Republish. Repurpose. Reinvent. Repeat!

The many benefits of repurposing content.

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This article is letter (R) of our “Your Words Have Worth" series that shows your words and online content have value. “Your Words Have Worth" looks at what's the hottest, latest, and greatest for the coming new year and beyond. Find links to more articles in the series below.

Your words have worth. And the more you say them, the more power they accumulate. That’s why the “share” button has so much influence. When content reaches fame levels of reach, it’s said to have gone viral.

But you don’t need to sound like a broken record to get your message across. Repurposing your content is a way for people to engage with your content on many different levels. So we’ll look at the perks of repurposing your content and how to republish, repurpose, and reinvent your content.

The Perks Of Repurposing Your Content

First of all, what exactly is “re-using” content? Re-using content refers to taking any of your existing content and transforming it into a new piece of content.

Marketers love to reuse content that has performed really well with their audiences. The criteria for performing well can be anything from...

… high amount of clicks

… high engagement in the form of comments

… users read the whole article

… time spent on the article page

… interlink and redirect links clicked

Why would you repurpose your content? For one, repurposing content gives it new life and greater visibility. You can also publish more often, with less work, and without being redundant.

In general, the goal of repurposing content is to gain as much readers for your content as possible.

Not every single one of your social media followers, blog readers, and newsletter subscribers will see every piece of content you post. So, re-publishing the same content in a different form gives your content the chance to be seen by multiple audiences. And people who have already seen it will enjoy the fresh retake of your content.

Repurposing your content will give it a wider audience. And if people truly love your content, they will share it on their social media.

Republish, Repurpose, And Reinvent Your Content

Is there a difference between republishing, repurposing, and reinventing? Yes, yes there is. And here are the differences.

Republish. When content is simply posted on another channel with no changes made. You can repost your content to different online platforms like Quora, medium, social media platforms… etc.

When you republish content, it’s a good idea to have a link at the beginning of the article redirecting to the original post. Doing so will help your readers find more of your articles and learn more about your business when they are on your blog.

Repurpose. Converting content into a different format or product.

Reinvent. To makeover completely. Reinventing the wheel. For example, you can only take the topic of an article and use that topic to reinvent a completely new article.

For example, let’s say Farmer John wrote an article, “How to pick the best apple at a farmer’s market.” The content did pretty well on his blog, so he wants to re-use it somehow.

If he decides to republish it, he can reach out to another blog and ask if they can feature his article on their blog.

To repurpose his article, he can translate it into a video. He can make the video as complex or as simple as he wants. The simple route would be something as plain as speaking into the camera and outlining the main points of the article.

Maybe Farmer John decides to completely reinvent his article based on the comments the article received. He notices many people have questions about what type of apple is best for baking apple pies. Farmer John then goes on to write a new article, “Apples to Apples: Choose the right apples for your apple pie.”

Another simple way to remix your content is to translate it into other languages. You can generate more readers from specific regions. For example, translating your content into Spanish can attract more readers from Brazil. Translating your content into Chinese can raise your readership from Taiwan.

Conversely, if you have an unusually high amount of traffic from a certain region, it may be worth investing into translating your content into that region’s language.

Show You Care – Republish Our Content

Don’t just stop at republishing your own content. The republish, repurpose, reinvent method is so effective at growing a wider reader audience that blogs encourage other blogs and publishers to share their content too.

Great news! As a content creator, you constantly scour the internet for those pieces of insightful, relevant content. Sometimes, the content you find is a hidden gem. You can republish those content gems with your audience so long as you give proper credit.

But wait, what constitutes proper credit? That question has been made a lot easier to answer thanks to the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

Websites like Singularity Hub believe the free flow of information is an important component for the future of learning.

Singularity Hub, describes that under the Creative Commons license, CC BY-ND 4.0, anyone is free to:

“Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.”

While there is more to it than that, that’s the general idea. Singularity Hub, along with Aeon and The Conversation is just one of the many sites that release content under Creative Commons. This is great news as releasing content under Creative Commons will further empower and engage readers with different perspectives and thought leadership.

Content Marketing On A Budget

Another one of the huge benefits of re-using content we haven’t touched on is simply how much it can save you. One, it can save you time. As you know, to create relevant, valuable content takes a lot of time researching, creating, and promoting. And as everyone knows, time is money.

So in that sense, republishing content saves you money as well since you don’t use so many precious labor power just making content.

These easy steps will get you on your way:

1. Develop a content marketing strategy – Take stock of where your content stands.

2. Perform a content marketing audit – Once you know how much content you have and how well they perform, you can know which content to cull and which to keep.

3. Know your audience – Knowing your audience will be how you know which content is performing

4. Devise a content plan – What’s your plan? Which pieces of content will you republish, repurpose, or reinvent?

5. Create a timeline – A plan’s not a plan without knowing what you will do and when. Your future self will thank you for setting up your content schedule in advance.

Word Up:

Repurpose. Republish. Reinvent. Repeat. That’s the motto of the internet that loves to share and remix content from everyone else. The internet’s a new playing ground with new ways of working. Copyright rules of printing press days are pretty irrelevant in the digital world. The Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license is being adopted by many sites as a way to encourage their content to be shared.

Republish your content if you want it to be the same and just want it to reach a wider audience. Repurpose content if you want to give it a new twist. To give your content a complete makeover, reinvent it completely.

Sources: californiahealthline, singularityhub, thenextweb, dmlp

This article is letter (R) of our “Your Words Have Worth" series where we write an article for each letter of the phrase. “Your Words Have Worth" looks at what's the hottest, latest, and greatest for the coming new year and beyond. Find links to more articles in the series below.

(Y)ou And Your Content. The Future Is Looking Bright

(O) Monetizing Content When (O)ur Words Have Worth

(U)tilize Your Content To Make Your Words Have More Worth

(R)epublish. Repurpose. Reinvent. Repeat!

(W) Surprising Places (W)here You Will Find Your Content

(O) What Is The Value Of (O)ther People’s Content?

(R) The (R)ole Future Content - Where It’s Been And Where It’s Going

(D)ating And Business: The Secret To Success In Both

(S) How (S)uper Influencers Monetize Content

(H) Be (H)appy Living The Content Lifestyle [Infograph]

(A) ...coming soon

(V) ...coming soon