There’s more social media content than ever. Hit the refresh button once and BOOM—100 new posts to react to. Staying competitive is not easy in today’s fast-paced world. Yet, a hero is flying around, saving hours of anxiety-filled content creation. His name is content repurposing.
You’ve probably heard about it. It’s when you take a piece of content you already made and tweak it. It’s not lazy work—and I’ll tell you why later.
Today we’re talking about a less used, yet powerful content repurposing form: turning social media posts into blog posts. It’s not as common, but it’s rewarding when done right. Let’s dive in and see what content repurposing is, why you should turn social media posts into blog posts, and how to do it like a pro.
What is content repurposing?
Content repurposing means taking a piece of content you already created and transforming it into a new format. For example, turning a social media post into an infographic.
Content repurposing is also known as content recycling or content reusing. These terms are interchangeable, so if you see them scattered throughout this article, just know they mean the same thing.
Some people shy away from this. They believe their content would be repetitive, or even worse, that they’ll be seen as lazy. Yes, posting an article twice with similar, generic captions is lazy. But when you add extra value, you’ll get extra results.
How to repurpose social media posts into blog posts
There’s the harder way, in which you collect all the related social media posts and elaborate on each piece to come up with a new one. Or the easier way, simply copy and paste the posts into the repurposing generator and a blog piece is automatically generated for you.
1. Pick the blog post type from the dropdown, depending on your goal
- Actionable: Perfect for turning your advice and how-to social posts into valuable, easy-to-apply content about achieving a goal or solving a problem.
- Inspiring: Uplift your readers by sharing success stories, personal experiences, or motivational quotes. Great for fostering positive engagement.
- Introspective: Use this format if you want to encourage deep thinking and self-reflection. Urge your audience to explore personal growth and learn lessons from your social posts.
- Promotional: Best for highlighting products, services, or special offers in a persuasive tone. Ideal if the main goal of your blog posts is driving conversions.
2. 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
3. Select the length
- Shorter: you will get a blog article of about 400-600 words
- Longer: you will get a blog article of about 800-1000 words
4. 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.
Why repurpose social media posts into blog posts?
For starters, repurposing content is a great way to fight against writer’s block. Nobody wakes up inspired to write 10 new articles with 10 new topics every single day. But the benefits stretch beyond convenience.
- Higher reach – go beyond your bubble
Here’s the deal: your Instagram or LinkedIn post will be seen by your followers or people scrolling through hashtags (that is if they’re lucky enough to bump into your post). On the other hand, posting on your website will open the doors to the whole world wide web (phew, that was a mouthful!). Anyone with internet access can read it, even if they’ve never heard of you before.
- SEO benefits – play the long game
Everything you post on your social media feed is gone in a flash. If you’re in business for the long game, you should document all the relevant content pieces on your blog. Because over time, as more people search for topics you cover, your blog will continue to attract traffic (long after your social media post has faded into obscurity).
- Added value – more context, more details, more you
There’s only so much you can communicate about your business through a social media post. And that’s ok since most users’ attention span is so low. However, let’s not ignore that core audience of passionate people who truly want to dive deep into the subjects you’re sharing. If you’re lucky enough to have such people in your audience, treat them with value-packed blog articles, even if they’re not that many. They deserve it!
- Increased engagement – slow down to dive deep
Let’s be real, social media is the fast food of the digital world. Quick dopamine dominates everyone’s feed and it’s hard to stay focused on a piece of content for longer than a few minutes (at best). This makes sense since many of us open social media to decompress. The intent behind opening a blog article, however, is different. When we find what seems to be amazing content on a blog we are ready to commit more time and focus compared to what our social media feeds serve us.
- Content longevity – make it last
The average lifespan of a tweet is just 18 minutes. Instagram posts might stick around for a few days, but even then, their impact diminishes quickly. Contrast that with a blog post, which can remain relevant and continue to drive traffic for months or even years if it’s truly useful. Repurposing your social media content into a blog post gives it a second life. Hopefully a longer one. Long live your blog article!
5 pro tips for content creators to consider when repurposing social media posts into blog articles
Re-engage with your audience
Repurposing isn’t just about reusing content — it’s also about engaging your audience in new ways. Encourage readers to comment on your blog posts, share them on social media, and ask questions. Sure, some of the people who are interacting with your repurposed piece of content already saw the older ones you took inspiration from. This is not an issue. You can turn it to your advantage by asking your audience what new information they would like to see in the future. By following their curiosities you make sure your content will not get boring for them. This interaction can give you new ideas for future content.
Experiment with different formats
Don’t feel limited to just text-based blog posts. Try transforming your social media content into different formats like podcasts, videos, or infographics. A Backlinko Study found that at least 97% of articles that rank on the first page of Google contain at least one image. So you can reuse those pretty Instagram carousel images on your blog too. Include that successful TikTok somewhere along the article, why not? Link your YouTube podcast into it. The possibilities are endless (well, not really endless, but as long as you have multiple social media platforms where you constantly post, there might be a few “purple cows” to milk).
Make repurposing a recurring practice in your content creation strategy
Finally, make content repurposing a regular part of your content strategy. While you shouldn’t stop brainstorming for new blog ideas, you also shouldn’t ignore the social media content you worked so hard on as a potential source of inspiration.
The more you practice repurposing, the more value you’ll get from every piece of content you create.
Make sure it’s evergreen content
When you’re turning social media posts into blog content, try to focus on evergreen material—stuff that’s always going to be useful and relevant. This kind of content can be repurposed and shared across different platforms over and over again, so it’s a real time-saver in the long run.
But if you don’t have much evergreen content in your social media posts, don’t worry! You can still make it work by updating older posts to fit the current context. Just refresh the stats, tweak anything that’s outdated, and give it a fresh spin. It’s a bit more work, but it’s worth it when you don’t have any evergreen content to pull from. If you find yourself lacking evergreen content, it might be a good time to think about adding more of it to your future plans.
And hey, while you’re at it, don’t forget that you can flip this strategy around—repurpose your blog articles into social media posts too! It’s a great way to get more mileage out of your content.
Expand on the existing social media content
It’s easier to write a blog article when you already have a few key takeaways and stats readily available. According to Wix, the ideal blog post length is between 1,500 – 2,500 words from an SEO standpoint. Having some materials (written or visual) already on social media will save you some time. Add details, recent stats, graphs, or examples to your content. This should feel like a treasure trove for the audience who clicked on your blog post because of the need to dive deeper into the subject.
How much can I repurpose vs create new?
There are multiple ways to go about repurposing blog posts out of social media posts. You can either bundle a few bits of content you shared on social media platforms (if they’re related and make sense together) or build new content on top of one idea conveyed in the social media post.
Again, it needs to make sense – so do this for posts where there’s much more to be said, otherwise, you’re only saying in 1,500 – 2,500 words what could be said in a 280-character tweet. Happy repurposing! Some people invest a lot of resources into their social media pages but then realize they neglected the blog section of their blog. Now that you found out about the Planable repurposing generator there’s no reason not to use your very own social media posts to craft timeless blog posts.
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.
