Repurposing content can be a very powerful social media marketing hack. Done well, it can save you a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between repurposing and repeating yourself. The last thing you want to do is drive potential clients away by being ‘boring’.
How to repurpose your posts
When you’re looking to repurpose your posts, there are a few things you want to ask yourself.
1 – Do you have anything to add to your original post? Reading your post might remind you of something you forgot to mention the first time.
2 – How can you easily change the type of post? For example, some people don’t like watching videos, so transcribing them into written posts can help reach different people. The same is true the other way around as well.
3 – Do you have a few similar posts you could merge? Sometimes we write a caption to go with a particular image or video, but looking back it would have fitted better with something different.
How not to repurpose your posts
Don’t just share your old post. If you’ve really got nothing to add and just want the exact same post to go out again, repost it. If people missed the first time, they’ll be much more interested in a ‘new’ post.
Don’t repurpose the same content too many times. You don’t want all your content to become the exact same thing with slightly different words. On Instagram particularly, you don’t want the same image to show up loads of times on your grid.
Choosing which posts to repurpose
You’re going to want to find your most popular posts – the ones that got a lot of people wanting to find out more about your business. These are your most powerful posts!
You’re also going to want to find the posts that completely flopped – the ones that got no engagement whatsoever. That might sound like a weird suggestion, but hear me out. A lot of these ‘failed’ posts are really interesting and are sometimes the ones that you expected to do really well. So why didn’t they? Very often it’s because they are complicated – so how can you simplify them? Sometimes it’s because they didn’t grab people’s attention quickly enough – can you make the first lines more intriguing?
When you’re thinking about repurposing content, you don’t want to think about each platform individually. A screenshot of a clever tweet can make a very good image for your other platforms. A snippet of your YouTube video can make a very good Reel. A paragraph on your website can make a great caption. Sometimes a prompt to share more about your business in a group can inspire you to write a really interesting comment. That comment is essentially a post ready to be posted.
Do future you a favour
Making a job a bit longer today might save you time in the near future. When I write these blogs, I schedule them to go out on the right day, but I also schedule a second post with the link to go out the following week.
If you don’t want to schedule those future posts right now, making a note in your content calendar will help you. Looking at a blank page trying to find inspiration for posts is hard. Having a little note reminding you about that recent blog or video gives you a strong starting point.
Author’s Note
I’m Tesni at Ace of Media, I help small businesses across the UK with their social media. Please do come and find me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for more social media tips and tricks – and some repurposed posts.
If you believe your experience could help or motivate fellow small businesses with their social media marketing, please get in touch. You could be my next Featured Guest!
