If you ever stumbled upon ”repurposing” and thought it was some kind of arcane marketing gimmick that went viral without warning, it’s time to relax. Before you put on your FOMO cap, you should know that ”repurposing” is just a fancy word for ”recycling” – nothing more, nothing less.
What is repurposing?
Repurposing means transforming a piece of content you already have into a different format. By doing this you reach a wider audience, without having to create it from scratch. You can easily repurpose a blog post into a social media post or vice versa.
I’m already thinking about ideas for a Facebook post, where I’ll simply paste a section from an existing blog post into the tool and get a first draft for the post. Then I can fine-tune it and schedule the post to go live, with the link to the original article in the first comment. Wait a minute! Have I… Have I just repurposed a blog post before even writing it? Before I start making white rabbits disappear, let’s carry on with more insights into repurposing blog content.
Why repurpose blog content?
I can already imagine Simon Sinek (author of the book “Start with Why”) smiling. The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the Why here is that, by repurposing content, you can avoid the daunting tasks of creating new content when you don’t feel like it.
Now, jokes aside, here’s why repurposing content for social media is a good idea:
- Higher reach
Repurposing allows you to showcase your content to a whole new audience through a different channel. Nothing hurts more (except surgery without anesthesia) than working on a piece of content that doesn’t perform as expected. By repurposing content, you prolong its lifespan, making sure it reaches the right crowd through a different, sometimes more suitable channel.
- Efficient resource allocation
Leaving creative block aside, even when you find the right inspiration, creating new content is no easy task. By repurposing, you save both creative and financial resources with little to no impact on content value over time. Plus, you ensure brand consistency and communication across channels, which looks amazing in the eyes of your audience.
- Discover new audience insights
You may be surprised to notice your audience reacts differently across channels. Repurposing content for social media is a quick and easy experiment to uncover new consumer insights and trends you might not be aware of. Similarly, you could discover that the same audience engages with your content differently, especially if you run A/B testing across platforms.
How to repurpose a blog post into a social media post
Repurposing already sounds like easy work. What if I told you it can get even easier? All you have to do is use our free tool. Here’s how:
Pick the social media channel you want to post on.
You can choose any of the following:
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Google My Business
Select your preferred writing style:
- 😂 Humorous: create funny and entertaining posts
- 🌟 Inspirational: craft motivating and uplifting posts
- 📚 Informative: generate educational and factual posts
- 👋 Casual: compose friendly and relaxed posts
- 💼 Formal: write professional and structured posts
- 🙃 Witty: produce clever and quick-witted posts
- 🎉 Enthusiastic: design excited and energetic posts
- 💖 Empathetic: formulate caring and understanding posts
- 💬 Convincing: construct persuasive and compelling posts
- 😛 Teasing: write playful and slightly provocative posts
Select the length
- Shorter: you will get an output of less than half the size of your blog article
- Longer: the output length will be closer to the length of your input
Select the number of variations
You can request 1, 3, or even 5 variations. But don’t worry, the tool is free and you can use it as many times as you like.
Emojis & Hashtags
Pick according to your branding guidelines. Do you want the social media post to contain emojis and hashtags? Just press the toggle button accordingly.
Copy paste the blog post to repurpose
Just bring in the article you’d like to repurpose and hit “generate”. Done. Now that you selected the parameters for your social media posts, let our repurposing generator do the rest. You will receive the posts below and you can always readjust the parameters if you want something different.
Here are 3 repurposing pro tips to consider
Find the right content
The best indicator that your blog article is ready to morph into a new piece of social media content is its continued relevance. Ideally, you want to repurpose evergreen blog content. Updates and reviews on old blog posts are always welcome, but generally speaking, you`re looking for creative ideas that are as fresh today as ever and are likely to age well too.
Think in terms of form and function
After identifying the blog article to start your experiment with, your next task is to consider what you want to achieve with it on social media. Remember, you’re dealing with attention spans shorter than ripped jeans in the 2000s, so grabbing visuals and witty text hooks are paramount. You want to catch the viewers’ attention and make it clear what the content is about in just a glance.
Snackability is key
No matter how suitable your content is in terms of identity, form, and function, your work is in vain if it’s not easily digested by your audience. Bloating is never an option for our fellow scrollers, so don’t be afraid to chop your article into multiple social media content pieces. Another common practice is to extract key insights from articles to create content series that keep your audience engaged over longer periods of time.
Miruna Dragomir, CMO @Planable, ex Social Media Comms Manager @Oracle & ex Marketing Coordinator @Uber. 9 years of experience in social media and marketing. Built Planable’s brand and reputation and helped grow it from 50 customers to over 6.5K. Social media fanatic, tech geek & a sucker for learning.
