediums that clients are more likely to be engaged with. They are:

Blogs/online publications

This includes not just your own blogs, but other blogs and online publications leading thought in the industry. Offering informative and credible written content is still one of the best ways to build a solid reputation and audience for your content.

Having a resourceful blog that addresses many of the questions and needs in your client-base is still one of the best ways to get your audience into the conversion funnel, too.

Infographics

B2B audiences often have their interest piqued not by the emotional call-to-action (though they’re not immune to it). In most cases, it’s facts, figures, and solid data that will win over the rational mind.

Infographics are excellent to repurpose data-heavy content to make sure it’s quickly and more easily understood in a highly visual medium. Infographics are a medium, but they can be published on many other channels mentioned here.

Search engines

The success of your content marketing, especially through your own blog, is in part related to how B2B clients use search engines. Optimizing your website so it’s more easily found by them is a must.

However, it’s important to understand that B2B web users use more specific long-tail keywords and that understanding their search intent is more important. Learning what specific questions they’re hoping to address and creating content to do just that is essential.

Social media

One of the key forms of dissemination of all digital media. Of course, there are multiple different social media platforms. Those most frequently used for B2B content are LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare, Vimeo and Facebook.

At the very least, the average B2B company should have a presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, which are considered the most effective for reaching your client base. It’s also worth noting that B2B clients use social media differently from their B2C counterparts, but that’s something worth looking into another day, when considering social media marketing specifically.

Email

Email marketing is another highly effective way to reach B2B clients and would-be clients, who can rarely go a day without checking their inbox multiple times. In fact, it’s the preferred means of communication for most professions and is especially effective for lead generation.

New media

A catch-all term being used to describe, in particular, audio and video content that is published online. It can cross the boundary into social media, as it does with YouTube and Vimeo, but it also includes podcasts. More and more people are consuming videos and podcasts, especially during commutes or breaks at work, meaning that there could be a sizeable audience to be won here.

Which of these mediums and platforms demands specific attention can differ from business to business. That’s why it’s important to carry out the methods of research above, by looking at other industry brands online and where they’re most successful, looking at your analytics, and by asking your audience how they prefer to consume their content.

Where is your best piece of content?

Unless you’re starting from scratch, aiming to create the perfect content designed to be repurposed across all the mediums and platforms that your business is present on, you can work just fine with content you’ve already written. If you don’t have any content that has performed very well, or isn’t likely to perform very well, then you might be better off creating brand new content instead.

It’s not too difficult to find your most successful content. Look across all the different channels you have content on and look into the analytics. Social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube all have analytical tools showing you exact levels of engagement. For your website, you should be able to look at the stats through Google Analytics and Search Console.

When you have found the content that has performed the best, it’s also important to ask “why?” Some content might have become very popular based on timeliness, how well they aligned with a trend or commented on an event specific to that moment. No matter how well it performed originally, you don’t want to spend time repurposing content that’s no longer relevant.

Now that you have hopefully identified your best piece of content, and ensured that it’s still likely to have an impact today, it’s time to look at how you repurpose it.

How do I repurpose my content?

How you repurpose your content can change depending on which channels and mediums you plan on making use of, and which format it was originally published in. Below, we will break the steps of repurposing down one-by-one.

Your own step-by-step might end up looking very different. What’s important is that you’re able to find a systematic approach to getting your best content across a range of channels, not that you follow the below steps as closely as possible.

Start with a blog post📄

In most cases, your content repurposing plans will start with your blog posts. As mentioned, if you already have some great blog content waiting to be used, then you need not worry too much about creating a new one. However, it is wise to take the time to identify what exactly makes the post worth sharing.

