By taking a bigger, hero piece of content and using it in multiple new ways, you can quickly create content, consistently. By being a little strategic in planning your content from the beginning means each piece that is repurposed contributes positively to your overall strategy, boosting your reach!
Having a content creation process makes it easier to outsource
Something else that’s also fab about having a content repurposing process is that it makes it easier to identify areas that you could then outsource. If you are wanting a little help to create your content but you don’t necessarily have the budget for a social media manager, maybe you could look at hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) instead to take on some of the steps in your process, which may be a more cost-effective solution. In this article I’m sharing with you my tried-and-tested strategy for repurposing my content – from start to finish, so strap yourselves in, it’s a goodie!
Having a plan makes producing the content way easier and it helps ensure you’re being strategic in targeting relevant keywords that will help boost your searchability. This means understanding your audience – who they are, what they care about, and what will resonate with them. I love strategy and keyword research but you always want to connect with your audience first and SEO, second. I think there’s a middle ground where you can be strategic with the keywords you’re selecting to write about. But if you’re constantly producing stuff only to hit desirable keywords, it’s likely that your content will become boring, a little stale and ultimately disengaging – which is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve! And if you don’t know what your audience wants to hear more about – ask them!
Ways to research content topics with your audience:
Poll your audience on your instagram stories. Search Facebook groups with your target audience and see what questions get asked on repeat. Ask people in person, if they fit your demographic you could do some market research face-to-face.
Once you have a good understanding of your audience, you can begin tailoring your content to be as relevant and engaging as possible. Punch your topic into something like Google Keyword Planner, Rank IQ or Ubersuggest and see how likely people are to be searching for that exact topic. It’s here where you find clues to the language your target audience may be using. These platforms will help you turn your subject into a long-tail keyword, which Google loves.
For example podcasting could become:
How to record a podcast? Best podcast host. How to get my podcast on Apple Podcasts? Best podcasting microphones.
It gives your hints as to what you could include in your hero content, or alternatively, create other long-form pieces of content around. This means, you can be strategic and include some of these points in your blog to make sure you’re including keywords that people are actually searching and increase the chance of your stuff actually being seen, increasing reach. It makes it so much easier when you’re recording your podcast or video, to have an outline to follow because you tend to stay on track and avoid massive tangents – which is more helpful for your listeners. Sticking to an outline supports you to stay free flowing with your speech, without feeling like you’re reading something verbatim over the mic. Use headings, lists and bullet points to organise your content to make it easy to scan through when you’re recording. Tip: Have a second monitor so you can read along with your notes at the same time that you are recording your episode. Use your podcast outline to construct the headings for your blog post to help break it up – riff a little on each heading like you did on your blog and Bob’s your uncle.
Small business blog formatting tips:
Only include one H1 heading, other headings can be H2. Don’t forget to target those optimal keywords that overlap with what your audience wants to hear. Include some internal and external links. Include your keywords in your alt text and image names.
My tips for repurposing blog content to email:
Don’t simply copy & paste your blog into an email – that’s boring and doesn’t lead to a good user experience. Include a juicy section, or value-packed part of your blog in your email with a prompt to read more. Or you can play around with attention-grabbing headings and simply include a link to your blog for your readers to hop over to your website and read on.
By repurposing your longer articles or podcasts to video, you can provide an overview of your product or service, explain a complex topic in an easy-to-understand way and encourage your viewers to head to the full article or podcast in your caption and call-to-action (CTA). Social media is a wonderful (free!) tool that we can use to promote our business but the downside is that it requires a lot of time on the platforms to get the most benefit and this is where the problem lies for mums – we already don’t have enough time!
Ways to repurpose long form blog content to social media
A carousel image with each slide being one of your subheadings. An infographic – summarising your key points in a fun way. A static image with one of your subheadings and blog sections in the caption.
If you have a subtopic in your content that you feel would add value to your target audience, pull from your larger content and put together a concise post to share in relevant Facebook group. Don’t forget to include an eye-catching and relevant image, too. Additionally, blog content is super easy to share on social media platforms using hyperlinks, providing you with a user-friendly way to reach out to potential customers.
Don’t forget about Pinterest!
If you have a blog, make sure you are sharing 2-3 Pinterest pins over your different relevant Pinterest boards. Pinterest is great for directing traffic to your website and is still a pretty untapped and underused resource for small business owners. I credit Pinterest for helping with initial traffic to many of my most viewed blog posts.
One infographic pin One typographic (text over image) pin One stock photo pin.
When I find myself scrolling aimlessly on social media, I try to use my time to be more intentional by hopping over to my website and re-pinning one of my blog posts to a relevant board. It helps me stay current on Pinterest and I believe it improves my reach. Don’t go wasting your time posting your content somewhere that no one will see it! For example: Spending an hour crafting a post to share on Linked In when you never use the platform. Or if you have minus 2 followers on X (a.k.a Twitter), maybe save your time promoting it somewhere that you already have an engaged following. I vouch for this because this is the exact process I follow and let me tell you – as a mum-of-three and FIFO wife, time is something I don’t have a lot of these days so if I can do this, you can too! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and Facebook.
