Repurposing Content: 15 Specific and Popular Methods

One of the big challenges with content marketing and blogging is the continual need to create content. Depending on the size of your company, or your schedule as a solo creator, consistent content creation can take a significant amount of time. When you’re busy, it can seem challenging to keep up with demand.

For many of us, a major solution to the need for a content drip is evergreen content. In addition, content curation goes a long way to help ensure that our followers and sales leads always have something to look at Fortunately, both of these options are relatively easy to manage, especially by using automated tools. However, there’s another option that fewer people think about: repurposing content. Let’s take a look at what repurposing is, and how to do it for different original content types.

What is Content Repurposing?

Repurposing content is the practice of taking one type of content and turning it into something else. Then, the new content typically is posted on social media or used for other purposes, such as lead magnets. Repurposing can involve the same family of content types (such as turning a blog post into a book or article) or shift from one type to another (for example, turning a book into a screenplay). Generally speaking, this practice helps content creators and marketers “stretch” their efforts and increase ROI.

Repurposing Blog Content

As a blogger, I can’t resist talking about this type of repurposing content before the others. One of the drawbacks of blogging is that it takes a lot of time to plan and create each post. However, blogs are easy to repurpose into other content types, and also have a wide variety of distribution channels. In addition, many people would be surprised to find out how many things they read are either blogs or derived from blog posts. Let’s look at repurposing options.

1. Update and republish old blog posts with new information

One of the things that I do regularly is review my blog content. As part of that process, I look for posts that need some help. In particular, updating posts with new information or current SEO techniques helps your posts gain new traffic. Remember, no matter what kind of blog you’re running, other content creators want to displace you on search engine results. For that reason, the battle for SEO dominance is constant. Plus, by updating your content, you’ll give followers an opportunity to revisit your website. Both benefits result in additional sales leads and traffic/impression opportunities.

Luckily, although you will still have a blog post after using this method of repurposing content, it’s relatively easy to do. For one thing, if something in your post is still accurate or current, there’s no reason to change it. For another, minor keyword tweaks are usually simple. Plus, you get the opportunity to demonstrate you’re still at the forefront of your niche.

2. Design infographics from blog content

An even easier method of repurposing content is turning the content into infographics. Here, you’ll take a graphics editing software, such as Canva, and make a visual with it. Usually, infographics are a collection of words and simple images that illustrate a point. A highly effective way to frame infographics is by taking the main points of your blog post and highlighting them in the graphic.

Further Reading: The Seven Different Types of Infographics and When to Use Them

3. Design images from blog content

Similar to infographics but these are now short-form visuals. Visualize your blog content by creating images about main points and statistics that you can embed in your post or be used as standalone visual posts on social media. For example, I might mention the amount of ROI you can achieve on a particular marketing modality. Alternately, a travel blogger might design a graphic around their favorite airport lounge. Either way, the rest of the social media posts should encourage people to visit the original blog post.

Here’s the bonus: by visualizing something from a blog post, you can make it more inviting. My travel blogger, for instance, can talk all day about how roomy the lounge is. But a picture of him relaxing in an easy chair there can really drive that point home. Then, his followers might feel compelled to read the rest of his review.

Further Reading: How to Create Stunning Infographics for Social Media in Minutes

4. Turn blog content into an eBook (guide, how-to, etc.)

Going the other direction from graphics, another method of repurposing content is writing a different kind of content from the original blog. For instance, you’ll see that I have some lead magnet booklets on my site that require you to subscribe to my emails. In addition, whitepapers are an extremely popular tool in B2B marketing that often grow out of corporate blog posts. Each of these repurposing examples lets creators get more of the benefits of content marketing than a one-off blog post.

How can you accomplish this? Simply put, by expanding on each of the major points of your blog. For instance, I could write a whole section on how to create an infographic, while I only mentioned what an infographic is above. Then, I’d write a section on the specifics of image creation. After a while, there’d be a significant guide on repurposing content.

5. Turn blog posts into podcast episodes

There’s little question that podcasts are very popular. So much so, in fact, that the podcast market has exploded over the last few years and there are many chances to monetize an episode. People can take podcasts into places where blogs don’t belong, such as the gym or a commuter train. Plus, a lot of us learn better if we hear something than if we read it, to the extent that podcasts are assuming a role in education.

How does this method of repurposing content work? Well, you don’t want to read the blog post and call it an episode. You’ll want to add to it a bit and make the episode engaging. But again, this requires relatively little additional effort. In addition, podcasting adds another avenue for content distribution, through podcasting platforms. 

6. Use blog content to create videos

Similar to podcasting, you can turn blog posts into videos. In this case, you take the main points of your blog and turn them into points for your video. You don’t have to add all the extra information. In fact, if you arrange the info a bit differently, you can make it more interesting for people who like both your blog AND your video channels like YouTube or IGTV. 

Here’s where it gets complicated, though. On YouTube, you don’t have a length limit. In this case, you can easily cover the same set of material that you do in the blog. For IGTV, YT Shorts, and TikTok, though, there are stricter limits. Here, you might choose one point of your blog post to talk about. Or, summarize the ideas of the post in your video, and encourage people to read the blog. It’s a great method of repurposing content.