Here, we will look at what makes content valuable to the reader. Whether you’re considering repurposing old content or you’re creating a brand new post to then repurpose, here are some values that you should consider:

• Originality: The hardest value of all to find, but also the most valuable. If your content is saying something that hasn’t been said by others or offering a perspective that’s unique to you, and it also hits with the audience, then it’s worth putting a lot of effort into spreading it far and wide.
• Informative: Does the content product information that is of interest to the target audience? It’s important to know of the distinction of what information is interesting to you vs. what’s interesting to the audience.
• Educational: Online content readers, B2B customers and readers, in particular, will often delve into a brand’s content to learn more about the services, products, or industry. Content that breaks down topics and terms key to your industry can make for some very engaging content.
• Newsworthy: If your content is commenting on, offering insight on, or shedding new light on trends and news topics, it can quickly snap up a lot of attention. When you’re repurposing content, especially for a long-term marketing strategy, make sure that your content won’t become out-of-date or irrelevant too quickly, but some newsworthiness can help.
• Helpful: Many readers will look for content that answers specific questions. Educational content can also have the value of being helpful, but helpful content does not need to be educational. It can, in fact, be another means of support.
• Engaging: Like originality, engagement can be a harder value to grasp than you might think. Many things can make content engaging. It can be a snappy title, it can tell an interesting and emotionally hooked story, it can leave readers with interesting questions.
• Actionable: Good content compels the reader to take action. Whether this action is to share it, to convert into a client or to leave a comment. If you can successfully compel the reader to action, then you have content that has made more of an impact than most

If you are, however, creating new content from the start, then here are a few tips to help you write the best blog posts that you can. These steps still require thought, research, and insight of your own, but can help you lay down the process that helps you routinely turn great ideas into great content:

• Find your topic: Start by brainstorming topics, looking at trends in the industry, and considering your own content ideas. Do a little research to see if other companies are writing about this, to see the topic has any interest to your readership, and consider even asking your audience in a poll which of your ideas they would want to read about.
• Do plenty of research: It’s not too difficult to find relevant reading material to develop your idea from. Google the topic, asking relevant questions, look through Twitter at some people who have had experiences related to the topic, and don’t be afraid to directly ask people involved.
• Define a unique approach: If it’s a topic that others have covered before, then why would anyone want to read what you have to say on it? This is where you find the uniqueness. All content should be developed from your own angle, insight, or take on the matter.
• Structure the post: Sitting at a blank page and starting from nothing can be tough. Creating the structure, first, makes it much easier to see what direction you’re writing in. You don’t need to have it perfectly defined. Writing sub-headers for different segments or chapters of the post can be enough. During this process, you may also discover facets of the subject that you need to cover that are missing. It can flesh out the post dramatically.
• Get writing and get editing: Follow the structure and write from beginning to end. Then go over it again and make sure it flows properly. Do you introduce new ideas and sections properly? Are there clunky transitions to get rid of? Is it formatted well and easy to read? Cut the fluff, and focus on the valuable stuff. You might find that it needs a little restructuring, too. If you have to re-order the different sections of the post, make sure that their introduction and endings still fit their new position.
• Finishing the post: Add pictures to your post, credit sources for any data and quotes used, and make sure you’re using internal and external links where necessary. Finish it off by coming up with a snazzy title and you’re good.

Creating a long-form video 🎥

Turning your blogs into videos can result in an increase of sales, or so say 81% of businesses asked in this survey from Opt-In Monster. Video marketing has become a far more key part of the modern marketing strategy than we might have imagined. It’s not all about written content.

Here’s an example of a long-form video we published for a client:

One benefit of video marketing is that it’s much more likely to appeal to people on the go. Thanks to how easy it is to watch videos on mobile screens and in public compared to reading written content, it has become one of the most digestible and accessible mediums to publish your own posts in.

Developing videos doesn’t have to be as difficult as you might imagine. However, if you’re not confident that you’re able to make videos that are of the quality that your audience would expect from your brand, consider making it a podcast instead. Conversely, you can hire a professional to do the video editing part for you.

Regardless, here’s how to convert your blog post into a full-length video, ready for YouTube and Vimeo:

1. Edit the text so it reads better. Try reading it out loud and you will see that some points don’t work as well in the spoken word as they do written. Tighten up your speech and make it a little less formal. A good way to do this is to take away the key points from the post, then make a script expanding on those points rather than just directly editing it.
2. There are different ways to create a video that works with the audio. If you have a great public speaking style and mannerisms, you can do the classic video essay with the camera focused on you (or your chosen speaker.) Or, you can use Microsoft PowerPoint and convert the slideshow into a video that you then record your audio over. There is other free online video editing software that you can use, placing stock images that you speak over, instead.
3. Don’t forget to add some background music. There are plenty of sites that offer free stock music, so find a track that works to the brand and the tone of the video.
4. Add subtitles to the video to make sure that viewers can engage with it even if they’re watching in public and aren’t able to listen to the audio.

