Back to basics: Repurposing your content across social channels

So you’ve just created an awesome piece of content for your blog. Now all you need to do is hit “Publish” and you’re done, right?

Wrong.

There is so much more you can do with that content. In fact, you can use that one blog post to drive an entire social media strategy by simply repurposing it and getting it into the right form. 

In the modern landscape, customers are jumping in and out of the funnel and traveling to various locations online. Having content that shows up in each source is critical to long term success because you need to be everywhere your customers are.

Creating content that works on multiple social channels is key to maximizing its full marketing potential. Here’s how.

Step 1: Write a blog post

The reason your write the blog first is because it gives you all the research you need to create the rest of the content. 

A text post can be shared on all the major social media sites but can also be used for your video framework. Your blog is the basis for your script. 

Step 2: Create your video and post on YouTube

Generally, a good way to approach this is to use the subheadings of the blog as your talking points. You really don’t want to script video, it can come off as unnatural. I recommend reading a subheading and then talking through directly into the camera. 

This is a good time to remind you that YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world. With the new Google Home Hub, it is growing faster than ever. 

After editing your video and posting it to YouTube — and embedding in your blog post — here are some other ways you can use it. 

Step 3: Facebook video

You are going to want to add your video to Facebook so it shows up in the feed and on Facebook Watch.

I can be good to shorten the video so that it is shareable and more social-focused. 

BuzzSumo found 60 to 90 seconds to be the sweet spot. 

If you don’t have the time to edit video, many will use the same video for YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook. But for now, I’ll break down the main video sites and tell you the best way to do it. 

Step 4: IGTV

You can generally put the same videos on Facebook that you put on Instagram’s video application IGTV. Recently, they made it possible to have the same size video format. But, these videos can only be 10 minutes. Here are a few specifications to help format your video for IGTV:

• IGTV settings run at 1080 × 1350 (a horizontal video will run closer to 1920 × 1080).
• Video Length:
  • Small accounts: 15 seconds – 10 minutes
  • Large accounts: 15 seconds – 60 minutes
• Format: MP4
• File size:
  • Maximum for videos less than 10 minutes: 650MB
  • Maximum for videos up to 60 minutes: 5.4GB

Step 5: Instagram Stories

Instagram allows businesses to add links in their Stories, you can enable users to read your entire blog post with just a swipe. For Stories, your video editor is going to have to cut things down. Here are some specs:

• Instagram Feed video length: three seconds to one minute
• Instagram Story video length: 15 seconds max per Story
• Instagram Live video length: Up to 60 minutes

Step 6: LinkedIn video

Ideal for B2B shops, this platform is best for how-to videos, visual case studies, explainers and short clips that explain the benefits of your products and services.

LinkedIn videos need to be under 10 minutes and can generally be the same thing you put on YouTube. Here are some specs for LinkedIn videos from Hootsuite. 

• Minimum video length: 3 seconds
• Maximum video length: 10 minutes
• Minimum file size: 75KB
• Maximum file size: 5 GB
• Orientation: Horizontal or vertical. Note: Vertical videos are cropped into a square in the feed.
• Aspect ratio: 1:2.4 or 2.4:1
• File formats: ASF, AVI, FLV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MKV, QuickTime, WebM, H264/AVC, MP4, VP8, VP9, WMV2, and WMV3.
• Formats that are not supported include ProRes, MPEG-2, Raw Video, VP6, WMV1as.

Step 7: Twitter video

Twitter video is less than one minute, so you can upload just part of your video or create a one-minute edit. Generally, an edited version is best.

Either way, you want to use Twitter to promote the full video on your website. 

Step 8: Create a podcast

Podcasting is a tool that modern-day digital marketers use frequently. That’s because it gets results. But, it’s not always easy coming up with new topic material. One option to streamline the podcast creation process is to convert YouTube videos to podcasts.

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools online to help you do just that. All you need to do is search for “YouTube video to audio.” You’ll find a variety of services that convert a YouTube video to MP3 format. 

If you don’t want to use that same audio as your video, you have the option of trying to find an expert on the topic and host an interview with them.

Step 9: Look beyond video to image-first social channels

There are plenty of other ways to reformat your content besides video. 

It is a good idea to get one really amazing image made for each post. You can then use that to promote your content in the Instagram feed, Pinterest and other image-first social sites. 

You can also give your blog to a designer, who can make it into a presentation. You can then use that presentation for a webinar, speaking event, social media live event or just to upload to slideshare. 

Step 10. Promoted posts

I like to post content on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn first. The larger your following on those sites, the more reach each post will have. 

Run ads on social media that promote your content. Yes, that’s going to cost you some money but it will also build brand-name awareness and land you some lifetime customers.

I recommend at least a few hundred dollars around each piece of content. As your company gets bigger, scale the money you put behind promoting posts. 

Step 11. Targeted outreach strategy

Outreach is something you need to be careful with and you never want to get too aggressive otherwise people will tune you out.

Lately, I am very focused on targeted outreach. Here is a list of things you can do to promote your content to a target (not mass) list.

1. Put it in your email newsletter
2. Send 100% unique and custom emails to people who would care about the content  
3. Send LinkedIn In-Mail ads, do promoted posts, targeted messages or tag people 

You get the idea, you need to get scrappy with it. Targeted customer outreach goes a long way.

Wrapping it up

If you’re an authority in your space and you want to increase your reach with new content, repurpose your content. Think about it, who wants to come up with new topics all the time. Get the most out of one!

But don’t forget to make sure to review your social channel analytics as well as your own site’s analytics to see what topics are resonating each month.