When you’re focused on running a business you don’t always have time to pump out new content. And that’s ok! That’s where taking content you’ve created previously and repackaging it can be super helpful. We all have stuff in the vault that we can clean up and make it shine again.
But, when it comes to repurposing your old content, knowing what to choose can be confusing.
It’s not just a case of finding an old blog you like and then sharing it on social media. You have to choose carefully. Is it relevant to right now, or is it boring? This is easy with evergreen content, but not so much with content that served a purpose for a time but may be outdated now.
Just like celebs may not be able to get away with sharing old tweets (looking at you Shane Gillis, haha), we can’t get by with just sharing old content that didn’t age well.
While that old blog might be full of great stuff, is it the right stuff?
Still, making sure you’re repurposing the content your audience wants isn’t as hard as it seems. When you have a strategy in place, you’ll develop a quick sense of what works and what doesn’t. The problem is having that strategy in the first place and knowing what to look for.
Well, lucky for you, I’ve created a content checklist below that you can use the next time you’re choosing content to repurpose.
Quick Repurpose Checklist
- Goal – Before looking at any of your old content, ask yourself this question: What do you want your content to achieve? For example, do you want to deliver more value by revisiting an old but popular topic? Perhaps you want to educate new customers about a product you sell.
- Audience – A crucial factor to remember is your audience. What’s the biggest issue they’re dealing with right now? Will the content you share speak to that? Your audience will be the people reading the content you share, so it’s vital that they can identify with it.
- Performance – Not all content is created equal. Some of your content was likely more popular than others. Is the content you’re about to repurpose performing well? Did it before? What about it was engaging for your audience?
- Use – What’s the best use for this content? For example, could a blog post perform well if it became a video? Or, perhaps you have a section on your website that you could compile into an infographic to share on social media. Think about elements in the content that would be suitable in other mediums or platforms.
- Message – It’s very important to ensure the content you’re sharing consistently reflects your brand message. Sometimes, older content might contradict this, especially if you’ve refined how you do things. Make sure your brand message stays loud and clear in all of the content you share, or you could risk confusing your audience.
Some usage ideas:
And, here are some quick wins you can get with repurposing old content.
- Take an old blog post, break it up, and repurpose it into four different Instagram reels or TikTok’s.
- Use and old video and create a new blog from the transcript.
- Update a blog that deals with data with the newest information and create an infographic with it.
- Take a blog post with points and create a social media graphic carousel, one image for each point.
- Take three quote worthy headings from an old blog post and turn them into images. Schedule those images to be shared every other day for a week.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to create new content. But sometimes when we are pressed for time, or if we feel some old content is relevant to the here and now, we can repurpose our old gold to gain new followers, new traffic and free up time to focus on other important pieces of our business.
Maybe it’s time to open up your vault, take a peek inside and polish off some of that old content to use this week.