Is the ultimate end goal of content repurposing to be everywhere?
Because if you’re everywhere, you will reach, connect with and convert more people, right?
The truth is, while this might have been the case for our forebears, it’s not necessarily the best approach today.
In this blog post we’re going to look at why content repurposing isn’t about being everywhere and what it is about…
While it’s obviously a good idea for content creators to post content to multiple platforms, this process should be carefully considered, because ultimately you want your content to be seen by the right people in the right places.
Press play to listen to the podcast episode.
Why ‘being everywhere’ is a drain
A potential downside of not having a clear repurposing strategy could be that you don’t repurpose at all, or you end up repurposing content on the fly.
We see you...posting out video clips, audio snippets, blog posts, memes, GIFs, videos and other content to every social media and online platform that exists...in a rather haphazard and unstructured way! We’ve all been there.
In principle, having your content in as many places as possible sounds like a great plan. But it might not actually be giving your content the respect it deserves.
For example, let’s say you run a candle company. You distribute your candles to furniture stores, lifestyle stores, supermarkets and department stores.
But imagine if you also sent them to shoe stores, candy stores, and coffee shops as well.
It doesn’t make sense, right? You’d be sending products that your team has worked really hard to create, to places where they won’t reach many of your desired customers...certainly not as many as they would in a lifestyle store.
A “being everywhere” approach to candle-selling isn’t right, and a “being everywhere” approach to content isn’t right too!
What should the end goal of content repurposing be?
There’s no doubt that you put loads of time and effort into your content. Therefore, you want your content to reach as many people within your target audience as possible – so that’s the people you’re actually creating content for, not everyone!
A solid content repurposing strategy doesn’t involve posting content to every single platform. It needs to be carefully considered.
A content repurposing strategy can and should always be audience-focused and platform-specific.
It is possible to embrace content repurposing while only focusing on one or two social platforms.
Examples of effective repurposing
For example, your audience is on LinkedIn more than anywhere and you want your content to be focused on LinkedIn. What might that look like?
Say your core content is weekly thought leadership videos on your website.
Maybe you’ll repurpose your video to YouTube – because your LinkedIn-keen audience use Google and YouTube to search for things, so it makes total sense to include YouTube in your repurposing strategy.
Then you could repurpose your video into:
Multiple short video clips for LinkedIn
Long and short text-only posts for LinkedIn
Graphics, e.g. quote graphics
An image carousel sharing the key points from the video for LinkedIn
A poll post asking your audience about the topic discussed
A LinkedIn article
This is a brilliant example of effective repurposing.
And it’s a brilliant example of being audience and platform focused, and not trying to be everywhere.
With this approach, you are connecting with your LinkedIn audience in multiple ways, and seeing as we all like to engage with content in different ways, people can choose the one that best suits them.
Another example could be, if you want to focus your repurposed content on Twitter and your core content is a podcast, you could repurpose episodes into:
Twitter threads
Short video tweets
Audiograms for sharing as tweets
Graphics
Short text only tweets
Twitter Spaces – for a discussion on the topic
That said, you don’t have to concentrate your repurposed content onto one platform.
Just be where it counts for your audience.
Effective repurposing is not repetitive either, because you can take different angles and points from your core content and share them in different ways.
Know your content. Know your audience
Look to find ways to reach your audience where they are – by being smart with your creation, repurposing and distribution.
If you’re focusing on getting your content onto loads of platforms, you’re using time which could be better spent honing the content itself, getting to know your audience even more and brainstorming new, exciting ideas.
Ultimately, the goal is:
- Figure out where your audience are spending most of their time
- Identify what content works best on those platforms, and
- Create a bespoke content repurposing plan that will maximize your content’s ROI, and really make the most of each platform.
Do you agree? How do you tailor your content to hone in on your target audience?