I’m a big promoter of having slick processes for creating original content, repurposing it, and delivering it to your audience. If you do this, you’ve probably built up a comprehensive content library and are now thinking about ways to further optimize your repurposing.
Your process for creating content probably goes a little something like this…
- Create great long-form content
- Repurpose it into bite-size chunks
- Share it on social media
You might think that’s the end of your content’s journey and it’s back to the drawing board – but it doesn’t have to be.
If your content performs well, it would be a complete waste to just give it one chance to make an impact on your audience. Just like a song you save to a playlist to hear in the future, you should be collecting your best performing content so your audience can enjoy it again. Not to mention those who didn’t experience it the first time.
I call this collection a content treasure trove.
This is your best-of-the-best content that you can use over and over again. This specialized library is perfect for unlimited repurposing and a must-have for any content creator!
Hit play below to listen to the full podcast episode…or read on to find out how to create your own content treasure trove.
Why do I need a best-of-the-best content library?
A brand or a business has to have 7 interactions with a person before that person takes the action you want them to take. This could be a purchase, or maybe it’s to book a discovery call, or give-up their email address for your free lead magnet.
But this number can be even higher for high-value products or B2B services. It could be 10-15 times or more!
This means your content needs to make a big impact every time your audience sees it. The bigger the impact = the fewer times your audience needs to see your content before they take action.
I’m not going to go into an in-depth discussion about repurposing and its effect on the customer journey here, but if this topic interests you then do check out episode 134, The Content Repurposing Customer Journey: from Mobile to Long-Form to Buying.
Curating a library with just your best-of-the-best content means that you’ve always got a stockpile of great content on hand that can help speed up the action-taking process. I call this specialized library your content treasure trove.
You’ve already got content that’s proven to generate leads, spike engagement, and grow your audience, so why not reuse it?
The difference between a content library and a content treasure trove
A content library is a collection of all your content. Usually, this is your long-form content. It could be your blog posts, your podcast episodes, or your videos. You might refer people to your content library if they want to find out more about you or a topic that you’re an expert on.
A content treasure trove is similar to a content library in that it’s a collection of your content, but it’s not where you put all of your content. The point of a treasure trove is to be able to quickly and easily reshare your most engaging content. Ideally, all your treasure trove content will be suitable for sharing on social media. These are your repurposed gems.
Once you’ve created your treasure trove, you’ll have a ready-to-use high-performing content library for unlimited repurposing. But remember to keep your treasure trove content evergreen, and I’m not suggesting you overshare content – be wise!
Video creators, if you need any guidance with repurposing videos to social media, check out Everything You Need to Know About Repurposing Horizontal Videos for Social Media.
Building your specialist content library, aka your treasure trove
How do you decide what goes in your content treasure trove? Well, there are two main things to look out for when curating your high-performing content library.
Firstly, you don’t store your long-form content in your treasure trove – even if it is brilliant! The treasure trove is only for short-form, bite-size pieces of content that you’ve repurposed your long-form content into.
If you created a podcast episode and repurposed it into a long-form blog post (like this article), then neither of these would go into your treasure trove. However, if you repurposed that podcast episode or blog into standalone audiograms, quote graphics, and text posts, these could go in your treasure trove.
Of course, you can put whatever you want into your treasure trove. But in this post, I’m focusing on building one for social media – hence the short-form content. I suggest you have a separate treasure trove for your long-form content.
Secondly, your treasure trove is only for your gold-standard content. Not all of your content will be high-performing, and that’s okay, but those pieces that don’t stand out from the crowd shouldn’t be in your treasure trove. We focus on only the winners!
If you have a lot of content or you’re finding it difficult to discern what is or isn’t high-performing content, there are some ways you can narrow down your selection process. Here are five questions you can ask when curating your content treasure trove.
1. How did the content perform on social media?
Social media engagement is a fantastic indicator of how much people like your content. Posts with high numbers of likes, comments, shares, etc., definitely belong in your content treasure trove.
If you have business accounts for your social media channels or use a social media scheduling tool like Buffer, MeetEdgar, or AgoraPulse, for example, you can access the analytics tools to help you spot the winners.
Getting a high-level overview of your social media content’s performance is great for many reasons. It can help you find the posts with the most engagement for your treasure trove, but it can also help you analyze what is and isn’t working with your social media content.
2. How did people respond to the content?
You can’t always measure engagement in likes and shares. It’s also important to look at other human responses too.
If people started emailing or DMing you due to some content you shared, this shows it really struck a chord with your audience. When your content moves people to take action, it deserves consideration for the treasure trove – that’s gold-standard stuff!
3. Where are my click-throughs coming from?
Your website analytics can show you where your traffic is coming from and when. Say you notice a spike in traffic coming from Facebook last Wednesday, and everyone who clicked through is spending longer than average on your site…that’s a great indicator that Wednesday’s Facebook posts encouraged your audience to find out more.
But one thing I would say is that your social media strategy shouldn’t be all about click-throughs (even though they are great). It should also be about building relationships with your audience.
So when you’re collecting content for your treasure trove, think carefully about why you’re adding it.
It’s good to have a selection of content that helps you work towards a variety of goals, and I encourage you to make a note about why you added each piece to your treasure trove. You could sort your treasure trove content into what goals each piece helps you achieve.
4. What website content do people enjoy?
Your website content is most-likely long-form content, so don’t add entire blog posts to your treasure trove! But if one post is getting a lot of visits then consider how you could repurpose it into treasure trove material. Are there quotes, graphics, or could you write some LinkedIn text posts summing up the key points? Hopefully, you have already repurposed that blog post, so you have the repurposed content ready to add to the treasure trove.
Note that your website audience isn’t always the same as your social media audience. Your social media followers might never have visited your website and vice versa (we want to do something about that)!
So, if you’re not repurposing your website content, it won’t be reaching all of your followers. If a topic is popular on your website, it’s clear that your target audience resonates with it.
It’s really important to get this content in front of your social media followers. These are people who are already primed to make a connection with you. This piece of treasure trove content could be the missing piece for them to connect the dots and finally reach their ‘aha’ moment!
5. What other content does my audience enjoy?
Don’t stop at your website. Apply this tactic across all your other content channels. Look at your podcast downloads if you have a podcast, video views if you share videos... any analytics that show you what your audience enjoys the most.
The more you can work out what topics people resonate with, the more you can look at what related content you have that may deserve a place in your content treasure trove.
Tips for effectively managing your content treasure trove
I advise keeping an inventory of your content in your treasure trove using a spreadsheet like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. Track what the content type is (e.g., video, graphic, or text), what the expected result will be (based on previous results), for example, website click-throughs or engagement. Also, log the date it was last shared, and how many times you’ve shared it previously, and where.
You can then use this within your content calendar or incorporate it into your broader social media strategy. You might even want to put a team member in charge of managing and curating the treasure trove. This way, it’ll always stay up to date with your greatest content hits.
I hope this post was helpful and has given you lots of ideas for how to continue your best-performing content’s repurposing journey!
If you’re just getting started with your content repurposing, then do check out my book, Content 10x: More Content, Less Time, Maximum Results. It’s the ultimate guide to reaching more people and making a bigger impact through the power of content repurposing.