Phew! Another post successfully written and published on your business blog.
Well done!
Creating quality posts, week after week, is hard work. And whether you hire a blogger or write the blog yourself (remember time is money), creating content for your small business blog is costing you dollars.
Hopefully, you are making the most of that time and those dollars by promoting your blog posts through the social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
But what if we told you there was a way to gain greater mileage from your blogging effort?
If you like to recycle things, you are going to love the idea of repurposing blog content.
‘Repurposing your blog posts’ means using the content already published on your blog to create more content in different forms. As an example, you could use an article you have already written and published to create a new infographic, video, or audio file, and then distribute the revamped content through different online channels.
You can repurpose the latest content from your business blog or content published months, even years ago, assuming it is evergreen and still relevant. To determine which content is worth repurposing, start by reviewing the posts that had the highest traffic on your website or the most social media likes and shares. Because of its popularity, you already know this is content that your audience wants – so why not give them more? After all, the goal of repurposing blog content is to reach more customers and drive traffic back to your business blog.
CAVEAT: Although the idea of repurposing blog content sounds easy, creating the new formats, e.g. an infographic or a slideshow, and uploading them on different sites, does take time.
6 Creative Ways to Repurpose Your Blog Posts
So, let’s get down to it. Here are six ways to repurpose your blog posts.
1. Create an eBook or Short Guides
Once you have several posts on a topic, you can repackage them as handy guides. You could offer the guides for free to customers who subscribe to your email newsletter or offer the guides as paid content on your website.
You may even have enough material for writing an eBook, which you can then sell on Amazon Kindle. Using the blog titles as a reference, rearrange your blog posts to create the initial ‘Table of Contents’ for your eBook. Edit the existing content to ensure that the information in your eBook flows seamlessly from one section to the other.
Hire a freelancer to create a snazzy eBook cover, add relevant images to support your content, and upload the eBook for free on Amazon Kindle.
To promote the eBook, create a section on your website linking to your Amazon sale page. You can also use Amazon Kindle’s ‘discounted pricing’ or ‘download for free’ offer to build the initial buzz on your new eBook.
2. Build Your Online Newsletter
Rather than using email marketing to get your customers to buy or enroll in a service, consider emailing your blog posts as an informative newsletter.
An email newsletter is especially useful when you are creating several posts a week and want to ensure that your readers do not miss the most popular or the freshest content on your website.
3. Create a Video
Remember, the idea is to get your content to potential customers in any format possible. Videos are fast becoming the most popular online medium and the way people search for information online.
Using content from your business blog, you can create videos for the following categories:
- How-to posts
- Expert interviews
- Checklists
- Step-by-Step processes
You do not have to be a digital expert or spend loads of money to create quality videos; just follow some basic guidelines. For instance, if you are recording a video using a mobile phone, invest in a tripod and lighting.
TIP: Convert the blog into a ‘conversational’ script and rehearse it several times before you make the video.
Take a look at this video we created in just 30 minutes to help promote our 8 Blogging Mistakes You Need to Avoid article we recently published.
4. Create an Audio Version of Your Post
Podcast hosting service Libsyn had 3.3 billion requests for downloads in 2015, up from 1.6 billion in 2012. iTunes, the heavyweight in the podcast industry, has more than a billion subscribers in over a hundred languages. This is a potential audience that you won’t want to ignore
If you do not have the time to record an audio blog, you can hire a professional voice-over freelancer (via Upwork or Freelancer) to turn your blog posts into podcasts.
Once you have created an audio version of your blog, there are a few ways you can promote it to get maximum reach and engagement.
- Add the audio file to the original blog post to assist people with reading disabilities and reach those who prefer audio content.
- Create an account on a podcast hosting service such as Libsyn or iTunes, and add the blog audio to your podcast feed.
As with blog posts, ensure that your podcast ends with a call to action, e.g. inviting listeners to visit your website for more information.
5. Create an Infographic, Document, or Slideshow
Repurpose your content in the form of PDF files, slideshows, and Word docs to reach millions of readers who access content through document-sharing sites such as Scribd, SlideShare, and Slideboom. Most of these content-sharing sites also allow users to share the content on social media sites, which means you have the scope of reaching a much wider audience.
Visuals are known to be far more engaging than any text-based content. Instead of uploading the blog post as is, convert the content into an infographic using free infographic creation tools like Canva, Piktochart, or Infogram. In our recent article, 9 Blogging Terms You Need to Know for a Successful Business Blog, we created an infographic that we not only inserted into the article but also continually share across our social media platforms and with other outlets.
Another great strategy is to add images to create a visual story in your SlideShare presentation.
6. Create a Webinar
Webinars are a great way to repurpose content, share your expertise, and build your list. While webinars involve audio and video, you can make them more informative by sharing content with your audiences, such as PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, infographics, or even a simple word file. Webinars can be a successful selling tool for businesses, especially for B2B companies.
While the content of a single post may not be sufficient to host a webinar, you can discuss a series of blog posts related to a specific topic that will help your audience.
Webinars can be conducted free of cost using Google+ Hangouts. If you have many attendees, we recommend that you use a webinar hosting service like Zoom for better audio and video quality.
A good time to conduct a webinar is over the weekend or during office lunch hours so more people can attend. And just as we do with most of our content, end the webinar with a call to action that advises the audience how they can get even more information on your blog or services.
Creating a successful blog takes more than just writing quality posts; you must also be a savvy blog marketer to ensure that your content gets read and you are continually finding new audience members and driving traffic to your website.
Repurposing blog content must become an essential part of your blogging strategy. The good news is – you have already taken the first step by reading this post.
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