If you blog consistently, you put a ton of work into researching topics, drafting articles, finding images, and publishing your masterpieces. It takes time, right? Time that you could spend on 100 other things. So what should you do? Well, you could let blogging be a huge time suck or stop doing it altogether. Or you could learn how to get more mileage out of your blogging by learning how to repurpose blog posts.
Looking for tools that can help you save time while blogging?
Download our resource list of 24 time-saving blogging tools.
Why should you repurpose blog posts?
There are lots of benefits of repurposing your blog posts. Here are just a few of them:
- Reach different people: Not everyone wants to read a blog post. When you repurpose blog posts by turning them into a different format, you can get traffic from segments of your audience who like to consume content in other ways.
- Reduce the amount of content you need to produce: Repurposing lets you cut down on the amount of new content you need to produce. Instead of producing eight posts on eight new topics each month, you can write posts on four new topics and base content for the other four on repurposed posts.
- Build your SEO juice: By producing multiple pieces of content that target the same keyword, you can boost the relationship that Google sees between your brand and a particular keyword. Hello, rankings!
9 strategies for repurposing blog posts
Okay, so now you know why it’s a good idea to repurpose blog posts. But how do you actually do it? Check out these 9 ideas:
1. Create guides or ebooks
Do you have a set of blog posts on the same topic (e.g., how to file your taxes)? Don’t let them get lonely on your blog. Put them together as a package to create one comprehensive guide or ebook.
When you repurpose blog posts this way, you create a single go-to resource that people can use to learn all the key points about a topic. You don’t even necessarily have to add any new content. Just copy and paste the text into a document and add some good eye candy to spruce it up.
Because your guide or ebook will contain more value than a single post, you can use it as an opt-in incentive to build your email list or even turn it into a new revenue stream.
2. Record a podcast
Some people like listening to information instead of just reading it. If you don’t believe us, just think about how popular podcasts and audio books are these days. People can listen to podcasts while driving, walking, or doing laundry. So they’re a great fit for your fans’ busy lives.
Don’t get scared by the thought that you need a professional recording studio to repurpose blog posts into podcast episodes. Record your blog post (or a more conversational version of it) yourself using a microphone. And if you can’t stand the sound of your voice or don’t have time to record posts on your own, hire a freelance voiceover talent to do it for you.
3. Create a video
In our recent post on blogging trends to leverage this year, we mentioned that video content on blogs is only going to get more popular. That’s why another great way to repurpose blog posts is to turn them into videos.
When you turn a blog post into a video, you may want to cut down on the content you present to keep things brief. You can do this by identifying the key points in your post and choosing the best ones to talk about in your video.
Like with podcasts, you don’t need professional equipment to create awesome video content for your blog. Grab a smartphone tripod, find some natural light, and get that camera rolling!
4. Make a slide deck
This may seem old school, but many people still have a lot of love for slide decks. That’s why turning your blog content into a slide deck is another great way to repurpose blog posts.
When transforming your post into a deck, give each main point in your post its own slide. Then add slides for an introduction and conclusion and incorporate some graphics. You can share your deck on your own blog or upload it to SlideShare. SlideShare has a strong following, so you can reach new people just by sharing decks on the platform.
5. Make an infographic
Have a post with different pieces of info or stats? Think about turning it into an infographic. Infographics are a great way to graphically share information with people, especially in easy-to-digest chunks. They also get good engagement on social media, so they can be a great way to repurpose blog posts if you’ve got a following on one of the major platforms.
If you have a how-to blog post, you can also think about creating an instructographic. Instructographics are just like infographics except the information they contain is a set of instructions on how to do something. Instructographics are particularly popular on Pinterest, so they can be a great option for brands on this platform.
Create your own infographics and instructographics using programs like Piktochart and Visually, or hire a graphic designer to do the heavy lifting for you.
Looking for tools that can help you save time while blogging?
Download our resource list of 24 time-saving blogging tools.
6. Produce a live video
Want to harness the power of video and social media to promote your blog? Repurpose blog posts by turning them into Periscope or Facebook Live broadcasts.
We’re betting that a lot of you have never done a live broadcast because you can’t figure out what on Earth you’d say. This is where your blog posts come in: use your blog posts as the foundation for what you’ll talk about in a broadcast. They’ll give you a starting point for your conversation so that you have value to share with your tribe live.
7. Hold a webinar
Want to take things up a notch by holding a more comprehensive live event, one that could help you showcase your expertise and pitch your products or services too? Repurpose blog posts by turning them into a webinar.
Webinars let you interact with your audience while walking them through a concept or process. So even if some of your fans have already seen a few of your most popular blog posts, there’s no reason to think they won’t want to catch your webinar too.
You can repurpose blog posts into webinars by turning the key points from a post into an outline and fleshing out each one. Alternatively, if you have a series of related posts, you can pull content from each of them to round out your webinar deck.
8. Create an email course
Another way to get more mileage out of related blog posts is to package them into an email course. This is just like publishing a series of posts on your blog except that the posts get dripped out to participants one by one in a series of emails.
Email courses are a great way to build your email list by offering people a spot in your email course in exchange for their email address. And because they’re typically free, using blog posts you’ve already written to create the content for your course can help you optimize the benefits you get from offering them.
Like webinars, email courses can also create great opportunities to pitch paid products and services.
9. Develop online courses
Have you been wanting to create a paid online course but don’t know where you’ll find the time to put it together? Use your blog posts as a starting point. Although the content in your course can’t just be a repeat of the info you’ve published in your blog posts, you can repurpose blog posts to create an outline or a portion of the content for your course.
Online courses can be a great way to repurpose blog posts by expanding on the key points you mention in them. After all, blog posts usually give people an idea about something they can do or a high-level overview of how to do it. But they usually don’t get people all the way to the finish line. This is where an online course comes in. You can use your original blog posts to get people interested and excited about a topic and offer a paid online course as the next step to master it.
Repurpose blog posts to work smarter
We all want to build our tribes while spending less time on creating original content. That’s why repurposing comes in handy. When you repurpose blog posts, you can work smarter by getting more mileage out of the content you’ve already created.
But that’s not all. Repurposing also lets you reach more people by leveraging different preferences people have for consuming content and offering multiple opportunities for people to learn about a topic. So if you want to provide more value to people while generating more leads and spending less time on content creation, repurposing is a no-brainer.
Looking for tools that can help you save time while blogging?
Download our resource list of 24 time-saving blogging tools.
