How to Repurpose Social Media Content
The one mistake almost every business owner makes when it comes to creating social media content is only using a piece of content one. They do this for one of three reasons:
It never occurs to them they can repurpose content
The content got very little notice or worse,
The content does really well and they feel like they have to find or create the next piece of content that will do just as well.
Repurposing content not only saves you time in creating content, it is the golden rule of any social media campaign. When you have a post that does not perform well it may not be the content at all. It could be the timing. It could be the audience you chose. Or it could be that the content simply needs to be created in a different medium. And a post that does exceptionally well? Boost it and boost it and boost it again until it stops doing well. We have a client who has hundreds of thousands of views on one 30 second video. We have been boosting it for 6 months and it’s still going strong.
Social Media 101: Repurpose Content
How can you repurpose old content in a way that’s still exciting and interesting? No business owner wants to look lazy, and they worry that is the message that comes across when you post the same image or video over and over again.
First let’s consider MacDonald’s. How often do you see the same commercial over and over again. Sometimes it shorter, sometimes it longer but it’s basically the same commercial replayed over and over again. Repetition is good for reinforcing a brand’s message. The same is true for your small business. The more your followers are exposed to you, the better chance you have of establishing yourself firmly in their minds.
Keep in mind that repurposed content cannot be time sensitive. In social media lingo, this is usually described as evergreen content. Evergreen content will be relevant and interesting to your followers no matter when they’re seeing it. So a post about the charities that your business supports every year will always be relevant (as long as you continue to support those charities), but that video of your team members doing the ice bucket challenge for ALS is best left in 2014. There are still some ways to make timely or outdated content into evergreen content, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.
Here are some ways you can give new life to old content that should not be too overwhelming for the already busy entrepreneur.
Change the look or format of the information.
If you have an important announcement or words of wisdom relevant to your followers, you can share it multiple times but we encourage you to repurpose it by creating it in multiple formats. Maybe it’s an inspirational quote from your company’s owner, or maybe it’s just an announcement that you’ll be closed for renovations one week this upcoming spring. Either way, it’s something people can see over and over again, but a fresh look will prevent it from feeling repetitive.
Open up InDesign or Publisher and create an attractive digital graphic. This doesn’t need to take you long — all you need is a colorful background, a photo or clip art, a border, and the text copied and pasted in large, legible letters. Save it as a JPEG and upload it to social media. If this sounds too difficult contact our team. We create digital graphics for small businesses.
Use a different medium.
If you want to be even more creative, you can present the same information via a different medium. Instead of posting text for your followers to read (either directly from a Facebook post or via a link to your website’s blog), try recording a video of you or a team member relaying this information. Different followers respond to different methods of presentation — the ones who want to hear it from a video might have missed it when they had to read it. This can be done via a live video, a promotional video or a professionally produced video.
Solicit user engagement.
If you posted a photo, video or blog post last week that didn’t get as much engagement, try asking for a new perspective on it. For example, maybe you shared a photo of your team attending a local networking event. Despite the fact that you all looked great and it was a rewarding experience for your company, you garnered only a few likes and lukewarm comments.
If you want to share the same pic a few days later, you can repurpose it by asking for feedback from your followers. Share it with the caption, “We’re still thinking about all the great connections we made at last week’s mixer. Did your team have as much fun as we did? Post your photos in the comments below so we can see them!” You could also try polling people by asking, “Were you one of the new friends we made?” Give polling options like, “Yes, it was great to connect” or “No, I hope I catch you next time.”
Go for a #ThrowbackThursday or #InCaseYouMissedIt.
Trends like #ThrowbackThursday and #InCaseYouMissedIt are all about repurposing old content. If the content is fairly recent, you can get away with using #InCaseYouMissedIt, but if it’s older, it will need to be a #ThrowbackThursday.
What are some instances where each would be appropriate? Let’s say it’s a week after Halloween and you are still loving the photos of your staff in costume. Go ahead and re-share the pic with the caption, “#InCaseYouMissedIt, our team had the best costumes this Halloween. Yeah, yeah, Halloween is over and everyone’s now excited for Thanksgiving, but we can’t resist sharing this one again.”
On the other hand, that ALS ice bucket challenge might make a great #ThrowbackThursday as the anniversary of the trend rolls around. Dig into your archives to find the video of your staff doing the challenge and share it with the caption “#ThrowbackThursday to that time six years ago when we were all doing this! Who else remembers? Share you video in the comments”
Repurposing takes some thought and time but it is a faster and more effective way of creating a content calendar that will reach more of your followers.