Recycling is one of the ways in which we are trying to save our planet’s resources and use them judiciously. I believe that recycling should be applied on a larger scale and cover any kind of resources – even the digital ones. Of course, I am talking about content, any kind of content which marketers and entrepreneurs are creating day in and day out in order to build reputation for their businesses and gain more subscribers and potential customers.
After all, why shouldn’t you recycle content? The online world is a world made of momentary snapshots. People read a blog post today, they will forget about it in the next few days. New followers may never get the chance to watch or read brilliant pieces of content, just because they were published long before they subscribed for the newsletter or followed the company’s social media pages.
Of course, not all content is worth repurposing. Some topics are strictly related to a specific event or situation which no longer exists. However, there are lots of evergreen and developing topics which are worth being given a new breath of life by repurposing them for social media.
Here are a few ways in which you can do this:
1. Create a White Paper
White papers are very detailed and substantiated articles which present an in-depth and authorised view on a specific topic. If you want to build your reputation and authority as a knowledgeable source of information in your industry, then white papers are the recommended form of sharing and repurposing content.
Take an interesting blog post which was well received by your audience, do further research and approach all important subtopics related to it, and you will have a new piece of content, ready for sharing on the social media.
2. Refresh Developing Stories
Another great way of repurposing content is by taking a look at some topics which were still under development, adding the latest issues, discoveries or situations pertaining to it, and republishing it as a newly updated topic.
In this way you also demonstrate the fact that you are constantly monitoring everything going on in your niche and you are keeping your followers informed of the latest news.
3. Create an Answer on Quora
Quora is a specialized platform where people ask questions pertaining to various business and technical topics, and specialists answer. The gist of one of your blog spots may be the exact answer to one of these questions. Trim it down to bring it to an acceptable length, and post it there.
On a side note, Quora is a great place for building authority, just like Slideshare. This is a place where lots of head hunters, company executives and top-level professionals spend time browsing answers, searching for talents to hire or to do business with.
4. Create Photo Quotes for Facebook™
Do you have one powerful sentence in a blog spot, the kind which can stick in a memory for days and weeks? This is a top candidate to become a photo quote for Facebook™ or any other social media. There are many web and mobile apps available which help you turn a bit of text into a photo with great graphics and the potential to go viral.
5. Create a Podcast
You can do it yourself, or hire a professional on Fiverr to read and record some of your most interesting articles, and re-share them as podcasts. Recently, podcasts have become very popular among commuters, who can spend their drive to and from work listening to something interesting and educational.
These are just five suggestions, but there are many other ideas you could try – such as infographics, Slideshare presentations, etc. – to repurpose your content and get more engagement from it.