How Repurposing Content Into Different Formats Can Help You Reach A Larger Audience
Continually building your audience ensures that your business grows and by repurposing content reaches more people on multiple platforms.
Hi, Trish Davies here and I am focusing today on repurposing content to enable you to gain maximum exposure. You will have a marketing plan to attract the right people to your business and that must include content marketing.
Some business owners feel that the strategy of content marketing is a lot of hard work. Is it going to be worth their time and will there be a return on their investment? I wouldn’t say that marketing in general is a gamble but there are certainly no guarantees to see an R.O.I.
There are no guarantees in life but that shouldn’t stop you exploring as many marketing strategies as you can. Your results will depend on learning the skills sets needed and the quality of your content.
Content marketing is worth the time because although you are investing your time the monetary cost is low. So, if you do it correctly then you can potentially see bigger return on investment than paying for traffic! Also, one piece of content that is published online is timeless.
This means that something you publish today can bring in leads and sales weeks, months and years in the future. Unlike a paid advertisement that has a limited timespan and sees your marketing budget fly out of the door!
Imagine a piece of content as a silent salesperson which you don’t have to maintain. Your initial cost is the time you put in so that is the main metric you must consider. For example, if you put a $50 per hour value of your time you could create a piece of content within that hour.
Depending on your sales funnel that content could potentially generate you thousands of dollars in the future! For initially one hour’s work!
Repurposing Content Starts With Shooting One Video
Here I am going to dispel the myth that content marketing is too time consuming. Also, where repurposing content comes into its own and how one video can be the source of potentially endless content.
I love video content marketing because a video is kind of like a vault because it houses so much vale. Value that can create so much additional content to reach different audiences.
I am sure you have access to recording hardware such as a phone, digital camera or even your laptop. This is all you need to start your content marketing production line and the initial steps are as follows.
Right you have your MP4 which is your video which is obviously a visual and audio source. From that video the audio source can be ripped from the original source, using software, leaving you an MP3!
Straight away you have repurposed that content and it has not taken you the amount of time it would have to record the audio separately. From either the video file or the audio file you can then have that transcribed into text so now you have three source files.
Video, audio and text which are the three sources you need to make the magic happen. One caveat I must mention is that you do need video editing software and transcribing software to get to this stage. Your laptop my have these installed but if you want to do this yourself you can get software for just around $200.
The alternative is to use outsources on websites such as Fiverr or looking online for services. Transcribing services such Rev.com only charge around $1.50 for each minute of video. So, if you video was 3 minutes long it would only be around $4.50.
Let’s Look At Video First
I have established that there are three main formats to use which is video, audio and text. These evolve from the original video so what can you do with the video in its original format.
You must look at publishing channels for your content and I like to start with Facebook. Just in the last few years Facebook has developed their live video service. This is where you can jump on you Facebook page and record yourself live.
This is by far my favourite starting point because you don’t need any fancy software. You are leveraging Facebooks technology and they allow you to download the video. Here you have your main source file, which is the MP4, but you have already published the content on your page. People who have liked your page will see it and hopefully share it.
You can then upload it to your YouTube or Vimeo channel as well as your other social media profiles. So, you are starting to distribute your content. Also, if you have a blog you can upload it to create a blog post for your online readership.
If you are doing a few videos on the same subject, you can do this process for each video. Then for example if you have 5 videos on the same subject you can create a video series. This can be then used as a lead magnet on a Squeeze Page which is sometimes referred to as a Lead Capture Page.
Can you see how this is already starting to evolve like a spider’s web as you are building out a publishing network. Now let’s look at what you can do with the written word.
What Can You Do With Your Text Content?
Once you have you video or audio file transcribed you will have a document that can be repurposed in many ways. What I will say is that the document you have will be in some ways raw which will need a bit of touching up grammatically. The great thing about this document tough is that it will be true to how you speak. It will contain your tone and language so it needs to stay this way as much as you can.
From the original document you can create a written blog post to publish on your blog. Each blog post is a small part of your online real estate so think about it as a brick in the wall. The more posts you publish the more bricks you use to make the wall higher and higher.
Google and the other search engines like blog posts because they offer value which is what they want to offer their users. Individuals go onto Google for information and they provide it through your content, so it is a win/win for all concerned.
