Genius Ideas For Turning One Piece Of Content Into 13 New Bits

You may not be able to turn water into wine, but it is possible to reincarnate one piece of content into at least 13 fresh bits (or is that bytes?).

As always with content, the number one priority for digital marketing success is quality.

Great content helps you get seen and heard by the right people and so your base piece needs to be top-notch.  This makes for a solid springboard from which you can harvest a heap of new content for a variety of different communication channels and social media platforms, and best of all, you can always get your virtual assistant to help you!

Why the quantity of content is also important

The internet is a crowded and highly competitive space and it’s not easy to get your business or brand to stand out.

High quality content which is engaging, entertaining, useful to the reader, appealing to the search engines and shareable is the holy grail of effective digital marketing and will help your brand resonate with the public – but success also depends on having a sustained stream of fresh content.

That means that quality content is the king when it comes to digital visibility, and quantity is the queen.

However, for many businesses, the time and effort required to create volumes of quality content is a stumbling block.   Many people are put off or constrained by the investment required which can hinder their marketing efforts.

In our experience, the more time and effort you spend crafting quality content and getting the words right (spelling and grammar count!), the better.   And if you want to outsource this task, there are a number of digital directories where you can find an extensive list of experienced copywriters and content creators.

You can then do the smart thing and leverage your investment by upcycling that single piece of good quality content into a range of different things to increase your reach and engagement.

Ideas for generating lots of content from one base piece

Once you’ve got your foundation article or blog, here are 13 ways you can repurpose it to generate pieces of related, relevant content.

1. Video yourself chatting candidly about the topic. Make the presentation short and punchy so you can post it on your socials eg Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.  This will help position you as an expert and thought-leader in your industry and inspire followers to delve deeper into the subject.  Depending on the nature of your business and the topic, you could also create a short form Tik-Tok video.
2. Host a live on social media based on this content, this will also give you the opportunity to engage with your audience and dive deeper into the topic.
3. Film a longer, more in-depth presentation on the topic using a more professional format (good lighting, professional camera etc) which can be carefully edited and posted on Facebook and YouTube.
4. Instagram offers easy ways to maximise your base article. Find a great image, write a good caption (you can even take a chunk of existing text) and post it to your Insta page. Remember to include a call-to-action to encourage engagement and to attract readers to follow-up to read your original piece.
5. Create a podcast. This is one of the easiest ways to reach a new audience by repurposing content.  The trick is to sound as if you were having a conversation (not reading from a script).  You can also expand into other topics during the podcast.
6. Interview a third party on a different podcast episode. Invite an industry expert, colleague, customer – anyone who can add value to the topic – and chat to them about the foundation article.
7. Create an infographic on the topic and post it to your socials.
8. Ask your followers on your social media channels for input on the foundation piece and present their responses in a separate post. You can also extract a few key bits of information or quotes and post these on Twitter, Instagram etc using graphics.
9. LinkedIn is a great networking channel. Rework the original piece so that it sounds more ‘businessy’ and post it on LinkedIn.  Aiming it towards entrepreneurs or small business owners is a good way of expanding your audience.
10. Engage with targeted customers on Quora. Use the base article to find answers to questions being asked by readers on the forum and then post these in the thread.  You can create multiple answers from your single blog.
11. Expand the reach of your original piece through email marketing. Take highlights from the blog and put them into an email newsletter, and include a link back to the longer piece.
12. Create a SlideShare presentation using the key points from the article and present this in a visually appearing way to make it easy for your audience to read and understand. You can then share this on LinkedIn and other platforms, remember that someone who has read some of content already is unlikely to recognise that the same content has already been presented in another way.
13. Create a series of social media posts, break down the article into small snippets of information, and add good quality graphics.

Final thoughts on upcycling content

See how easy it is to get at least 13 new pieces of content from a single source article?

What’s more, you don’t need to go it alone if you don’t have the time or the expertise to DIY.  Find a creative freelancer or digital marketing consultant who is the perfect fit for you and your business.

Remember:

• Your cornerstone article must be really good
• Tailor the platform/new piece of content according to your audience profile
• You never know what you might achieve or who you may connect with.

Spending hours (and often plenty of dollars) creating separate pieces of content for each platform is definitely not the most efficient process for achieving digital visibility.  Upcycling or repurposing a cornerstone article into different formats, with different areas of focus which can be posted on various platforms makes much more sense (and cents).