7. Create multiple blog posts from one

If you’re like me, there are plenty of blog posts that can afford to be “broken down” into small pieces. For instance, I have several “complete guide” posts that cover a lot of material in a short article. It would be relatively easy for me to take one of those sections, break it off, and expand it a bit into smaller blog posts. Then, they could be a series that’s posted over a couple of weeks or months. This is essentially the opposite approach to turning a blog post into a whitepaper or e-book.

8. Turn blog posts into an email series

Want to combine blogging with the benefits of email marketing? Especially if you use blog posts for customer education, you can easily use those posts as promotional emails. For instance, I could make an email series about ways to repurpose blog posts from this one. Each email would cover a different “product” of those blog posts. This approach is advantageous because you only need to make minimal changes to the text of each section. Or, you can take the ideas and restate them, depending on your needs.

9. Repurpose blog posts for guest blogging

I often talk about the benefits of guest blogging. For instance, guest bloggers get to share their audience with their host, and vice versa. But one thing that isn’t always clear is the extent to which you can use this as a mechanism for repurposing content. While you obviously can’t plagiarize your own post, you can definitely use the same ideas over again. For instance, my guest posts are much shorter than the features on my blog, so I can easily shorten and reword an existing post.

10. Reuse your blog content to answer questions on Quora (or to ask them)

Finally, Quora is excellent for repurposing content. If you aren’t familiar, Quora is a place where people ask questions and receive answers. While many of the questions asked are “just for fun,” there are a lot of content creators who share their professional expertise. You can easily turn material from your blog posts into great answers to people’s questions. Alternatively, you might turn the basic premise of a post into a question to see what other people say (For example, “Is repurposing content a good way to increase marketing ROI?”). Best of all, you can monetize your Quora content.

Repurposing Video Content

Naturally, blog posts aren’t the only type of content that you can repurpose. Almost every kind of video can be turned into different types of content and thereby reach a larger audience than you have for video alone. This is especially useful because although podcasts are easy to “carry” on a portable device, and blog posts can quickly load onto mobile devices or laptops alike, video has a much more limited number of places it can be consumed. By repurposing content of this type, you make it more accessible.

11. Repurpose webinars into multiple pieces of video content

Let’s be honest: webinars have been very popular during the pandemic. However, with all of the extra webinars going on, it’s great for people to be able to only watch what they need. If you break the webinar into several sections, you can make it easier for people to hear what you have to say. In addition, you can edit out useless segments that most people won’t want to say.

12. Repurpose a webinar into blog content

Alternatively, you can turn a webinar into one or more blog posts. The easiest way to do this is by transcribing the webinar through a service such as Rev. Then, you can use quotations from the webinar, turn it into an interview-type format, or simply repeat the information. Here, the main concern is to not make the blog post too long. If the webinar was lengthy, you can summarize information or make a series of blog posts.

13. Repurpose your webinar into a podcast episode

Webinars and podcasts have one thing in common: audio. The easiest method of repurposing content like this is to take the audio track and edit it. Take out the awkward pauses, the computer noises, and the interruptions. Then, add your branding and formatting to make an easy podcast episode. All you need is access to an audio editing application, many of which are free or cheap.

Repurposing Your Internal Content

Finally, let’s talk about repurposing content you’ve gathered independently of content creation or marketing plan. In particular, there are lots of internal analytics, customer testimonials, and even survey information that can help you make an impression on existing and potential customers.

14. Turn internal data into publishable case studies

Many B2B brands have internal data that demonstrates the effectiveness of their products and services. For instance, a marketing agency can tell you how much they have increased sales and achieved ROI for their clients. Or, a medical device firm can show the difference in diagnostic accuracy, operational efficiency, or ease of use with their products. It’s easy to turn this information into case studies by anonymizing the data, stating the customer’s problem, and demonstrating your results.

15. Convert testimonials from your customers into content

Finally, a great option for all kinds of companies is leveraging the power of testimonials. Customer testimonials come from many different sources, including product reviews and client interviews. Short testimonials in particular are great for creating graphics and posting on Instagram. Or, you could frame the testimonial in context, for example, of services performed. Emails are a great way to use the second technique. When you think about it, so long as you have the customer’s permission the possibilities are endless.

Once you have a body of content, it’s easy to turn it into something else. Not only does it save time and money, but repurposing content is an excellent way to open your brand story up to audiences that would otherwise be impossible. Additionally, some opportunities such as guest blogging and turning webinars into podcasts can present an opportunity to tell the same stories in different, yet compelling, ways. There’s no reason to use all your content only once and then discard it.

Looking for some more content marketing advice? Check out these posts:

• 15 Creative and Killer Content Marketing Ideas (with examples)
• 37 Useful Content Marketing Tools for All of Your Content Needs
• 8 Examples of What Qualifies As Evergreen Content – and 10 Examples of What Doesn’t
• These are the 23 Types of Content Marketing Your Business Needs to Know About
• 11 Content Marketing Examples You Can Learn From

Hero photo by Sigmund on Unsplash