Do you ever feel like you don’t have time to blog and also participate on social? We understand that posting to all of your social media accounts can be time consuming. Social media however, remains one of the top ways to generate buzz for your brand online.
The key to making social media easier is to repurpose old content in a new way.
In this article I am going to share with you some ways to repurpose some of your existing blog content on social media in no time at all!
#1 Find some great content
Remember that awesome blog post you wrote a few months ago that got a lot of traffic, got several comments or simply had some great golden nuggets in it? Let’s start there.
The first thing is to scan the post and make an outline of the important headlines or bullets from it. If you already started with an outline to write the post in the first place, just reference that. I recommend you always create an outline before you begin writing a new blog post. It can make this part even easier later on.
Once you have your outline created, look it over and see if there are any one-liners that you can grab for a pull-quote. If you are unable to pull a direct quote from it, you maybe able to rework part of it for a quote – statistics also work great for this too.
Let’s use a post I recently wrote – “Pinterest Tips for Nonprofits
” –
Here is a quote I pulled out of this post which could be used as a quick one-liner for social: “Connect with your members – let your hair down and share your personality. 5 Pinterest Tips for Nonprofits.”
#2 Adapt your content to fit the mold
Each social media site has its own unique attributes for repurposing content.
Pinterest is the easy choice for blog posts which are high in visual interest. SImilarly, Youtube is an obvious choice for video content. However there are also ways to include visual components on other social sites as well.
Twitter caps your tweet at 140 characters. This causes you get creative with your wording. Often times adding a photo or video to a tweet can cause more retweets and @ mentions.
Here is an example of an inline tweet photo from the @imagebox Twitter feed:
I’m sure you’ll agree that if you are scrolling through your feed and see a bright and vivid graphic like that, you’ll be more inclined to stop and take a look. Let’s take a look at the same tweet without the graphic…
Note: Your photo will be automatically scaled for display in your expanded Tweet and in your user gallery. The optimum size for Twitter images is currently 1024 x 512 pixels.
If you were not gifted with the ability to do amazing graphic design, I highly recommend checking out Canva – https://www.canva.com
This FREE online design tool will allow you to quickly create an image to insert into your Tweet! This tool is not going to replace Photoshop or the need for a designer for your brand, but often social media flies so quickly that you may not have the luxury of time to wait for your designer to get you a graphic to post to Twitter. Canva is perfect for that, and it even walks you through the process: Choose the template, upload the image, add text, and you’re rolling.
Is your audience on Facebook and not Twitter? No worries. Much of what works on Twitter will work for Facebook too.
You can use quotes, statistics, etc, and post links to your content. Do be careful though about posting the exact same thing to all of your social outlets. Keep it unique and original – it really helps to make your content stand out when your followers may otherwise have their blinders on.
Even though Facebook doesn’t have the 140 character limit of Twitter, you still want to make sure your text is short and to the point. You should keep a conversational tone throughout your post. Remember, people don’t like being sold. People like other people and personalities – keep it fun and personal. Facebook is where you can let your hair down a bit and get on a more personal level with your followers.
No matter how short or long your post is, be sure you add an image to it. As people are scrolling through their feed they will be more likely to stop and look at a photo, rather than a post that is all text.
It’s best to stick with square graphics for Facebook since they look great in the news feed, timeline, and on mobile devices. The current recommended size for Facebook images is 1200 x 1200 pixels. Be sure to check out Canva for some Facebook templates.
Pinterest is the right brain of all social media. You can get very creative with your visuals – explore various shapes and sizes.
Everything from Facebook and Twitter is applicable here, but since you are not limited to the smaller size constraints, there are fewer artistic restrictions. How-to and infographics work well on Pinterest. You may also want to check out Powerpoint as it has a lot of graphics bundled into it. Don’t forget about Canva!
If you are looking for more specific infographic editing tools, check out Infogr.am and Infoactive – each offers a free and a pro version.
YouTube
Bust out of your shell and make a splash on YouTube. You don’t even need to get in front of the camera for this. Look back over your blog posts and pull out one of your “Top 10 Best Tips…” or “Top 5 Best Tips…” posts you wrote. Pull out one of the tips from that post and create a quick slide or two inside of Powerpoint covering the tip. You can then use Powerpoint to record audio of you introducing or summarizing the tip. Save this presentation out to a video and upload it YouTube. You can then link to the full blog post on your blog in the video description on your YouTube channel. This is a quick, down and dirty way to get some views on YouTube and some traffic to your blog at the same time!
YouTube and SlideShare work in reverse too. If you have ever done a presentation in the past and uploaded it to SlideShare or YouTube, why not write a followup blog post on it. Be sure to embed the presentation from SlideShare or YouTube and then cross promote it on other social channels such as Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
#3 Outsource It!
There are times when you you don’t have the time or skill to create the graphics you may need. Especially when it comes to putting together an entire slide deck for a presentation or an intricate infographic. We weren’t all born with a mouse and bursting right brain (myself included). Sometimes you just need to hire it out. Your friendly team of designers and content strategist at Imagebox are always here to help you out! We would love to help you out so give us a call today!
As you can see, posting to social media really is easy when you repurpose your existing content. Simply digging into your archives will allow you to get a jumpstart. Any content can be repurposed with a little bit of massaging.
Do you repurpose your longer-form content for social media? What tips for repurposing do you have? Please leave your comments below.