11 Easy Ways to Repurpose Your Content

If you aren’t repurposing content, you can be wasting valuable time.

How many different channels do you need to create content for right now?

• Newsletter
• Email
• Blog
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Direct Mail

That doesn’t even include the different types of content you need for each channel – text, images, video, etc.

It’s a lot!

And if you are working under the illusion that everything you create has to be 100% original content then I bet it feels like you are on a content treadmill with little hope of ever getting off.

But would it help you to know that all people who produce content for a living, whether they are writers, musicians, artists, or nonprofit communicators repurpose their content?

It’s true! No one produces completely original content all the time.

So what is it?

Repurposing content is simply reusing or reworking existing content in order to use that content again. If you have ever taken a newsletter article and rewritten it for social media, you have repurposed content.

It’s how Kivi and I put out so much content even though we are only a two-person company.

Repurposing content is an essential part of a manageable communications plan, because it allows you to get more mileage out of your writing, while reinforcing your key messages with your readers.

Here are 11 easy ways to repurpose your content:

1. Use a different channel. If you’ve written a blog post, is there something you can do with that elsewhere? Three short blog posts can be combined into one longer newsletter article. You can repurpose a top 10 list you published in your email newsletter as a starting point for a video script.
2. Edit for a different audience. Also think about your different audiences and how you can put a slightly different spin on existing content to make it more relevant to a different segment of your audience.
3. Make short pieces longer. If you started with a 200 word blog post or even a quick tweet or Facebook update, repurpose that into a newsletter article by adding some examples. Add more descriptive details, get quotes from people, or share opposing points of view.
4. Make long pieces shorter. Pull the headline and use it as a social media update. Reduce your paragraphs to bullet points. Publish a teaser and link back to the longer piece.
5. Change the lead. Simply start the article in a whole new way. Move something that was lower down in the article to the top. If you didn’t use a quote in the first paragraph before, use one now. Open with a trend or other big-picture explanation.
6. Change the perspective. You can also change the perspective, so you tell the same story, but from a slightly different point of view. Maybe you’re talking about three people who your organization has worked with and you’re emphasizing one of them. Tell the same basic story, but just emphasize the other person in the story this time.
7. Change the format. Start with live audio, and record it as a podcast, video or webinar recording. Have the recorded audio transcribed. Pull text from that. If you’ve written a how-to article, turn it into a top ten list. If you’ve written a top ten list about how to do something, rewrite it as an opinion piece or as a review.
8. Round it up. Group several like items together into a new piece with a theme that you can use in a new headline and lead paragraph. This is great way to use “left over” content like quotes from an interview that didn’t make it into the main article you wrote about the person you interviewed.
9. Integrate the comments. This works great on content that was originally posted in social where people could add comments. As you repurpose the article, fully integrate some of what you heard in the comments into the newer version.
10. Add your opinion. Much of what you publish is likely “just the facts, ma’am.” Repurpose a newsy article by adding your commentary to it, or opinions or reactions from others.
11. Recast it.  Take something completely unrelated and tie it into your content. Tabloid magazines are great inspiration for this method. Can you tie the latest hot superstar, scandal, or headline to your content in some unexpected way that gives you a fresh new lead paragraph or more interesting headline?

More about repurposing

Want to learn more about repurposing?

Kivi has five rules for repurposing your content:

• The Editorial Calendar Rule of Thirds
• Deconstruct Big Ideas into 3 Smaller Chunks
• Formats — Long Form, Short Form, Visual Form
• Time Zones — Now, Soon, Later
• Everything in at Least Three Channels

Learn all about these rules in this blog post.

Or you can join our free membership to access the recording of our webinar The Communications Directors’ Guide to Repurposing Content. 

Embrace content repurposing, and you’ll save time and energy while still sharing content that your readers will enjoy and appreciate.