9 Ways to Repurpose Your Blog Content & Supercharge Your Top Performing Posts

9 Ways to Repurpose Your Blog Content & Supercharge Your Top Performing Posts

Have you ever heard the expression “content is king”? It originated from a 1996 article published by Bill Gates. It was written when the internet was still in its infancy. Still, the central premise was this: content – broadly defined as material informational or entertaining – will become the primary driver of the internet. And much of what he forecasted in that early essay has come true.

But anyone who’s been tasked with creating content knows it’s challenging work. It’s hardly as simple as publishing a blog post and hoping for the best. Successful content marketing on today’s internet requires strategy and research. Frequent posting on the right channels at the correct times. Understanding what your audience is looking for and creating more of it. The good news is that once you’ve done the hard part and created a long-form blog post? You can repurpose your blog content for social media or other mediums and get more mileage.

Today we’re exploring why you might repurpose your blog content, how to choose your blog posts, and sharing nine ideas for new formats for your repurposed content. Let’s get into it.

Why repurpose blog content?

If you’re reading this article, you probably already understand there’s some value in repurposing your blog content for social media or other channels. But is it really worth the effort? Here’s a look at why it is.

Repurposing blog content helps grow your reach. Creating unique content for your blog, YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., can be a lot of work. Why reinvent the wheel when you already have perfectly good content that you can repurpose and update to grow your reach?

Expanding the reach of a piece of content is the most compelling reason to repurpose your blog content. Repurposing your blog content for other channels can reach people who aren’t necessarily relying on blog posts to get information. The prospective audience that comes through organic search may be searching for a topic, but there’s significant value in appearing on a social media feed. People might be interested in what you’re sharing but be at a stage where they aren’t yet seeking it out.

An added bonus? Most platforms prefer native content – content hosted on their platform rather than content that will drive readers to click and navigate away from their site.

Repurposing blog content saves time. Another key benefit to repurposing your blog content is that it saves you time. The time it takes to cut a blog post into a short video series for Instagram or republish it as an article on LinkedIn is significantly less than the time required to do it from scratch. You’ve already done the research, so why not make the most of it?

Repurposing blog content helps you adapt. Repurposing your blog content could be as simple as updating an old post with timely information or turning top-performing blog content into a webinar that you use as a lead magnet for your business. By responding to what people want – and what form they wish to receive it – you make yourself more adaptable and timely with your content. There’s an ever-churning mill of new content being created every day! By keeping your content fresh and relevant, you help yourself stay competitive.

Repurposing blog content can give you an SEO boost. While SEO is a complicated topic, experts agree that ranking on a particular keyword with several pieces of content helps position you as a subject matter expert. You might find opportunities to expand with related articles when you notice a specific blog post performs well. For example, at Teamly, we have a piece on how to engage remote employees that addresses topics like remote-first tech, remote onboarding, and creating a remote-first culture. Each area could be grounds for a more detailed blog post as we position ourselves as an expert in remote work!

The same applies to repurposing content into different formats. Your social performance and links back to your website all contribute to your website’s authority. By splicing your popular content into videos, infographics, photos, etc., for different platforms, you’ll get an SEO boost.

How to choose blog posts to repurpose

Not every blog post is worth repurposing! While almost every blog post could benefit from a little refresh – updated keywords or relevancy – some blog posts will help maximize your efforts. Here are some things to keep in mind when deciding.

• Choose blog posts that are interesting, relevant, and useful. We all have a few skeletons on our blog from the early days, but most of your Content should be interesting, relevant, and/or useful Content that’s not particularly strong in any of these areas. Either rewrite or redirect it. Choose your most interesting or popular posts when choosing what to repurpose.
• Evergreen Content is best. When it comes to repurposing blog content, evergreen Content is best. “Evergreen content” refers to Content that remains useful and relevant throughout the seasons and years. For example, a blog post about a one-off event is not evergreen, while a how-to article might have value year around.
• Trending topics can also work. Alternatively, trending topics or upcoming events can be an excellent way to get on a bump in search volume, hashtags, etc. If you have a post about an annual event or a holiday, take the opportunity to refresh it ahead of time with fresh information.
• Find out which posts are performing well, and repurpose those. Someone smart about business lets their audience decide what they’re interested in. Not sure what blog content to repurpose? Let the numbers decide. You can use tools like Google Analytics (for web traffic) or BuzzSumo (for social performance) for some metrics on specific pieces of content. Which ones are doing best? It might not always be the content you expect. With the data in your corner, repurpose the content that will impact your brand most.

How to repurpose blog content for social media

Now, let’s explore the “how” of repurposing blog content.

Before anything else, it helps to get clear on your immediate goals for the project. Are you hoping for more traffic? More leads? To grow your following on a particular channel? Once your goals are clear, you can make better decisions about achieving them.

