YouTube Publishing Tips & Repurposing A Video Into a Blog Post with Natalie Hailey

Creating and repurposing content is a commitment. If you want to reap the rewards that repurposing your content can bring, you need to do it consistently. People often ask me what type of content they should start the repurposing journey with, and I always try to stay clear of giving a definite answer because what’s best for one person isn’t always best for some. Everyone’s business is different, and everyone’s content is different.

However, if you want to take one piece of content and repurpose it into 10x more content, video content is always a great place to start.

When you start with a video as your pillar content, you have exactly what you need to repurpose it into a host of other content. You’ve got the visuals for images, audio to convert the video into a podcast, which can then be repurposed into a blog post and social posts, etc. Before you know it, you’ve created a wealth of new content by repurposing just one video!

But what happens once you’ve created all of that content? How should you go about publishing it and how are you going to get as many eyes on your repurposed content as possible?

This week on the podcast and blog I’m joined by Natalie Hailey, who is a Content Manager and the Founder of Hot Content. She works with small business owners and entrepreneurs. And, she helps them to be consistent with their content and make the most of their content. Whether that’s creating original content for them or working with what they have created themselves and expanding it, Natalie and her team know how to help you get the most mileage out of your content so it gets noticed.

You can listen to the podcast below, or keep reading…

Why you need to be consistent with your content

Creating content is one thing but knowing how to repurpose and promote it effectively is an entirely different ballgame.

Consistency is vital. Not just consistency in creating quality content, but consistency in publishing it at the right time and in the right places.

The more consistent you get with your content, the more you’ll get back from it. As Natalie pointed out, creating content is only 50% of the entire process. There is no point spending hours creating content without having an effective publishing strategy in place to ensure you actually drive traffic to that content.

How to produce a repurpose-able video

Before you even hit record and start shooting your video, you need to think about how you’re going to repurpose and promote it. It helps to have the entire process mapped out in advance and establish clear processes that’ll take you through each consecutive step.

Tools such as Asana and Trello are great for preparing your plan of action. If you want to keep it simple, use a spreadsheet.

Once you’ve created your video and taken it through your usual editing phase, it’s time for publishing. The aim is to get as much mileage from your video as possible.

The first step is to upload the edited video to YouTube. Then, do some keyword research and make sure you choose relevant keywords that can help get as many eyes on your video as possible. A great keyword research tool that Natalie suggests is Morning Fame, which helps you research relevant keywords and tags for your video based on search volume.

Next, you need to include captions on your video. So many people skip this step because they don’t feel like it’s necessary, but it really is!

Remember that many people these days consume content on their mobile phones with the sound turned off. They might be at work on a lunch break or on the bus and if your video has captions, they can watch and read along. However, if there aren’t any captions, chances are that most mobile users will scroll past your video in search of one that they can actually consume without needing any sound.

A great tool to retrieve captions for your video is Rev. Rev also gives you the option to download the transcript of your video too, which comes in really handy when it’s time to repurpose your video content into a blog post.

Optimizing your YouTube video

Once you’ve got your captions on your video, you’re ready to optimize it for SEO. When thinking about the title of your video, try and come up with something that’s based around the keyword you want that video to be found for. You’ll also need to include that keyword within your video description too!

However, you need to be careful that you don’t overstuff your title with keywords. You need to find the right balance of pleasing the algorithm while also making your title appealing so that your audience will want to find out more and actually watch the video.

Maximize the content on your channel by linking videos together. In the same way that you might link to a previous blog post in your latest post, try to link to some of your other videos throughout the video. Include a CTA on the right-hand corner of your video so that people can click it to be taken to the mentioned video.

Don’t forget to include a CTA to subscribe to your channel at the end of the video too. You can also create relevant playlists on your YouTube channel to make it easy for viewers to navigate your content and link to those at the end of some of your videos.

Getting your thumbnail right

The thumbnail you choose for your video on YouTube is more important than you might think. People usually don’t spend enough time on the thumbnail. They either use a random screenshot of the video suggested by YouTube or they create one with the same video title.

As Natalie said during my interview with her, the thumbnail is another piece of YouTube real estate and a really good opportunity to maximize your video’s impact. Resist the temptation to copy and paste your video title on the thumbnail. Instead, try something different and come up with creative ways to draw people in rather than just duplicating what you’ve already got as the video title.

Your thumbnail needs to be attention-grabbing. People have a lot of videos to choose from, so why should they watch yours?

Your thumbnail needs to convince people that your video is worth watching.

Here are a few of Natalie’s top tips for creating great YouTube thumbnails:

• A lot of people are viewing your thumbnail on a mobile device, so make sure it’s as clear as possible!
• Make your thumbnail stand out and if you’re including text, make sure it’s bold and clean
• Speaking of text, keep it short! Use four to five words MAX!
• Try to include an image of the main person that features in the video. If that’s you, include a picture of yourself in a relevant pose that’s related to the video.

How to repurpose a video into a blog post