Chopping it up into shorter videos ✂️

Your long-form videos and podcasts will appeal to those who are already interested in and willing to engage further with your content. Shorter videos are much more effective for using through social media and for grabbing the interest of brand new leads.

According to the Women In Business Network, the perfect length for video depends on the social platform you plan on spreading it through. Twitter videos should be no longer than 45 seconds.

On Facebook, they should go no longer than two minutes, but this platform is a good fit for videos that last over a minute. For LinkedIn, videos up to 5 minutes prove to be the most effective, since most of your audience is there is usually more prepared for longer, more engaging content.

Find the most valuable and interesting parts of the longer video and reformat them into shorter chunks for the different platforms you plan on publishing to. Consider more than the length, consider the format, too. For instance, on LinkedIn, square videos work better than landscape ones.

Create visual assets using your content 🎨

For some social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, the more you can distill your blog post into a short, impactful, and resonant piece of content, the better. If you can get the message of the post across to someone in a few seconds, that’s much better than needing five minutes to do it.

Visual assets can take snippets of content from the video and highlight the key points to more quickly engage with the audience. This can then lead them to more closely engage with the content or, in some cases, may fully communicate everything you already say in your blog or video.

Infographics are the most popular type of visual asset in this category. According to the Search Engine Journal, an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a text article. This is because their highly visual nature makes them more attention-catching, the reliance on short bursts of text makes them much easier to engage with, and they also require less navigation and scrolling.

Infographics are great if you have a blog post or video that relies a lot on stats, numbers and facts. It makes it easy to turn into bullet points, graphs, and pie-charts that are much easier to process. You also get to add your own branding visual style to it, which is harder to manage through text alone.

There are visual assets beyond infographics, however. Another example of a valuable visual asset is in using quotes with a fitting image or backdrop. To build interest in video content, you can take the most interesting or impactful sentence or two and use it as an image link to that video.

Sharing content on social channels 📲

Repurposing your content is one thing. The next step is what you have repurposed it for in the first place. Don’t spend so much time and energy creating the content without knowing how you will disseminate the content, too. Let’s talk about how to share your repurposed content on social media.

How you share that content depends on what type of content you’re sharing. If you’re repurposing content that is timely and relevant to discussions going on, then you should aim to have the repurposed versions out and about as soon as you can. Similarly, if it’s a post that got off the ground unexpectedly, start trying to repurpose it immediately.

However, if the content is evergreen, then you should schedule it out over a slightly longer period of time, such as over the course of a month. You can link back to evergreen content time and time again, but aim to update it or repurpose it so it doesn’t look like you’re using literally the exact same content time and time again.

Make sure you’re sharing the right content on the right social channels, too. For shorter videos, refer to the optimal length of video for each channel. Don’t share a 3-minute video that might work on LinkedIn to your Twitter account. Similarly, don’t share your infographic that works on Twitter on your Facebook. You can reuse content across multiple channels, but you must make sure it fits the format of that channel.

Whatever the content is, make sure it’s leading your audience further through the marketing funnel. It should get them to engage with the brand, to share it through social media, to convert, or provoke some kind of action. Don’t get stuck thinking that better analytics alone makes for worthwhile content. It should contribute to your overall marketing aims.

Start repurposing your content today

Whether you’re aiming to make better use of past content that has seen record-breaking levels of engagement, or you’re aiming for a more comprehensive content marketing strategy, I hope the repurposed blog post guide above helps. Coming up with great content will still continue to be the hard part, but we can at least systemize how we develop an excellent content strategy for it.

When you’re writing new content, always look out for its potential value, whether it’s evergreen, and if you can continue making updates to it that make for excellent repurposing material. You could see a much more robust and engaging online marketing strategy without too much more work.