How to turn 1 blogpost into 14 pieces of content
Everyone wants maximum value for minimum effort with each piece of content they create.
At Proof Content, we’re no different. We admit that we don’t always practise what we preach (urgent client work tends to take priority over our own!). But we know how to help you get the most value out of every piece of content. And now we’re going to show you how.
Why repurpose?
Before we get into the how, let’s discuss why you should turn one blogpost into 14 pieces of content.?
The reason is that about 50-75% of the time and effort to create a new blogpost goes into research. That’s true for almost any content created from scratch.
What you’re really doing is maximising the value of that research. That research, combined with your own company’s experience, should have led you to some useful insights that are worth sharing.
But let’s deal with one common myth about repurposing — that it’s fast.?
Repurposing is not fast. You’ll still need to put intime and energy to create the best content for your other platforms. You can’t just lift content directly from one place and reuse it somewhere else. It needs to be reworked to suit the platform and audience.
But it is faster since you can cut out the labour-intensive research stage, which can take hours, if not days.
How to repurpose content
Here's our step-by-step guide to repurposing one piece of content 14 ways - and we’re going to use this blogpost that you’re reading as our example.
Anchor content
Call it what you like - anchor, pillar, cornerstone or hero - we’re talking about the first piece. It will almost always be a long-form piece of content, such as a blogpost, and this blogpost will be our anchor content.
Our anchor content is therefore this blogpost:
How to turn 1 blogpost into 14 pieces of content
We’re starting with a lot of LinkedIn examples because our business is B2B, so that’s where we mainly interact with our clients.
We won’t provide examples for EVERY one of these because our clients don’t operate on all of these platforms, but we’ll show you how we’ve done it for ours.?
Here’s a secret - we’re lazy! We’d rather use one piece of content 14 different ways than create 14 new pieces of content from scratch.
Are you lazy too? Take a look at our latest blogpost, How to Turn One Blogpost Into 14 Pieces of Content - link in first comment - to find out how you can join our lazy-writers’ club.
See you at the pool!
2. Email newsletter
[Email Subject line] Can you really get 14 content pieces out of one?
[Email Preview] Spoiler: You can. And we’ll show you how.?
[Email Body] Writing brilliant content is exhausting. It can take days of research, hours of writing, even more hours of rewriting, lots of editing and up to 100 cups of coffee.
But what if one piece of content could have 14 times the impact?
It can.?
If you’re in the mood to take some short-cuts that will improve your output while reducing your input, take a look at our How To guide here.
3. Checklist
Does your blogpost lend itself to a downloadable checklist ? If so, create one so your readers have a take-away action plan after you’ve shared your insights.
Click here to download our customisable checklist we created from this blogpost.?
4. Instagram post
Proof Content doesn’t have an active Instagram account, but if we did, this is what it would say:
Making the most of a single blogpost is child’s play with our step-by-step guide. Find out how to turn one blogpost into 14 pieces of stellar content. Getting the low-down is only a hop, skip and jump (to our bio - for the article link) away.?
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5. Post to Medium, Apple News or other online news platforms
You can repost your article to Medium , Apple News or other online platforms, which is a great way to grow your thought-leadership. But our SEO friends at StudioHawk say you need to be sure that if you post the same content on your own website and on Medium that you set up a canonical tag from the Medium post to go to your own website.?
Find out how to do that here https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033930293-Set-a-canonical-link . This ensures Google recognises that the post on your own website is the original and that you’ve authorised the content on Medium as a syndication.?
6. LinkedIn Proof Content CEO video post
Being a lazy content writer really pays off. Who knew???
Our brilliant Jill Starley-Grainger has created an even brillianter blogpost to show you how to turn one blog into 14 pieces of content.?
There’s even a checklist to go with it, but if you’re feeling lazy here’s the breakdown:
??Begin with your pillar piece of content - this is where all of the research, data analysis, audience analysis, etc, goes (usually around 75% of the process).?
??Make sure you understand what works best on each platform - for example, a short sentence at the beginning of a LinkedIn post is a real crowd pleaser.?
??Highlight the best bits from your content, or the main ideas, and turn them into snappy LinkedIn posts, useful downloadables, quick emails, pithy Instagram posts, engaging YouTube videos, scintillating podcasts and more.?
??Get the full list and how-to guide from the blogpost (link in comments below).?
7. LinkedIn Head of Content written post
I don’t know about you, but I spend hours - sometimes days - researching any long-form content I write, such as blogposts. Honestly, I often spend that much time on short-form, too, if it’s for a client.?
To get the most bang for my research buck, I’ve come up with a bunch of different ways to ‘repurpose’ that content. The reality is that repurposing is still fairly labour intensive, but it cuts out the most time-consuming part of most content, which is the research.
I’ve written a step-by-step guide to this so you can do the same with yours.? Link in the first comment below.
8. LinkedIn article
You can post your blogpost on your company’s LinkedIn page. Just go to the company profile section, then click ‘Articles’, and add the article. Using the same content on both LinkedIn articles and Google doesn’t penalise you on either, and LinkedIn explains how and why to do it here.
9. Twitter post
Looking for ways to cut down on the time it takes you to create content? Here’s a simple way - repurpose it. Click here to read our free guide: How to Turn 1 Blogpost into 14 pieces of Content. #copywriting
10. Facebook post
You put a lot of time into creating interesting blogposts, online articles and whitepapers. Wouldn’t it be great if you could get more value from them? You can!
Check out our cheat’s guide to turning a single piece of content into 14 pieces of brilliance.
11. YouTube
We don’t YouTube, but if we did, we’d turn all of these tips into a video, with one of us presenting them quickly, and breaking the video up in segments for each tip so that people could easily scroll along to their preferred tip.?
Then we’d write the summary, possibly with a little light SEO and some hashtags, and share it on all of our other social networks.
12. TikTok
Our clients aren’t on TikTok - at least, not for work purposes - but if they were, we’d post a short video with a few quick tips, then mention the web address to get them all.?
Or maybe we’d train office dog Basil to run around excitedly in circles as we counted down the 14 ways to reuse a single piece of content.?
13. Podcast
We don’t have a podcast (yet). If we did, we’d interview one of our clients to talk about the process of developing ideas for multiple platforms and how it’s working for them.?
14+:?
Need more ideas?
At Proof Content, we’re always full of creative ideas for content that makes you look better. And we’ll help you make the most of it. Get in touch to set up a call https://www.proofcontent.com/contact .