Stop making content repurposing an afterthought
Get more mileage out of your content without boring yourself (and your audience) to death by regurgitating what's already inside the original content piece
👋 Hey, Aarushi here! Welcome to this week’s edition of my newsletter. Each week I share practical frameworks, processes, mindset shifts, and anything else needed to become a better marketer. Join 600+ marketers from companies like OpenPhone, Klaviyo, Recart (and many more) and get a weekly in-depth essay around modern marketing topics.
Plug your long form content (think blog, podcast, or newsletter like this one) into an AI tool, select the different assets you want it chopped into, and press “Start.” The AI tool will then spit out your long form content asset chopped up into 10s of different smaller assets.
That’s it. You’ve got your “repurposed content” right there.
The end.
Thank you for reading this edition.
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Well, not really.
The biggest misconception with repurposing is you simply need to “rephrase” a long form asset and chop it up for a 100 different platforms and channels. That’s what marketers have been told the definition of repurposing is.
“If you’re not repurposing your content into smaller, more digestible chunks as a marketer, you won’t get as much traction” — we’ve heard this over and over in the last few years.
And by emphasizing on “volume”, the process of repurposing itself feels like we’re on an eternal content hamster wheel that’s supposed to churn out as many “assets” as “quickly” as possible. Because of how mundane and robotic this process is, marketers generally don’t enjoy it and can often discourage them before they even get started.
Cambridge Dictionary defines repurposing as “to find a new use for an idea, product, or building.” Related idioms include “go heavy on something”, “make capital out of something”, and “mine a rich seam of something”.
Notice how each idiom, synonym, and the very core definition of repurposing emphasizes on making “better use” of something than originally intended.
But, figuring out a repeatable process that you can follow for every content asset and identifying the right tools that help reduce the workload can often feel like a full-time job. That’s because (surprise surprise) it is.
Content repurposing requires us, marketers, to think of it as individual mini-campaign launches that need a fresh angle, a new strategy, and a distribution matrix.
Good news: By talking to so many marketers in communities, on LinkedIn, one-on-one, and combining my own practices for repurposing, I’ve developed lots of ideas, opinions, and a framework on how marketers can repurpose content the right way, without sounding repetitive, while still pointing towards the same goal as originally intended in your source content piece (the one you plan to repurpose).
Let’s get right to it.
*Traction refers to the measure of a campaign’s progress and momentum in terms of gaining customer interest, user engagement, market demand, and revenue generation.
How to repurpose your content
Strategy 1: Contract or expand on the original idea
The easiest way to repurpose your content is by contracting or expanding your original idea.
As marketers, we’re obligated to particular word counts and content lengths depending on the content destination because we need to drive engagement and interest from our audience. In plain words, we end up working around limitations when we create the original piece for a specific platform.
Let’s take this newsletter as an example. I’m sharing 4 strategies to repurpose your content, but that doesn’t mean I only have *four*. I could have written at least 6 more. If I do that:
This could end up becoming a 26 min read, one that consumes your entire lunch time or “leisure” reading time
If you already know 3 strategies out of 10, you might not stick around to read the rest of them
I risk diluting the value, hurting my engagement, and turning this into a mammoth of a guide versus a weekly newsletter (what you expect it to be).
But when I repurpose this newsletter for other platforms like LinkedIn, I could:
Add more (new) strategies and turn it into a quick checklist for my audience
Design a roadmap with all (new) strategies, write an overview of how to repurpose content the right way, and direct them to this newsletter to learn five more
Do a super meta thing — repurpose this newsletter about repurposing so you know exactly how to do it right, tools you need to use, etcetera.
You need to build your own playbook and not follow the same ol’ frameworks that are widely regurgitated on social media platforms. Once you figure the core plan out, I’m all in for using AI tools to improve publishing velocity and reduce manual workload.
Until you do, keep experimenting and see what sticks most with your audience. Once you’ve done this process multiple times, you’ll know how your audience engages with your repurposed content, what were the biggest levers that drove the highest engagement, and what’s “feasible” resource wise to repeat.
Strategy 2: Use storytelling as a medium to resonate better
Think of your core asset as the script of a movie. Break it down into social media threads that act as teaser trailers or snippets that pull your audience closer to the original piece. Each post becomes a scene, building anticipation and curiosity. Just as a movie leaves the audience eagerly awaiting the next plot twist, your social media story posts keep followers engaged, eager to discover the unfolding story with each new piece of information.