You’ll also want to get a clear understanding of who your target audience for the repurposed content is. What mediums do they prefer, and what channels do they use? Build your content with the client in mind for repurposed content that delivers a higher impact.

Below are nine ideas about how to repurpose your blog content.

Videos. Video is more important than ever for marketers. While long form content and still images still work for some content, video is the dominant medium. You might consider making video for video-only platforms like YouTube or Vimeo, but there are also several social platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, among others – where video content performs best. Why? Because reading takes attention, while video has the power of visualizing or simplifying complicated topics. This is particularly true for tutorials or other resource content.

Repurposing your blog into a video takes more than just reiterating the post. Take some key points and make a highlights video. Go into depth on a particular topic. And when you’re done, you’ll not only have a new piece of content, but you’ll be able to update the blog post with fresh, visual content to support your key message.

Blogging sites. A company blog might be a great way to generate traffic to your website, but a regular readership takes more work. Company blogs often have one-time visitors, while platforms like Medium or LinkedIn – where readers can access content from different authors – benefit from built-in readership and ease of subscription.

If your article get claps or curated on one of these platforms, you might reach a whole new audience entirely. And since the content is “syndicated,” not “duplicate,” you won’t be punished for reposting your content on another site in the eyes of Google.

Guest post for another blog. Guest posting is a common way for bloggers to gain backlinks. The trade is this: you create quality content, free of charge or at an agreed upon rate. They get quality content for their site without the effort. In exchange, your article with links back to your website for greater credibility for search engines.

When repurposing blog content to create a guest post for another blog, you’ll want to change the topic enough not to compete with your own blog post and not get penalized for duplicate content. So rather than writing the same article, extrapolate. Use your original article as the base of an idea, and expand from there.

Podcast. Lots of businesses are jumping onto podcasts as a marketing tool. Podcasts are personality-driven, long-form, and a great way to connect with people deeply.

There’s a fair amount of technical setup in starting a podcast – choosing a platform, sound equipment, etc. Still, you can begin more straightforwardly by creating an audio accompaniment to your blog post. To take it a step further and repurpose your blog post into a podcast, you’ll want to consider things like: What’s the angle? Who’s hosting? How does this connect to greater business goals?

The key to being successful with a podcast is staying consistent, so if you go this road, start with a series that you’ll release so that interested listeners have more to explore. Podcasts tend to be less instructional and more personality-driven than other mediums, so keep that in mind when choosing which blog content to repurpose.

Infographic. Does your blog content contain interesting research, statistics, or other information that can be explained visually? Why not repurpose your blog content by creating an infographic?

An infographic should make information explainable at a glance, so with this type of content, you might work with a graphic designer. As far as content goes, a standard infographic contains a header, a short description, and exciting information represented graphically. It should be clear and sequential and designed to be readable on the channels where you plan to share it. In addition, to get the most brand value, make sure to include your website or logo. After your initial share, other accounts might share it or lose track of the source. Using your branding makes sure you get the most value out of this asset.

Quotes, testimonials, and reviews. Like an infographic, you might also extract key quotes, testimonials or comments from your blog post and create visual assets that you can share on other channels. If your blog post contains an interesting interview, statistics, or great client feedback, any of this could make great content for a stand-alone asset.

A digital download. A digital download is another highly effective way to repurpose blog content. This could be in the form of an eBook, a white paper, a PDF, etc. Rather than posting all the information on your website, a digital download typically asks visitors to trade something (usually an email address or payment) to access it. A digital download is often called a “lead magnet” in marketing.

If you find a piece of content performing really well as a blog post, a digital download is a way to convert visitors into leads. Repurpose your blog post into a more detailed report, a checklist, or something else of value that people will gladly opt-in to.

A course, webinar, or workshop. Courses, webinars, or workshops are another excellent way to collect new leads for your business. While they might sound like a lot of effort (they can be!), there are more straightforward course, webinar, and workshop formats that only require a little extra time or minor tweaks to your content.

Start by choosing a blog post that’s relevant, interesting to your audience, and well-suited for a recorded event. This includes details like length, how many participants to join, where it will be hosted, etc. A webinar can be as simple as a Q&A or a short presentation of the topics explored in the article, while a course or workshop can go into more detail on how to actually do something. You can either arrange it as a live session or pre-record it and set up an email automation so people can enroll continuously.

Newsletter. Newsletters allow you to keep past or prospective clients engaging with your business. But rather than making them all about sales, consider your newsletter a chance to add value! People will eventually get tired of hearing about monthly promotions, but if you can teach them something new, they’re more likely to keep reading.

Your blog content can be an excellent inspiration for your newsletter. What themes or posts are performing well? What kinds of questions are you getting? Incentivize readers to subscribe to future newsletters with exclusive information, early-access, or other real value.