There is a belief that dies hard when you start creating content. We have to produce something new with each publication. It’s wrong ! Reusing its already published content is not a crime. You are the only person who knows everything you produce. Even your biggest fan probably won’t see all of your posts.
So, no one will blame you if you talk about something you’ve already covered. On the contrary !
Recycling the ideas you have already shared is a very good thing. For you. And for your audience. I have already explained to you the advantages of this technique.
Today I would like to show you concretely 3 ways to reuse your content and save time in your production. Use separately or combine to multiply your content ideas to infinity!
1 – Squeeze out your idea as much as possible
If you’re not familiar with the basic rule of content creation, let me remind you.
1 content = 1 idea = 1 way to approach it (= a goal and a call-to-action at the end).
You’re not going to talk about several different things in one post. Regardless of the communication channel. And you’re not going to talk about a topic in different ways in the same content. It would no longer make sense to the person reading it.
Except that an idea does not only have one form! And you can approach it from multiple angles.
SO, an idea can be split into sub-ideas. So that you can talk about it differently each time. That’s why I encourage you to wring out your ideas as much as possible. In this way, an idea can generate dozens of contents!
Your main idea, you can evoke it for example:
- By showing a before after
- Speaking of your story (do storytelling)
- Starting froman observation
- By sharing your opinion on the subject
- Creating a list
- Explaining the how
- By demonstrating the why
- Doing a practical case.
Demonstration with a concrete example
Imagine that you are virtual assistant and you help your customers manage their billing.
You want to show your audience that delegating billing management saves time. By wringing your idea thoroughly, it could give:
- Before after : Show how your client feels when he manages his billing alone vs how he feels when you take care of everything.
- Storytelling : Tell about the experience you had with a client
- Observation : x% of freelancers forget important elements on their invoices
- Your opinion : Invoicing software doesn’t really save you time
- List : 3 tools I use to automate your invoicing
- For what : Why an entrepreneur should delegate billing to virtual assistance
- Practical case : Steps to effective invoicing
You see by digging deep, we start from an idea and we can create 7 different contents !
2 – Reuse its content in another format
This is probably the most known and used method: resume its original content and duplicate it in another format or communication channel. By adapting it of course! We do not communicate exactly the same way on all the communication channels we use. Because you’re not talking to the same people. And because you have editorial lines (normally, otherwise, there is something to review right away!).
Depending on the means of communication you use, you can:
- Turn an Instagram post into a newsletter
- Take elements of your blog post to make it a LinkedIn publication
- Extract a piece of your podcast to write a blog post in addition
- Use a carousel on Instagram and make it a real one.
Let’s take a concrete example
Let’s assume that you are a web editor specializing in writing newsletters. You communicate via your blog, your Instagram account and your newsletter.
You wrote a blog post on the advantages of a newsletter to sell your products. From this content, you can:
- Highlight one of the benefits in a video capsule on Instagram
- Feature a case study of one of your clients in your newsletter
- Explain the different benefits in an Instagram carousel and refer to your article to complete
- Show that these advantages also apply to you and that it allows you to sell your services in a newsletter.
Brief, the possibilities are almost endless!
3 – Change the angle thanks to its content themes
The last method to reuse your content is probably less common, because it is based on my vision of content themes. You have heard this term before. Or, content pillars.
Generally we present them as the categories that we address in our content: communication – mindset – graphic design – web writing etc.
For me, these are not content themes.
That’s not how I teach them to the entrepreneurs I support.
For me, a content theme does not represent a category related to your activity. It represents the angle from which you will approach a subject. It gives you a direction to talk about your idea.
(If you want to know more about my vision of content themes, I talk about it in an audio episode of my newsletter, to have access to it: subscribe)
By having 3 or 4 specific content themes, you can recycle your content by changing the angle from which you treat it. And each of your ideas can travel through all your themes.
Let’s start from my example to make it more concrete
For my own content, I have defined several themes including:
- Create relevant content, to give entrepreneurs the keys to creating content that makes sense to their ideal client and allows them to develop their business.
- Feel confident, to help entrepreneurs who want to create content to be comfortable with the message it conveys to do so naturally and authentically.
- Plan your content, to allow entrepreneurs to free themselves from a heavy weight and mental load thanks to the planning and regularity of their content
Imagine that I want to explain to you how the editorial calendar is a great tool.
I will be able to angle my idea according to my different themes. And therefore, not to say the same thing.
- Create relevant content : Having an editorial calendar allows you to be consistent, because by planning them, they come to meet your monthly objective.
- Feel confident : Having an editorial calendar gives you peace of mind when creating content, because you know where you are going.
- Plan your content : How to use the editorial calendar to plan your content over a month.
As you can see, my basic idea matches all my themes and gives me the opportunity to talk about the same subject in 3 different ways.
Reusing your content to save time and not run out of ideas is one of the keys to a content strategy that works. Because an idea is infinite. It does not expire as soon as it is published. Quite the contrary. With the 3 methods that I have shared with you in this article, you will be able to multiply your content without always looking for something new.
Are you ready to try?
