This week we’re talking about why you should create less and repurpose more, the secrets of content marketing. I’ll be listing my top ten reasons why content marketing should include repurposing content and why it’s probably more important than the content creation itself.
REPURPOSING CONTENT IS THE ANSWER TO DISCOVERY
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with my own brand and content that I’ve been sharing with you guys. I try to learn the best practices. I wanted to develop this skill the most. What it is that makes a good content creator soar?
What gets a brand’s message out there to the most people? When I went to the marketing conventions and the podcast conventions, the places where people are creating consistently, I found that everyone still had the same question.
How do I develop more audience? How do I get more people hearing and seeing my message? I’m doing all this work creating, but how do I get more people to find it?
WHY DO YOU NEED TO BE REPURPOSING CONTENT?
I believe the secret lies in what the secret to marketing has always been, which is messaging and intention. This combination is how you share the truth that’s inside of you, and how you get in front of all those people.
I want to be able to help you find the growth you’re looking for in your brand. Creating content for your brand is one of the best ways to help people discover you, get them to like you, and ultimately convince them to purchase from you. This is especially true for anyone whose business relies on their reputation.
YOU HAVE TO HAVE A STRATEGY
If you want to be known as the number-one brand in your market or niche, building a content strategy is critical.
Content can express your unique point of difference that separates you from the competition. What makes you different? Number two is that content can help new people discover your brand driving awareness and interest. Number three, content can help nurture relationships with potential customers who may buy from you in the future.
The best part of it all is what I’ve been saying since I started: anyone can create content. There is no barrier to entry. Everyone can and should create content that tells their story, that provides information about their products and services, and that engages with their potential customers.
I’ve chosen to podcast. You can choose whatever works for you, but I’ve found that for me, that is what I can create the fastest at the highest rate so that I can get it out more often.
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
CHOOSE YOUR METHOD OF CONTENT CREATION
For the businesses whose reputation drives their business, content should be your priority. If you’re a consultant, a coach or solopreneur, an expert in your field, your content strategy can be the difference between success and failure.
Content marketing is all about messaging and attention. Your message is about you and what you have to say. Attention is how you deliver that message to potential customers.
KEEP PRACTICING TO FIND YOUR CONTENT VOICE
The easiest way to get started creating content for your brand or business is to find your voice. I said this many times before, finding my voice has helped me build my personal brand. The best way for you to find your voice is to use it. Use your voice. The fastest way to develop any skill is through practice.
Today’s the day to start creating content to help you find your voice, develop your message and speak to your customers through your content. There are so many choices today for content creators. There are no excuses anymore.
You can start a blog, you can start a podcast, you can start a YouTube channel, or you can start a channel on one of the many social media platforms. Pick whatever format works best for you to create content that serves your audience and that suits your preferred comfort zone for creating.
REPURPOSING CONTENT IS KEY FOR DISCOVERY
Whether it’s video, audio, or written content, whatever it is, if you need help building your content strategy, you can join our free insider’s group to receive updates each week on these topics and more at brandonbrands.com/bteam.
This is the topic I’ll be focusing on the most this season. As someone who loves creating a podcast first and exploring how to take that podcast and put it into other places, here’s what I found.
A lot of us have learned that podcasting isn’t a great place to be discovered. It’s a great place to create content, but it’s not a great place to be discovered.
If you want to create a podcast and push that podcast content to other channels, did you know that more than 70% of the time spent on YouTube is spent watching what the algorithm has decided to show you? It’s what they recommend.
That’s according to their chief product officer Neil Mohan in an interview he did with Cnet back in 2018. 70% of the time spent with YouTube is spent with something that the algorithm recommended. Their tool is doing the work to show your content to people.
GET YOUR CONTENT INTO THE ALGORITHM
That’s not happening with podcasting, though. Again, I believe it’s way easier to create a podcast than a YouTube channel. If you create it and repurpose it, you’re giving yourself the advantage of that discovery.
The second thing is that organic search produced 53% of all site traffic on the internet. If you are creating a blog as opposed to a podcast, (or you converting your podcast into a blog,) more than half of all website traffic is created because of organic search, things that Google said, “Here, you should look at this.”
If you add on top of that paid search, that’s another 15%. 68% of all website traffic is generated based on what Google tells you to go look at.
REPURPOSING CONTENT GETS YOU INTO THE ALGORITHM
If you can take your podcast and push it onto YouTube and take your podcast and create a blog with it, (not just any blog, not just show notes, but a proper blog,) you’re going to give yourself the advantage of discovery on the tools that were built best for that.
That’s not even getting into advertising and social media posts. This is what I’ve become obsessed with this season is diving into how to help people take this content they’ve created and how to make it work for them more, how to make it go further and reach more people.
REPURPOSING CONTENT WILL AMPLIFY YOUR MESSAGE
If you’re just getting started creating content, or if you are already a blogger, a podcast or a YouTube creator, or you’re creating any kind of content for your personal brand, one of the most important parts of your content strategy is the process by which you amplify your message.
Most of the content creators I’ve met (or see what they put out there) are doing a great job creating, but are not fully amplifying their message. The number one thing you can do to increase the effectiveness of your content is to be very thoughtful about how you amplify your message.
CREATING INDIVIDUAL POSTS IS UNSUSTAINABLE
This means going beyond creating content and sharing just a few posts to social media. There are so many ways that you can amplify your message through recreation or repurposing. A few posts aren’t going to cut it, I promise you.
That’s what I had been doing and what a lot of people out there have been doing. It’s expensive, it’s time-consuming if you don’t outsource it.