For example, when I repurpose this newsletter, I will be adding in my personal experiences of content repurposing. This would include:
How I drove 220K+ impressions and garnered 92K engagements for a B2B report I did for one of my previous clients
How I got buy-in to label repurposing as a separate marketing project than a sub-project
Examples of the best marketing repurposed content I’ve seen over the past few months
When you imbibe your personal experiences and build a narrative that sets the foundation for your core content, people resonate better. They can see themselves through your lens or vice versa. Both are exceptionally a great way to start.
Marc Thomas, Senior Growth Marketer at Podia, recently shared about repurposing in a community we’re both part of, and I couldn’t agree more.
Expanding on Marc’s ideas here, when you’re extracting a guest’s quotes and find one that clicks with you immediately, reminds you of the time you followed a similar approach or made a similar mistake and corrected it in your “own way”, bring that experience to life on social media platforms.
Share the guest’s quote, but go the extra mile by blending in your personal experiences that supplement or complement the quote and draw in the user to further listen to your show.
This approach transforms passive consumption into active exploration, much like viewers immersing themselves in the movies.
Strategy 3: Create JBTD/outcome oriented assets that function as “plug and play” solutions
Whenever Sony launches a new PlayStation, they offer an extensive range of accessories and peripherals that enhance the gaming experience. These include controllers, headsets, VR accessories, and more. From its DualSense controller providing haptic feedback and adaptive triggers to the VR headset that allows players to experience virtual reality gaming, Sony nails it every single time.
In marketing, you can create job-to-be-done assets that work as plug and play solutions for your core content, elevating your users’ experience and immediately providing them value.
If you have a report you want to distribute, you could create:
A Notion database sharing examples or swipe files that your audience can share immediately with their internal team
Automations that connect with your audience’s software in one-click or the very least, give inspiration to build fresh automations
Personalized Miro or Figma boards with fillable blocks so your audience can adapt it to their use-case
Two great examples who are nailing this type of repurposing are Lashay Lewis, Founder of Authority Plug and Anthony Pierri, Co-Founder of Fletch. They have productivized their marketing agencies through JBTD assets. Their clients can now simply purchase their plug and play solutions, customize them, and use them instantly.
And in marketing, there’s no bigger win than getting your customers closer to their goals as fast as possible. And as marketers, there’s no better way to do this than creating JBTD assets, minimizing workload on yourself while still driving home value for your audience and building stronger relationships.
Strategy 4: Online whiteboard sessions
Take out one simple idea from your core content piece and illustrate it better in a whiteboard session on LinkedIn.
If you’re an early stage startup, let your founder do this. If you’re an SMB, let the captain of the core content do this.
People love learning from people. That’s why courses, masterclasses, and webinars do incredibly well (ofc when done right). Content creators don’t just create an asset, share the URL, and wait for the traction to kick in. They put in their best foot forward by turning their core idea and value proposition into more interactive sessions by creating live/on-demand courses like Jay Clouse, Founder of Creator Science, or an email series like Katelyn Bourgoin, Co-Founder of Un-ignorable.
3 ways to maximize your whiteboard sessions’ reach on social media:
Ask your friends and colleagues to engage
Send it via LinkedIn DMs to your connections
Share it in your newsletter (or plug it into a relevant blog)
While each of the above repurposing tactic isn’t as straightforward as plugging your content into an AI tool and immediately getting it into 100 different formats, each one of them is worth the time and energy.
Instead of using AI as your idea generator and critical thinker, use it as an assistant that knows aspect ratios for different social media platforms, automatically silences & the awkward “ums, ah, yeahhhhh”, and converts text into a tabular format. Let it do the boring (time taking) work while you focus your energy on making this next piece of repurposed content asset your most relatable one.
Best AI tools for helping you repurpose content
Before writing this newsletter, I asked in communities, on my LinkedIn, and Twitter about their go-to repurposing tool. Following are the top 6 tools that marketers are using globally:
Riverside: for AI generated social media friendly video clips
OpusPro: for AI generated video clips
Descript: for manually generating video clips
ChatGPT (paid): for converting text into different formats like checklists, tables, summaries, etcetera
VEED: for turning one video content into another format with AI editing tools for quick fixes
SummarAIze: for converting audio/video into text based formats
PS: None of these are sponsored tools. They were selected based on budget, use-cases, and popularity amongst marketers.
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Next Week: How to build a use-case repository
See you next week! Until then, have a great and fulfilling week 🙏
Sincerely,
Aarushi 👋