Repurposing is when you take a piece of content and then use it to create other forms of media, like social media posts, videos, and even paid products. It’s kind of like taking your grandma’s ugly sweater and repurposing it into an awesome new scarf. Or 10 scarves.

And I think that ugly sweater analogy is totally perfect.

Because that’s exactly why repurposing is a thing. You’re taking something that someone likely spent hours on and making it even better. This allows you to get more out of your ideas, opinions, etc. However, far too many people are afraid of the consequences of duplicate content.

So, if you’re afraid of the consequences of search engine penalisation when reusing your blog content…

Here’s a recommendation from Google, which will come in handy when reusing your blog content:

If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article.

Reusing your blog content is really about knowing exactly how to signal to Google that you’re not:

• Plagiarizing material that you don’t have permission to feature.
• Publishing something that has deceptive or manipulative intent.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what repurposing techniques you should use …A lot depends on what resources you have access to, and what seems the most realistic for you.

Here are the six repurposing techniques that I’ve personally found the most helpful.

1) Import directly to Medium Digest

There’s a reason why I encourage my clients to reuse their blog content on Medium Digest. Reusing your blog content on Medium is a great way to reach a niche audience, who likely would not have found your work in any other context.

But what is Medium anyway?

Just in case you haven’t heard of Medium, here’s an intro to what they’re all about. According to Larry Kim:

Evan Williams and Biz Stone founded the popular blogging platform Medium back in 2012. It touts itself as the place where “everyone has a story to share, and the best ones are delivered right to you.”
You can think of Medium sort of like Twitter for long-form content, except it has an algorithmic timeline which highlights the stories you’re likely to be interested in.

And that’s exactly why it’s so beneficial. It’s extremely accessibility to:

• Readers
• And writers

How to import your published blog posts to Medium

• Sign in to your Medium account and visit the Medium import your story page. 
• Next, what you’ll want to do is copy/ paste the link to the part of the page that tells you to enter a link.
• Simply copy and paste the link below the instructions (see screenshot below to see where exactly I did that):

See the grey, underlined link below the words “enter a link” to see exactly where your link should go.

• Click the green “import” button and then Medium will provide you with the following instructions:

Notice how Medium automatically put where the article was originally published? This will be a huge help when search engines are indexing the article:

• As soon as you’re ready (some reformatting may be required) press the green “ready to publish” button:

• Last but not least, customise the description, preview image, and tags accordingly:
• The final step before hitting “publish”, when you’re ready either click the green “publish now” button, or schedule for later.

But you’re probably wondering: does this actually work?

Marketer Neil Patel learned a lot about Medium from an email he got from Medium Digest user, Raymmar Tirado. In that email, Raymmar focused on Medium’s ROI:

The traffic I get from Medium to my website has a much higher likelihood to convert [into subscribers or downloads of my ebook]… It makes logical sense then that their numbers would lead to higher conversions and engagement as opposed to someone who finds my site directly because they have already read something and want to know more. They are looking to go directly to the source and that to me is the biggest benefit of using Medium as a publishing platform.

This is definitely one of the most important benefits of reusing your blog content on Medium. It has a huge built-in audience of over 60 million monthly readers.

It’s also a reader-focused platform. But why is that the case? It’s a place where a good story is encouraged and rewarded:

If that’s the kind of content you want to produce, I highly recommend repurposing your blog content on that platform.

2) Develop content about topics you feel like you haven’t explained in nearly enough detail

More than once, on this blog, I have advocated for the value of reusing your blog content. But what I realised is that I’m yet to do a post that focuses just on repurposing. In fact, most of the content that I’ve produced (until now), has only scratched the surface of how repurposing actually works.

After I led a Facebook Live session where repurposing was an important part of the conversation …

I also started to get a lot of LinkedIn messages, which asked me questions about how it works:

The one thing I’ve never liked about Facebook Lives …

Is the fact that you’re so focused on keeping people engaged that could easily tune out at any second; there’s never enough time to explain things in deeper detail. I really wish I could have taught the same subject matter in a different context.