It is more than you have time to do when you have a regular business you’re running, but it’s the thing that could take us the furthest. Why are we neglecting it so much?
THE TEN REASONS TO REPURPOSE CONTENT
I figured I can give you some reasons beyond these statistics I’ve shared to get you motivated, to invest in your content strategy, to think about how you can be repurposing your content. Here’s my list, my ten reasons that your content marketing should include repurposing.
#1 Reach
Reach is the amount of people your content gets in front of. When you repurpose, it gives you more reach. You are allowed to build awareness more quickly across platforms. The more places you put it, the more people will see it.
#2 Frequency
This is a term that we use a lot in my eighteen years of advertising agencies: frequency. There are more opportunities for recall, for people to remember seeing your message via increased exposure.
In other words, if they see it more than once, twice, three times, four, five, or six times, the more they see it, the more likely they are to recall it or for it to have impacted them in a way for them to say, “You know what? I should take an action on that.”
#3 Longevity
Search and reposts offer a long-term opportunity for you to grow your audience. In other words, when you put your content into these other platforms and you repurpose it, it gives you a chance for that content to live a longer lifespan.
When you put something out onto search, if you end up being found in the search engines, that’s going to keep lasting year after year after year. Same thing with YouTube. You have also the opportunity to repost as you create and cut your content down to the different pieces, repurposing.
It also means you reposting it in the future so that it doesn’t just exist the day you released it to the world, on the launch of that episode. It also exists three months later, when you decide to repost that interesting comment that you made, that you want to share with the world.
#4 Authority
Each touchpoint creates a known-for opportunity. In other words, every time someone sees you talking about that same topic or something within your wheelhouse, it gives them another reminder, another piece of proof that you are known for this thing that you’re talking about.
#5 Preference
People have their favorites. They have their favorite sources of media, the favorite channels that they listen to, their favorite shows.
As you repurpose your content and start putting it into all the different platforms, all different places people consume, you’re giving yourself a chance to be seen in the place where they spend the money. Everyone’s place is different.
You need to repurpose in a way that gets you out to more places so that more people can find you in the place that they are the most.
#6 Impressions
For anyone who doesn’t subscribe, at least they get an impression of you. Maybe they aren’t someone who is on your channel and they said, “I want to get recurring messages from these people.”
Every time you share a newly repurposed piece of that content, it’s an opportunity for that person to see you again, even if they didn’t subscribe. Maybe they’ll subscribe in the future because of that next impression.
#7 Retention
There are more chances for subscriber growth where they prefer to subscribe. In other words, if you repurpose your content into a blog, they might be more likely to sign up for your newsletter. If you repurpose it into YouTube and that’s where they watch all the time, maybe they’ll subscribe to you on YouTube.
If they love to listen to podcasts and you have a podcast, they might subscribe and listen to you every week on a podcast. You have to give them a place where they like to binge content. You have to make sure it ends up in those places.
Maybe they’re just on Instagram 90% of the day. You have to be there so that they can click follow and then you consistently show up in their feed.
#8 Compounding
Each time you show your message to someone, it directs traffic through your funnel over time and builds SEO strength. In other words, every time you have an impact on someone, it is giving further proof that your message is important.
It tells all these search engines and algorithms and whatever else that more people are interested in your stuff.
As that happens over time, you get more credit for that. You get rewarded for doing that consistently over a period of time. It has a compounding effect on your brand and your discoverability.
#9 Engagement.
There are more chances to create compelling environments for your content with pictures, videos, quotes, memes, and people sharing that with other people. You create all these new versions of your content.
Create more places where people can decide, “Oh, that for me is the kind of thing I like to see. I love pictures and video clips. It’s more engaging. I want to interact with it. I want to make a comment.” Your engagement increases.
#10 Return on investment
Every time you share content to more places, you give that individual piece of content an increased chance for exposure and return on investment.
If I create this thing once and it takes me an hour, then I share it in one place and ten people see it, that return investment is not very high. However, if I share it and then it goes to five and then ten more places, that means a hundred people see it. A thousand people see it, or 10,000 people see it.
The return on my time for that one thing that I created is suddenly a lot higher than it ever could have been before. That also drives bottom-line business results.
LEARN TO BE STRATEGIC
I hope that you see that if you take the time to build repurposing into your content strategy, you will find a way to make a stronger impact on the people that are finding you.
There will be more people finding you. It’s something that I’ve seen make such a difference to people.
It has to be strategic, designed, and planned. I realized that that’s a lot of work and a lot of time. My goal is over the course of this season to explain and to share with you the things that I’ve discovered that make it faster and easier and cost less money to build those audiences and to share your content across more channels. There are tools out there. There are approaches and tactics, but you have to have a system for doing all of this.
That’s what we do building here at Brands on Brand. That’s what I want to share with you. And if you’d like to check out my ultimate guide on how to “Convert 1 Hour into 1 Month of Content”, go to www.brandsonbrands.com/resources for your free 12-page download including:
- 3 Content Creation Tips
- 11 Content Creator Tools
- 30 Repurposed Post Examples
- 28 Content Calendar Prompts
- 30 Bonus Post Ideas
As we keep on hitting content this season and sharing with you what we’re learning to help you build your brand, build your business and grow as a creator, I’m here for you guys.
Haven’t Started a Podcast Yet?
If you are hoping to start a podcast, all you need is a great idea! If you need help with that, check out my article covering 10 Podcasting Ideas for Beginners!
CONNECT WITH BRANDON
Instagram: @brandonbirkmeyer
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If you’d like more content about how to build your personal brand, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
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Talk soon!