Dear New Take:
Of course you can repurpose the content you’ve worked so hard to create! In fact, there are many marketers who think you’re wasting good resources if you don’t. A blog post is just a beginning. Savvy marketers know that some blog post content can (and sometimes should) be repurposed into many different forms – tweets with links, email blasts to loyal customers, webinars, even Instagram stories.1 The secret is to create once and repurpose everywhere. Why? This practice can increase your reach on social media, boost your SEO with links back to your website, and cultivate a reputation as a thought leader in your industry.1
That may sound terrific, but it’s important to select the right content to repurpose. Here are some tips on which types of blogs to rework or recycle:

• Evergreen content

Posts that are always relevant, regardless of how much time goes by, are considered evergreen content.1 This often includes posts that go back to the fundamentals, as well as how-to content.1 Remember too that newer subscribers of your content are likely not to have seen some of your older content, so your evergreen content will still be fresh and new to many readers.2

• Popular content (1)

A blog post that went viral is the perfect candidate for recycling. That, however, begs the question “what counts as ‘viral’?” Well, only you can answer that. For BuzzFeed, “viral” may mean 20,000 shares. For a small marketing shop with less than 100 daily visitors, “viral” could mean 10 shares. Basically, look for the posts that stick out. The ones that got a lot of traffic, shares, or engagements relative to your other posts. If it got some traction, chances are people will value reading it again, especially if it’s been tweaked to include some new content.

• Expandable content (1)
If your company doesn’t have evergreen content and none of your recent posts have received a lot of traffic or gone “viral,” you might be wondering what content you can repurpose. It’s actually not hard to figure out. Look at all your posts to identify those you could add to. Perhaps some new information has been released that could make your post more relevant, perhaps you could add more resources, images, or charts, or perhaps you could include a section expanding on certain parts of the topic. A bonus to this technique is that it shows your readers and clients that you stay abreast of the current happenings in your industry, and make an effort to get this new information out as soon as possible.

• Updated “old” content (2)

Take another look at some of your older posts, and see if they could use updating. If there is a new development or new advice you can share on a topic you’ve written about in the post, take the old post, tweak it and add to it as necessary, and publish it as new. The core of the post will likely still be valuable; it may just need a few updates to appeal to a more current audience.

Smaller agencies may not have as much of a content library as their larger colleagues, and that makes it even more important that they find creative ways to repurpose their blog content. At Xavier Creative House, we find ways to recycle our blog content using social media, email blasts to clients, you name it. We’d be happy to share our strategies with you in more detail, or if you’re a potential client, we’d love to show you how developing a content calendar can expand your existing resources beyond what you might have thought possible. Feel free to reach out via phone, email, or social media anytime!

Sincerely,

House Rules

References: 1. https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-repurpose-content/. Accessed December 13, 2017. 2. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/27256/5-Creative-Ways-to-Recycle-Content.aspx. Accessed December 13, 2017.