SHOULD YOU REALLY RECYCLE YOUR STORIES?

The answer is simple – yes absolutely.

The phrase you may hear more commonly is 'should you recycle your content' but frankly it's the same thing. ?

If you struggle with content or coming up with ideas to share stories of your day, week, month, year etc then recycling can work very well.?

Don’t get caught up into thinking that everyone out there will have seen that thing before – and may judge you accordingly. A few may have seen that story but most will not, or they will vaguely remember.?

Social media, blogging etc doesn’t work like that. It’s almost supremely arrogant to think that your whole audience has seen, read or engaged with your content when you’ve put it out there once.

Recently I've been talking over and over again about my No BS Media Summit that I'm running in February next year and I've said it so much it's easy to assume everyone has seen it. Yet they haven't because everyone is more fixated on their own agenda - they always have been and that's why PR exists! ?

Recently a client said something about his social media which made me realise that he thought every time he posted on LinkedIn all of his contacts would automatically see it. He was rather shocked when I explained that it didn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that on any social media platform. He made an assumption and, as my daughter always says, 'assumption' makes an 'ass' out of 'you' and 'me'. ?

I recycle content and revisit the same ideas, experiences and advice over and over again. There may be a small number of people who see this and think ‘she’s banging on about that again’ and that’s fine. I make no apologies – I’m always connecting with new people and many existing contacts will not have seen it.?

The truth is that I’m showing up. And there's another truth in this, I'm a journalist through and through and I've told some stories 100s of times. It's part of what I do, part of what every journalist does no matter if they work in print, online, a mixture, in radio or tv.

The News Cycle:

The news has always gone in cycles. There are very few stories which have not been told before, come around again or will come around again based on something that’s just happened. News in the world of the media is cyclical. We are cyclical in our behaviours and what we do too. Therefore it makes sense that not everything is brand ‘new’ or ‘disruptive’. Stories have their time and then, generally that time comes around again.?

Put simply the media talks about things like: Summer, Spring, Autumn, Winter, the weather, Easter, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day on a very predictable annual basis.?

There will be some people reading this who will think – oh yes that’s just jumping on a bandwagon. Yes it is. Just ensure that it’s the right bandwagon for you and your business or brand.

Why is this of value? Because people will be talking around that subject at that time and being part of that conversation has huge value. You become aligned with it.?

And one tip if you find written content very difficult eg. You have dyslexia, or simply poor writing skills and you hated English at school and you hate it now. Start with video – record your tips, your motivation, your ‘why’, the weekly relevant topic which has inspired you to speak. Then from those videos you can get a transcription (using something like Ottr) and you have your genuine content which started with a video.?

The joy of these modern times is that there are solutions to those types of problems which gives everyone a voice and a time to be heard and seen.?

So when you think – should I repost or use that from a year ago? Then do it, just check it for updates and go again.?

Good content for most of us should hang more on consistency and showing up than on perfection.

What about September?

Let's just briefly touch on September. What common stories are likely to come up during the upcoming month.

How about 'autumn'? It's the first month of autumn, the turning of the seasons, nature will show us that to some extent.

How about 'back to school', 'starting school', 'starting college' or 'starting university' - it may be irrelevant to you right now but it's relevant to 1000s of people every single year. Case studies will be sought and you may wish to recall your own experiences around this. There will be a whole raft of experts and companies where this is really relevant.

Here are just some subjects which will come up during September in the news cycle somewhere:

*Alzheimer's Disease

*Organic.

*Sourdough.

*Sepsis.

*Pensions.

*Podcasts.

*Equinox.

*Heritage.

*Gratitude.

*Paralympics.

*Cycling.

*Football.

Literally every month there's a story hook for every person, every expert, every company, every charity etc etc. I'd be staggered if somewhere in that list there's not something you can talk about which is relevant to you.

If you want help to plan - you can work with me for just an hour to get going - just drop me an email [email protected]

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