That’s exactly why I included an answer in my editorial calendar …

• I had already talked about it to some extent in one setting
• And someone in my target audience requested more info about it.

I highly recommend developing the same habits with your blog content as well. Every time the content you create sparks a conversation and causes your audience to ask related questions…

And multiple people who fit the bill of your target audience ask you a question about it …

… write a blog post about it. This involves making a process called social listening part of your process. No idea that even is? Sproutsocial offers the following definition:

Social listening is the process of tracking conversations around specific topics, keywords, phrases, brands or industries, and leveraging your insights to discover opportunities or create content for those audiences.

This process is about providing accessible answers to your customer’s most common concerns. This is a powerful strategy because customers like to be heard.

That’s exactly why this is such a powerful means of:

• Reusing your blog content
• Or ideas you have talked about on other platforms.

If you’re not sure how to apply that method to the work that you do …

Here’s a blog post that I wrote last year, which includes some accessible methods for researching your audience’s interests.

In the blog post I mentioned above…

I talk about how I research my audience’s interests. More specifically, I give a detailed breakdown of platforms like Google (searches) and Buzzsumo.

3) Give LinkedIn Publishing a try

I love the LinkedIn publishing interface. Because it has been great for me, from an audience outreach point of view.

For instance, my LinkedIn pulse article, “Explaining Freelance to Grandma” reached a large number of people over the long-term:

That’s exactly why I continuously tell my clients that reusing their blog content on LinkedIn is a really great idea.

But how do you attract that level of attention?

According to Alexandra Rynne, the following types of content are the most successful on LinkedIn Publishing:

• Professional expertise and experiences
• Industry trends
• Lessons learned

However, she also recommends downloading the LinkedIn Pulse app in order to keep tabs on what’s trending in your industry.

And that makes sense. Because my LinkedIn Pulse article explored a very relatable topic.

And what makes it so relatable?

It covers something that most of the self-employed people I’ve met struggle with:

Making your freelance lifestyle make sense to the people you care about the most.

Because they don’t really get what you’re doing with your life and think you should get a “real” job.

This article was so popular that it attracted my first troll:

Someone who thought I was being ageist because I included the word “grandma” in the headline.

And I’ve always believed that trolls are a sign you’re doing something right.

What this means: from a “reusing your blog content” point of view

If you decide to reuse your blog content on LinkedIn, timing and how you reference the original material is key. Karen Hollenbach, the founder of Bespoke has the following recommendations:

Provide a link back to the original blog at the bottom or include a bio that links back to your website. You may decide to give Google a few days to index your original blog from the website before sharing it as a LinkedIn article.

Although Medium Digest automatically links back to the original post, LinkedIn publishing doesn’t.

But there’s a way to work around that. When you copy/ paste the original article into LinkedIn publishing, include a sentence either at the beginning or end of the article that says:

This article was originally published on site “X” (insert blog name here)

And then include a hyperlink back to the original article.

But how do you know if this is the right option for you?

This is the perfect platform for you if your goal is to reach:

• CEOs
• business owners
• vice presidents of a specific organization

Because, when LinkedIn examined the data on their average LinkedIn reader …

They found that 45% of readers are in the upper ranks of their industries.

But the best part of LinkedIn publishing is just how much search engines love LinkedIn. Moz’s domain authority tool gives them a perfect score of 100/100.

This means that every article that’s published on LinkedIn will:

• Show up on search engines
• And outrank websites competing for the same keyword.

How to access LinkedIn publishing

Sign in to your LinkedIn account. Then, look for the “start a post” tab located below the “home”, “my network”, and “messaging” tabs:

Next, click on the portion of the “start a post” that’s highlighted in blue, and says “write an article”:

This will take you directly to the LinkedIn publishing interface. In this interface, you can add whatever links, media, and images you want:

Once the LinkedIn publishing interface is done loading, simply copy and paste the article that you’re interested in repurposing.

