5 Ways to Repurpose Social Media Posts to Save Time

category: social media content productivity tips type: blog

As small business owners and entrepreneurs, it’s rare that we can post 100% original content on every social media platform every day. Some people supplement their social media feeds by sharing other people’s content, which is a great strategy as long as that content is valuable to your audience and isn’t from a direct competitor! So what do you do when you want to post more of your own content but just can’t find the time?

 

One Piece of Content, Multiple Formats

Once upon a time, social media was ruled by text - now networks support a wide variety of content formats, including links, images, videos, audio, and gifs. This is awesome not only for variety, but also because people like to absorb information in different ways.

Let’s use an example to illustrate how this could be done: imagine that you have a tip about how people can make the most of your product or service. That is your content. Here are all of the formats that it could take:

  • Short-form text explaining the tip

  • Long-form text explaining the tip in detail

  • Create a graphic with the short-form text on it

  • Do a short video talking about the tip

  • Do a short audio talking about the tip

  • Create a slideshow about the tip

  • Combine the text with the multi-media

Now you have 6+ individual posts all about the same thing, but with enough variation that it won’t seem repetitive if the same people were to see a couple of those posts.

 

Create Evergreen Content

What the heck is evergreen content? Posts about trees? Nope! Here is my favourite definition from FirstSiteGuide:

“Evergreen content continues to be relevant to its readers and gives them value years after the publish date. It is always fresh and up-to-date. It remains informative and retains its original quality. As its name implies – it is timeless.”

They are speaking specifically about blogs, but all of the principles apply to your social media content as well. With blogging, evergreen content is important for SEO. With social media, evergreen content is important for audience awareness and your own sanity.

Here are some examples of evergreen content that you could create for social media:

  • Tips about using your product or service

  • Quotes

  • Testimonials

  • Questions designed to elicit engagement/conversation with your audience

  • Seasonal/Holiday posts

These are things that you could repeat on a regular basis providing that your business doesn’t undergo a drastic change to its offerings.

And yes, it’s OK to repeat yourself. In fact, it’s necessary. The rule of 7 states that your audience needs to see your message at least 7 times before they will take an action to connect, engage, or buy from you.

Just don’t go overboard and post the *exact* same thing multiple times a day :)

 

Revamp Your Old Content

Look through your social media analytics to see what some of your most popular posts were (make sure you are looking at organic reach/engagement!). Could they be repeated as is? If so, add them to your list of evergreen content! If not, how could you update or tweak the post to make it fresh? Here are some potential ideas:

  • Update a graphic with your latest branding

  • Share your current opinion about the original post topic (has it changed or not?)

  • Insert the latest stats or numbers about the topic

  • Redo a tutorial with the latest features

 

Straight Out Reshare

This is the whole concept of #ThrowbackThursday and #FlashbackFriday, and why we (mostly) enjoy the Facebook Memories feature. We like to revisit good memories, events, achievements, and accomplishments - no reason not to do the same for your business! Your audience today may not have been around the first time you posted about those things, so share the story and let your new followers learn a bit more about you and your business.

 

Share Across Different Networks

This is *not* about auto-posting from network to another. This is about sharing content that was posted in the past to another network where it hasn’t already been posted. Confused? Here’s what I mean:

Chances are the first business account you set up for social media was a Facebook Page, meaning that you have the biggest history of posts there. A newer account, say Instagram, may be short on content, so why not go back through your Facebook posts and pick out some images to share to Instagram? Did a live video on Periscope? Save it and then upload it directly to Facebook!

This isn’t going to work in every situation. A very tall pin from Pinterest is not going to be ideal on any other network. A gif that you posted on Twitter cannot be posted on Instagram (unless you turn the gif file into a video…). You get the idea.

 

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