3 New lenses to look at old content to repurpose with purpose

What do you feel when you look at old content?

For me, it could be anything like…

• Oh no! This is bad. I mean - really bad! Who was I even talking to?
• Did I really write that? With a bit of work, I can turn it into a decent piece of content!
• Wow! This is amazing and I must repurpose this one!

Every time I repurpose content, I change something. I never repurpose my content in its original form.

One of the reasons is, that I have come to accept that any kind of writing is like a piece of art. A piece of art is never finished, and it is never perfect. It always relates to a specific point in time and as that point in time changes, the content has to be optimised to reflect that change.

When I’m optimising my content, I look through 3 different lenses:

• Audience relevance
• Business & marketing
• Personal growth

Audience Relevance – how have information needs changed?

As I said – your content is optimised for a specific point in time and the information or content needs that your audience has at that time.

There are external and internal developments that change content needs over time.

External?refers to the environment around us, trends, politics, the economy, technology, pandemics, or paradigm shifts that occur with time. And we have to respond to those changes.

Years ago, entrepreneurs were glorified when they worked 12-14-hour days, took no holidays, and were entirely focused on revenue and recognition.

Those who practised this paid a huge price:

Burnout, broken relationships, disenchantment with a business they once loved, mental health issues, and more…

We’ve learned our lessons and now slow intentional living, self-care, work-life balance, and mental health are playing a bigger role - just to name a few.

Since the pandemic started, working from home, online learning, and the great resignation have changed our markets and lives…

Now you need to understand what that means for your content…

Internal?refers to personal development, continuous learning, mindset shifts, changed priorities etc.

This can be related to life circumstances from a career perspective – from being a student to a high-performance employee, to consultant or entrepreneur…

From a social perspective – getting married, having children, moving countries…

Any experiences that shape us, the knowledge that we accumulate, or philosophies that we adopt lead to growth and change.

Just reflect for a moment…

• What was the most profound insight that you gained this year?
• What have you learned this year that has an impact on your private life?
• What have you learned about yourself, your business and how that has changed your differentiation?
• What new activities have you discovered that you enjoy – what don’t you like anymore?
• What habits have you developed and what habits have you stopped?
• What economic or health changes have had an impact on you?
• How have the keywords you type into Google changed?
• How has your message, values, purpose, and story changed?

Now, when you look at old content, you need to check whether your content is a timeless wonder or whether you need to adapt it to align the message with your audience’s current information needs, desires, pain points, dreams, ambitions, and struggles.

Your old content can serve as a wonderful source and inspiration for content that aligns with your audience’s current reality and needs.

Be kind to yourself and see your old content as a snapshot in time that allows you to refine and create something of greater significance, quality, and impact.

And lastly, you might also discover that your audience has changed and that you are now talking to a different audience because you and your services have developed too.

But for now, let’s take another look at your business and marketing.

Business & marketing – keeping up with technology & algorithms

Each social media platform plays by different rules.

Demographics are different on each and with that, preferences and intentions on each platform are different. That also means that you need to adapt your content for each platform and its users.

Posts on Facebook can be as long as you want them to be. LinkedIn and Instagram limit the characters you can use.

LinkedIn and Instagram like you to do carousel posts – Facebook doesn’t.

All platforms are heading towards favouring video content over written content.

Knowing your platforms is now more important than ever – if you want to effectively execute a successful strategy.

But one thing’s for sure: You should keep up with major developments to an extent where it affects your strategy.

It’s important how you can most effectively grow and nurture your audience and gain expert status through your content. How you can develop trust and naturally move your (warm) audience to sales conversations. How your social media platforms fit into your wider marketing and sales strategy.

Sales still happen either in messenger or off the platform. Your content and copy are the vehicles that move your audience into DMs, onto your website, or into your calendar.

For that, your content and copy need to meet certain requirements…

• It needs to be created specifically for your audience (and there are differences between users on each platform that you need to take into account)
• It should be tied to your content pillars (those things you write about and that are important to know about your services, you, your offer, your brand…)
• Each piece should have a goal (build relationships, nurture, empower, sell, entertain…) and
• Follow a writing structure that promotes its goal (AIDA, PASTOR, 4 C’s…) and is exciting to read
• Contain keywords your audience is looking for etc.
• A CTA that helps take your audience through their customer’s journey

When you repurpose your content, it’s important to check which goals you want your content to fulfil and then ensure that you adapt it accordingly.

And then, of course, the style needs to resonate – which leads to the final lens…

Writing style, brand & personal growth – personalisation that connects

Not only has the world around you changed since you wrote the content that you want to repurpose – you have changed and grown as well.

You have worked with more clients, gained more knowledge and experience, developed new interests, and worked on your personal development.

Since you created that piece of content, you haven’t only deepened your domain knowledge, but you have also continued your story, gaining deeper insights that affect your branding – usually to the underlying psychological level.

That affects your style, tone of voice, and brand messaging.

When you review your brand statements, your vision, mission, values or purpose statements, your value proposition and USP – you might notice that you have evolved and that you need to tweak these statements.

When you are reading your content now, you are reading it through a lens of growth and development. You’ll notice certain sections that don’t feel fully aligned with your “evolved” brand and its style and messaging.

Repurposing your content is a wonderful opportunity to align your content with your current strategy, brand, and messaging.

Ask yourself whether the overall message still aligns with your brand messaging frameworks, whether the content still matches your content pillars, and whether your writing style still sounds and feels like you.

Don’t feel discouraged if you feel that don’t like that piece of content or sections of it anymore. That’s because repurposing your content reflects your growth. And that’s a beautiful thing, although it can be uncomfortable to look into that mirror.

And if you get a feeling of misalignment when reading your old content, drop me a line and we can look into how you have grown and how you can reflect that in your messaging and your content.