What you can then do is take the first couple of paragraphs of your post and publish it on your social media platforms. Here you are giving people a teaser of your content and then say, “if you want to learn more – click here”.
This is what’s referred to as a call to action because you are directing them to your main blog or website. The more traffic you can get to your blog or website the better as the individual will see everything you have to offer.
Taking Your Blog Post A Little Bit Further
By this stage you will have you blog post sitting nicely on your blog, but you can still do more. Take the URL of the post and go to a website called Printfriendly.com and enter the link. This website will then generate a PDF version of your original blog post which you can download.
You can do the same thing with blog posts as you can with videos by creating a series. For example, if you have 5 blog posts that follow on from each other on a topic you can do this. Those 5 posts can be repurposed into PDF’s and you offer them as a lead magnet to capture individuals’ details.
Another step you can take is then upload these PDF’s to websites such as Issuu.com which is a publishing platform. They then repurpose the PDF into an interactive virtual book where individuals can turn the pages.
Depending on your level of membership you can then gain the embed code for the book. Take that code back to your blog and publish it so your readership can read the original post in another format.
I have mentioned the term lead magnet which refers to creating data bases of individuals details. For this to work you would have a service called Aweber to manage email marketing. When you have people on you own list this is traffic that you control so you can do this.
Take the first couple of sentences and put them into an email you send to your list. Put a link to you post with thee learn more call to action. You are taking a tiny snippet and dangling a carrot in front of them to create curiosity.
Repurposing Content To Become A Published Author
The written content you have on your blog can also be repurposed into books. This will require a little bit more work in relation to formatting so it reads as a book should. You could take say 10 posts from your blog that compliment each other to form 10 chapters of a book.
Create a word doc from this content and then upload it to Kindle Direct Publishing. Then you book is available on the Amazon marketplace. You have the option to offer for free or you can charge for it to generate revenue for your business. This repurposing can also be used for lead generation as you would place links to your lead capture pages of any product and services you have. Potentially you could be paid to generate leads!
Become A Radio Star
Finally, I want to look at the audio file you have generated right at the start of this process. There are several podcasting platforms that you can create your own channel on. It is like having your own radio show for people to subscribe to a listen to your content.
This is a very popular marketing strategy as individuals have very busy lives and are always on the go. This publishing format is great for those individuals because they can log in and listen or download your podcasts. Then they can listen in the car, on the train or bus or even when they are out exercising.
You could also collate several audio files and create an audio book like the Kindle strategy. Again, you can use these files as lead magnets to build data bases as well as publishing them on your blog or social media.
So, This Sounds Like A Lot Of Work?
I started out by saying that repurposing content is relatively easy and doesn’t take that long. You may be sitting there thinking “Trish all that you have said does sound like a lot of work” but when you systemise things it is not.
The starting point is shooting the video and then it is time to leverage technology so do most of the heavy lifting for you. Once you have shot you video you will load it to a central hub which is syndicating software. It will then distribute that content to the channels you tell it to do so.
The same process works for your written blog posts. You will have your video transcribed and then you publish it to your blog. Your blog will be connected to this central hub and then it will distribute your post to the channels you have connected.
Creating PDF’s of your posts take literally a minute or so and the uploading of those PDF’s takes around 5 mins. The same can be said for your audio file when you upload it to your Podcasting channel. Let’s break it down in more detail.
- Shooting a video – 5 minutes
- Send then video to a transcriber by email – 5 minutes
- Write a post from transcription – 40 minutes
- Rip the audio file – 5 minutes
- Upload your audio file – 5 minutes
- Your central syndicating hub will be connected to you main publishing platforms and then distributes your content to your other publishing channels which is totally automated – 0 minutes
There will be some time getting files back from outsources but your physical time to repurpose one video is around 60 – 90 minutes. If you do this process 3 times a week your total time will be around 4.5 hours.
In Conclusion
When you look at it like this then repurposing content is well worth it because of the exposure you will get. Also, you will be creating many different formats because not everyone has the same preference of consuming content. It is all about systemisation which you can set up your self or hire a virtual assistance for pennies on the dollar. By doing this you just need to create the video which is 5 minutes work!
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
Build Your AU
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