10 Simple Ways to Repurpose Your Content

If you're a content marketer or a small business owner, you know how tough it is to keep churning out great content. But publishing lots of material is essential if you want to build a good reputation and get found by customers. Luckily, if you've already got a catalog of blog posts, videos, and other content on the web, you don't always have to come up with new pieces from scratch. Instead, you can repurpose your existing work to get original content for a fraction of the effort. Here are 10 smart ways to turn your old content into brand-new pieces.

1. Expand or update old blog content.

In general, blog posts are long-lasting assets in your content catalog, but they don't stay good forever. Even evergreen blog posts can go stale if you don't keep them updated. One of the easiest ways to get more value out of your existing content is to revisit your blog archives and find some articles to revise, update, or expand. Once done, promote the blog post on social media to let your audience know you've changed it. If you make extensive changes to the piece, you may even want to re-publish it completely.

2. Bundle blog posts into an ebook.

Maybe you've never considered writing an ebook, but if you blog regularly, that's what you're doing; you're just publishing it in bits and pieces. So why not make that content available on Amazon? Gather together some of your best parts, and arrange them so that they flow well and make sense as a book. Write a few new chapters as well, so that even people who read your blog regularly will have a reason to check the ebook out. Who knew that publishing a book could be so simple?

3. Make podcasts by recording your blog posts.

Podcasts are quite popular, and if you have a blog, creating podcasts of your own couldn't be simpler. Just record yourself reading your posts aloud and upload the files to your favorite podcast hosting site. You may want to revise your posts slightly beforehand so that they sound natural when you read them aloud. If you prefer not to record your podcasts, the internet makes it easy to hire someone else to read your blog posts, too.

4. Upload your presentations to SlideShare.

Why waste a perfectly good deck of presentation slides? Upload that deck to SlideShare, where anyone can view it. Uploading a deck to SlideShare takes just seconds - it's one of the easiest ways you can add an extra piece of content to your catalog.

5. Use presentation slides as your starting point for new graphics.

Don't forget about those presentation slides just yet. If you created any original graphs, charts, or other images for your presentation, you could re-use them to make new graphics now. Consider incorporating your slide images into an infographic, or use them in your blog posts and on social media.

6. Create videos based on your blog content.

If you have an excellent informational or how-to blog post lying around, it's the perfect candidate for becoming a video. Videos are simpler than ever to make - there's even free software that will create animated videos or video graphics for you, no expertise required. Compared to other forms of content marketing, video is exploding in popularity, so it's smart to take advantage of the video boom with your existing content.

7. Host a webinar based on your blog posts.

Webinars are a fantastic marketing tool. They let you interact with your audience personally, and they give you a chance to demonstrate your expertise in your field. Hosting a webinar doesn't have to be an overwhelming prospect if you use your blog content as the backbone of the session. Try expanding on some of your most popular posts or synthesizing information from several related pieces. Sprinkle in some brand-new material, too, so that even your most loyal audience members will be able to learn something new.

8. Create an online course.

It's smart for every business to create an online course, whether free or paid. Paid courses bring you an additional income stream, while free classes help you build your reputation and get more email sign-ups. If you've got a series of related blog posts or videos, use them as the starting point for your course. Flesh out the program with some new and exclusive content.

9. Use your content to enrich your email newsletters.

Make your email newsletters more interesting (and drive more traffic to your site) by adding snippets of your newest content. Images, statistics, and attention-grabbing blog excerpts are all good choices. Include links so people can easily read or watch the whole piece if they want to.

10. Break a long piece of content into bite-sized pieces.

Long-form content has its place, but sometimes people don't have the time or the attention span to sit down and read a long article or blog post. Try taking your big pieces of content and breaking them down into smaller, more easily digested pieces, keeping the original material as the "master copy." You can turn the little pieces into a separate series of blog posts, use them as a springboard for images and video content, or add them to your emails.

Your content probably has more life in it than you realize. If you want to make the most of your existing content, why not look for some creative ways to re-use the work you've already done? Repurposing content is a great way to publish regularly, lessen your workload, and reach more of your audience.