Two years ago, the media giant New York Times took the decision of shutting down several of its blogs. The top reason cited was the enormous work needed to keep the blogs constantly updated with fresh, relevant and original content. This decision highlights a critical problem for every marketer and business owner out there: keeping your audience engaged with a constant flow of valuable content.
The question is: if a large corporation like New York Times, with thousands of reporters, photographers and freelance collaborators at its beck and call, found it overwhelming to keep those blogs going, what are a small business owner’s chances? In truth, the struggle to keep your social media accounts active is real for many businesses and entrepreneurs. People’s attention span is shorter and shorter, and competition is lurking around the corner and ready to deliver what you can’t.
Thankfully, there are smart ways in which you can keep your followers educated and entertained without exhausting your entire time and your mental resources producing new content. The simplest way of doing it is by repurposing old content you’ve already shared on the social media.
Here are a few quick tips which help you re-share older social media content while keeping it current and interesting for your followers:
- Share an Update on a Topic
Do you remember writing a blog post on a topic some months ago, a topic which has now re-entered the top trends? Dig down until you find your article and edit it with the latest development.
In this way, not only do you save yourself the time of writing new content for the social media, you also show your followers that you are keeping tabs on what is going on in the world and in their fields of interest. They will appreciate the fact that you take the time to keep them up to date on the respective issue.
- Edit and Re-Share Live Videos and Webinars
Take a look at some of your Facebook™ Live videos and webinars covering evergreen topics. Identify various videos covering the same topics, take the best parts which cover crucial points and edit them together into a short and comprehensive video on that specific topic. Paired with a great call to action at the end, these edited videos are time savers and potentially great traffic and sale funnels for your business.
- Tweet Memorable Lines from Your Blog Posts
Review your blog posts and set aside some of the most inspirational and helpful lines you’ve written – the sort of evergreen advice or tag line which defines you. These are valuable Twitter materials which will keep you going for some time without the need of putting your creative bone to work.
- Edit Photos with Quotes
A photo is worth a thousand words, but it always helps to add a quote. Plus, photo quotes are very popular – even more so during the holidays season. Instead of preparing a new batch of visuals for your social media accounts, find the most popular ones and re-share them as photo quotes (and these quotes can be taken straight out of your blog posts, to save extra time).
- Turn Slideshare Presentations into Videos
We have spent less time discussing Slideshare among other social media platforms which you should use; however we encourage you to have a Slideshare account, especially since it has recently been integrated into LinkedIn.
Slideshare presentations are very useful for tutorials, breaking down statistics and any other sort of structured content which needs to be understood in a visually compelling manner. A simple screen capture computer program is all you need to make your Slideshare presentations into movies and then upload them on YouTube, Facebook™ or Instagram.
Now, as you can see, it only takes a little imagination and creativity to repackage or repurpose your old content and keep your followers entertained. Do not be afraid that your social media fans will spot a repurposed piece of content. After all, can you honestly remember what you read or saw on a Facebook™ page three or four months ago?