4) Adapt content from other platforms, to expand your reach

For example, two of my podcast episodes started off as Facebook Lives:

• “How Can Introverts Pitch Their Work to Businesses“
• And “What Makes a Blog Post a Strategic Choice for Your Business“

Why I did this

Since both live broadcasts happened in other peoples’ Facebook Groups, not everyone had access to the stream.

So, this was a great way to reach people who will never see the material in its original format.

This is an extremely effective strategy, because the audio is available on:

• Popular podcasting platforms
• And the show notes, which show up as blog posts on my website.

As a result, anyone searching for mutual subject matter can access it (including you!)

You can do the same thing with the content you create on other platforms…

• By taking your content that has done well on other platforms such as podcasting apps, Live Streams, or YouTube
• And creating a transcript of the original material.

Yet, that probably sounds like a lot of work…

Do you think that sounds a bit nuts? Look at this from the perspective of a blog post’s lifespan vs a YouTube Video or podcast episode:

• YouTube gets 50% of its views in the first 6 days it is on the site. But…social media shares can help extend the shelf life of your videos.
• By day 700, a blog post will receive 99 % of its total impressions; if the posts are providing value for the post’s target audience).
• 80% of (2018) podcast users listen to all or most of each episode, down from 86% in 2017. So, some listeners might skip ahead, or listen to small portions of a specific episode.

Publishing your content in multiple formats…

Can help extend the shelf life of the content you worked so hard on even further!

This can also help you work around one of the most important differences between:

• Blog posts
• Audio
• And video…

How people digest information.

I find that the biggest fear people have about adapting their content for multiple formats …

Is their fear of annoying and scaring away others through repetition.

So, here’s some good news that will likely change your mind!

Repetition is actually good for business. Because buyers need to hear from you a total of seven times before they close the deal. This principle is known as the marketing rule of 7 (and yes, it actually works!)

That’s exactly where reusing your blog content (or any other type of content)on multiple platform can make a huge difference.

5) Create graphics, infographics, etc.

This is something I’ve been experimenting with on my social media platforms. And there’s a reason for that:

Humans are much more likely to retain information that includes images.

Reusing your blog content, by highlighting key info, and its impact:

Highlighting key info in an infographic, or social media image can help drive traffic to your website. Because people will retain a lot more information.

This is one of the most highly recommended means of reusing your blog content. Because it will help you work around the fact that 43% of readers skim blog posts.

And if you’re not sure how to design your own graphics…

And you can’t afford a designer check out my ProBlogger post on image tools for bloggers on a tight budget. I also recommend my post, which features stock image site recommendations.

6) Reuse your blog content to offer value to potential customers and readers

Reusing your blog content to offer value to people can have a conversation rate of 25% to 30%.

Because it gives them a steady stream of free previews of what they could be paying for. And there’s a very important reason why that’s the case.

• One minute you’re teasing them about what they could be getting
• And then, suddenly, they decide to whip out their credit card.

If you’re not convinced that works…

Consider the last time you went into a grocery store and tried a free sample that blew your mind.

Weren’t you at least a little bit tempted to add it to your cart?

That’s exactly what you need to do with your content…

Make sure that people can find your “free samples” on everywhere they’re likely to discover your work; I.E: your social media accounts, your opt-in sequence, in weekly newsletter correspondences, etc.

And then, make it easy for them to learn more with:

• Links to your website
• Info on how to contact you
• Links to social media accounts

If you’re not sure what types of content are attractive to your readers …

Check out my recent podcast episode: “what makes blogging a strategic choice for your business?“

But above all else, I want you to remember this…

There are a lot of different options out there for reusing your blog content. In fact, the ones I’ve included are the ones that have worked for either myself, my clients, or both.

You’ll only find what’s best for you if you’re willing to experimenting with a variety of different options.

And if you have any content repurposing suggestions, that I didn’t mention…

Feel free to share your experiences in the comments section below.

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Please add a comment below if you'd like to discuss this topic. – Rosie