A lot of blogs have a very short moment in the spotlight. They’re researched, written, reviewed, approved, published, shared once and then sent off to collect digital dust somewhere in the depths of your website.
Which is a bit sad, really, considering how much work went into them.
Repurposing gets a lot more out of that effort. One good blog can become a short video, a few social posts, a carousel, an email topic and even a jumping-off point for future content.
And it’s not just recycling for the sake of it. Most people won’t see everything you post, and they definitely won’t all want to consume it in the same format. Someone who has absolutely no intention of reading 900 words might happily watch the same idea explained in a 40-second video while eating lunch.
So rather than constantly chasing the next idea, it’s worth asking what else your existing content could become.
- Repurposing means turning one strong piece of content into several others for different formats and channels.
- One decent blog can easily give you a few weeks of videos, social posts and emails.
- Copying and pasting the same paragraph everywhere doesn’t count because each version still needs to suit the platform.
- Bigger pieces are usually the easiest place to start, especially blogs that answer questions your customers ask all the time.
- Before adding another idea to the content calendar, check what you’ve already published.
One blog, one month of content sorted
Let’s use something I recently Googled myself: why is my fiddle leaf fig dropping all its leaves?
For context, this plant has been testing my sanity, so when I found a blog from a plant shop that gave me a decent answer, explained what I was doing wrong and told me what to change, I came away feeling slightly better about my chances of keeping it alive.
But that was also the last I ever saw of the business that wrote it.
If they’d repurposed that blog, they could have kept popping up in my feed for the rest of the month without coming up with another topic from scratch.
| Week | It becomes | What that looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | The blog and a launch post | The full answer in 800 words on the website, where Google can find it, plus a social post that gives away the one-line answer and links to the rest. |
| Week 2 | A short video and a carousel | The owner films 40 seconds in the shop, holding an overwatered fig next to a happy one. Then the blog's subheadings become a carousel called "5 reasons your fiddle leaf is sulking". |
| Week 3 | A poll and an email | The poll asks "How many plants have you lost this year?" with the options 0, 1 to 3 and "I'd rather not say". The email puts the video up top, adds three lines from the blog and finishes with a button to shop pots with drainage holes. |
| Week 4 | A customer story and an FAQ | A before and after photo of a customer's rescued fig goes on social, and a two-sentence version of the answer goes on the indoor plants page, right where people decide whether to buy. |
That’s one idea and eight pieces of content spread across a whole month, and none of them needed a brand new brainstorm. Better still, nobody sat staring at a blank screen on a Monday morning wondering what on earth to post, because the blog had already answered that question.
Copy and paste is not repurposing
This is where people can get a tad lazy, because copying the first paragraph of a blog into LinkedIn, adding a link underneath and calling it repurposed is still basically the same piece of content in a new place.
The better approach is to change the shape of the idea so it feels right for the format. A blog gives you room to explain something properly, a video lets you show it, a carousel breaks it into smaller points and an email can make the topic feel much more direct and personal.
Each piece should also work on its own, so someone shouldn’t have to read the blog first to understand the reel, or seen the reel before the email makes sense.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. Start with the biggest piece
Carving a blog, a long video or a podcast chat into smaller pieces is simple, whereas stretching one Instagram caption into 800 words is misery.
2. Keep it to one idea per piece
The fiddle leaf video doesn’t also need repotting, fertiliser and pest control, so save those for later and you’ve got next month sorted too.
3. Let the platform set the tone
On LinkedIn it might be the business lesson, something like “the question we answer 30 times a week”, but on TikTok it’s just the sad, droopy fig with a playful caption.
4. Run it backwards
When someone comments on the reel asking “is it the same for monsteras?”, that’s a new blog topic handing itself to you.
5. Change the wording
When someone comments on the reel asking “is it the same for monsteras?”, that’s a new blog topic handing itself to you.
Which blogs are worth repurposing?
Not every blog deserves a month of fame, and your 2023 Christmas trading hours can rest in peace.
The ones worth pulling back out usually tick at least one of three boxes:
- They answer a question customers ask you in real life, whether that’s over the counter or on the phone.
- They already bring in visitors or enquiries, which tells you the topic has legs.
- Or they’re evergreen, so the advice will be just as true next winter as it is today.
If a post ticks all three, start there and then work your way down the list.
And don’t panic about formats you’ve never tried, because none of them need to be fancy. The video doesn’t need a film crew when a phone, a window and someone who knows their stuff will beat a glossy production with nothing to say. The carousel doesn’t need a designer either, since all it really needs is five clear points and those are already sitting in your subheadings.
Start with what you've already got
Most businesses don’t have a content marketing problem so much as a distribution problem. There are months of videos, posts and emails hiding inside blogs that were written, published and forgotten, and they’re yours to use whenever you like.
So before you brainstorm a single new idea, open your blog archive and pick one post you were proud of. Then ask what it would look like as a video, as three social posts or as next month’s email, and you’ll probably find the next few weeks of content are already half written.
And if you’d rather hand the whole job over, that’s what we’re here for 👋
Send us your best post and we’ll show you what it could become 💪
