Introduction
The question of how to repurpose content for every platform is a complicated one.
In my opinion, the answer is just as much about “how” as it is about “why”. One without the other is a dream described as a strategy.
Previously, I wrote about how to repurpose content and offered a few easy ways to get started.
This post is different.
I want to tell you about one way to repurpose content for every platform: Splitting up that content into smaller pieces.
But first, here’s a bit of an refresher about repurposing content.
What Is Repurposing Content?
Repurposing content is kind of like recycling: You essentially take certain parts of existing relevant content and transform them into something new, usually in terms of format. The purpose of repurposing content is to expand your reach via that content.
In theory, you can repurpose any kind of content for any kind of platform. However, it’s best to repurpose relevant content that has shown high engagement from your target audience. The reason is simple: The benefits of repurposing content.
Why Is Content Repurposing Important?
There are many benefits to repurposing content that make doing it very important:
- Saving you time and energy coming up with ideas and themes
- Retaining engagement with your target audience
- Reaching new audiences
- Diversify the kind of relevant content you offer
The benefit that ties these ones together is that content becomes easier to produce. In other words, you don’t have to start from scratch every time you have a campaign, new product or announcement. Instead, you can use existing, relevant content as the basis for whatever new content you want to share.
How do you decide which content to repurpose?
This question is a tricky one.
In theory, all your content is valuable. However, your analytics can tell you a different story. You may want to repurpose a video you made last year, but you have to ask yourself why if the engagement on the video is low.
Furthermore, there may be content that may be really challenging to change. In other words, you may not be able to maximize the potential of every kind of content format for some platforms. For example, a long checklist may work for some written formats but not visual ones. Or, a video works for social media platforms but maybe there are some downsides to making it text-based content.
Ultimately, you want to choose content that meets a few conditions. You’ll find many conditions online, but here are ones I recommend, adapted from Forbes:
- Firstly, the content has to have a topic that is relatively open to interpretation and can be updated on a regular basis. In others, the content must be expandable.
- Secondly, content you want to repurpose should be relevant. It shouldn’t be content that is trendy or dependent on some event. Rather, it should be content that is continuously relevant to your target audiences.
- Thirdly, whatever content you decide to repurpose should be engaging. Check your most popular posts and look at what topics resonate with your target audience. Additionally, look at the kinds of posts they are. If you notice that they take on particular features, such as certain fonts, lengths and formats, use those to inform your decision.
- Lastly, know why you are repurposing content for online platforms. In other words, you want to have a clear purpose/goal for this action. Otherwise, you are effectively creating more clutter for yourself and your target audiences. To avoid the clutter, start with a communications audit. It will help you capitalize on success of previous content and align your new goals with your previous ones.
Your content may not meet all these conditions. That’s okay! But try to aim for at least one of them or a combination of two.
So, how do you repurpose content for every platform?
Best practice: Break content into smaller pieces
One way to repurpose content for every platform is to break the content up into pieces.
That seems self-explanatory but allow me to expand:
When you break content into smaller pieces, you give your audience something familiar to engage in and something else to look forward to. Furthermore, you make the content a lot more digestible.
Think about it.
Most people are skimming and scanning content that seems to be getting shorter and shorter.
If you break up your content, you give people what they want without compromise the purpose of that content.
Additionally, you save yourself a ton of time.
That’s not an exaggeration. You save yourself a ton of time!
As I mentioned earlier, repurposing content in general saves you a lot of time. But repurposing content into pieces gives you an abundance of content in a way simply republishing content somewhere doesn’t.
Let’s say you have a video about 12 easy ways nonprofits can improve their donor relations.
You can split that content up in many ways, including:
- Each way gets its own 30-sec IG or 15-sec TikTok video
- Make an infographic per four (related) ways
- Turn the 12 ways into Twitter threads
- Split the ways into a blog post series
Splitting up your content makes it easier to plan ahead. Imagine if the aforementioned video was split into 12 videos for each of the ways. You’d have content for at least 12 weeks!
Repurposing content this way gives you analytics to compare to the original content. This insight could tell you even more about your target audience.
Over to you
No matter how you decide to repurpose your content, you should always make sure to adapt it properly. In other words, you want to adapt it to your target audience as its exists now. Also, you want to align it with your goals. This is how you ensure that your decisions are informed and that you are following a strategy of some kind.
Repurposing content takes the guesswork out of sharing weekly or monthly content. While republishing content is great, splitting content up is even better. Splitting up content makes the most room for planning and adapting your best practices internally.
So, don’t be afraid to split up your content. Rather, get excited at the thought of offering something fresh to your target audience!