|
Repurposing Content - Good or Bad?
You probably get tired of reading and hearing about pushing out good content. "Content is King." Content can be your "cash cow." People are looking for relevant content. Don't post duplicate content, they say. Post the same article on
all the platforms, they say. How do you know which advice is best? Pay attention, because we're going to tell you right now.
It's true that content is critical. Creating good content is really about one thing - providing relevant, helpful information to people. A few caveats to keep in mind related to this are:
- Relevant and helpful to THEM, not YOU
- The right people, YOUR people, not ALL people
If I had a dollar for every time I've said "not everybody is your client," I would be relaxing on a tropical island right now. It is common for business owners to think they want business from everyone. Trust me, you don't. It is much easier to create meaningful content for a narrow audience. Whether they be current clients, prospective clients, past customers, vendors, or networking partners, it is your job to help these people in some way. If you don't know what they find useful or valuable, ask them!
Repurposing your content is a great idea, it can save you time and increase your reach. This doesn't mean you push out the exact same content week after week on every possible platform. It does mean that if you create valuable content, you can share it in different ways to different segments of your target market. It also means that if you write something that receives positive feedback, you can take a second look at it and make changes to reuse.
Imagine all the content you create as individual modules of information in your knowledge base, similar to a library. Don't limit yourself to thinking of a complete marketing piece as one module. One article may be stored as multiple modules of information that can be used in the future, kind of like an à la carte menu. The article may be used in its entirety, each image saved separately, research statistics saved separately, a particularly impactful sentence pulled out to be saved as a quote- you get the idea. Now you have a library of resources you can mix and match and share when the time and platform is right.
Ways to leverage content:
- Chunk up content (as in the knowledge base idea above)
- Carefully schedule the release - blog this week, article two months later, infographic six months out
- Consider adding new platforms to the mix (ie. you may get better response on a particular topic through Facebook instead of your newsletter)
- Look for opportunities to guest post on other blogs or newsletters
- Give an old piece of content new life by:
- Copy editing- take out extra words, make better word choices
- Making text more engaging- get personal, ask for feedback, use examples, tell stories
- Adding visual appeal- images, charts, infographics can catch attention and help communicate meaning
There is a fine line between successfully repurposing content and using "duplicate content" online which should me mentioned. In search engine optimization (SEO) terms, Google is a fan of fresh content, and they frown upon duplicate content- blocks of text that are identical and found in multiple places on your website. It may be necessary to talk about the same idea on more than one page of your website, but if you do this, tweak the writing so it is not identical yet still maintains meaning.
There is no shame in occasionally re-running an old article if it was well received and it hasn't been published too recently. Mailing lists change, people miss reading a particular newsletter, and they like to be reminded again of great advice and ideas. Just make sure you don't constantly pull from old content because you need filler, it will become obvious to your readers.
So what are you waiting for? Figure out what people want to hear from you, create content, and get the most out of it. Need help? That's why we are here- contact us.
© 2016 Marketing Troubadour
|
