How To Get More Out Of Your Content With Bonnie Morata
I talk about finding more ease and joy in your workday a lot. So let me quickly give you the DL on what it means to run a business with ease and joy. As I define it, it means you have a personally-defined “balance” between business stuff and life stuff.
When our businesses consume us and begin to prevent us from spending time with our families or taking care of our wellbeing or keep us from doing other things in our lives that we enjoy we can begin to resent our business, our clients, and/or our work.
To have joy it’s important that we first like the work we do — that’s obvious right — but maybe more important is that we stick to our boundaries surrounding our business. Broken boundaries always lead to resentment — even with ourselves.
Ease makes honoring our boundaries well, easier. Having ease in your business is all about working smarter not harder — always asking if there is a faster, easier way to achieve the same result. Faster and easier does not mean cutting corners or creating blah work. The important part of that question is “to achieve the same result”.
You also welcome ease into your life when you start where you are versus focusing on where you “should” be. When you focus on what small steps you can take right now to move forward in your versus all of the steps, or the steps that some else took, you’ll avoid feeling paralyzed and instead will feel empowered.
My best advice is to slow down, take inventory, and make a plan. When you give yourself space and time to consider your actions you’ll get the most out of everything you do. With that I want to say that there are nine ideas to repurpose, rework, or reuse your content below — please don’t try to do all of these on your own! Pick two or three that excite you.
Why You Should Care About Content
Content creation (i.e. blog posts, podcast episodes, email newsletters) is definitely a time-consuming activity for modern entrepreneurs marketing themselves online. It’s also the most popular because content marketing effectively builds trust, credibility, and connection. And heart centric businesses thrive on all three of these!
There’s a positive correlation between the amount of attention given to your blog or podcast and your revenue, which is why we see it happening at such a fast pace nowadays.
Basically, content marketing works. More content equals more attention. More attention equals more money spent on your products or services. Of course, as a solopreneur or someone with a small team you physically cannot compete with the amount of content some bigger names are putting out there, and the good news is you don’t have to.
I want you to scrap the previous statement that more content equals more attention and more attention equals more money. Instead, think about it this way: better content equals better attention. Better attention equals more money.
With this in mind, I confidently recommend that you focus on creating less (yes, less!) content but better content. Then use the nine ideas I’m about to share with you to get more eyes on that better content.
Why does this matter? Repurposing your work is a strategy that will give you the time and energy to create amazing content instead of scrambling to publish okay content. You will not only feel really good about putting your best work out there, but you will also be attracting really high-quality traffic (aka buyers, not window shoppers). It all comes back to working with ease and joy, my friend.
So let’s get into these strategies to repurpose each one of your blog posts, podcast episodes, or whatever kind of content you primarily produce.
01 Blog Post Or Podcast Episode
The first strategy is to take your original content and record yourself reading it audiobook-style. This works if you first wrote a blog post. If you are a podcaster, take the script and turn it into a transcript that you post to your website like a blog.
This increases your content’s exposure with very little additional work on your part. Some people like to read and others prefer to listen. Either way, this strategy appeals to both types of people with the exact piece of content. And then there’s SEO (but let’s not get into that!).
If you’re a blogger and little intimidated by the equipment side of creating audio know that it’s really not expensive or difficult to create a quality recording. Nothing fancy is required. Jenna Kutcher started her The Goal Digger Podcast with an iPhone...no tech excuses, okay?
If you are a podcaster who wants to apply this strategy just make sure you spend a little time editing your script to make sense for reading.
02 Email Newsletter
You can use your original content as the basis of your email newsletter that you send to your subscribers — or you can even copy and paste that bad boy. No joke — I see a lot of people do this. (And I do it often myself.)
Sharing your latest, and probably best content (I mean who doesn’t get better with time), is the most effective way to engage current and future customers.
If you want to write fresh email content to share your original content, this strategy would take a little longer but it’s well worth it! This is the strategy I recommend you implement first if you’re not sure where to spend your time.
Here’s a snippet from a previous post of mine that explains why email matters.
It’s not new or shiny, but it can be a powerhouse in your business whether you’re an influencer, service-provider, or digital product creator.
Think of it this way. Social media is the fun downtown apartment you rent in your 20’s. You are close to all the hip restaurants and bars. You’re meeting new people all the time and having the time of your life. The downside is you don’t own any of it and you never will. Plus your rent keeps going up every year.
Email is that charming bungalow you lovingly renovate. Life is a little slower living there. Instead of nights out, you have nights in with your closest friends. Sure it lacks the glam of that apartment but it’s yours and it’s nice to settle into something a bit more predictable. Plus the ROI on real estate is bomb.
If you feel stuck on what to say inside these emails, or don’t know where to start, or maybe you already use email in your business but are looking for ways to improve upon that strategy, be sure to join me for How To Execute A Month Of Emails In Just 2 Days. It’s completely free and you’ll learn the process and framework for writing uniquely-you emails and QUICKLY.
03 Instagram Post(s)
This is so so simple, but it gives your content some extra mileage. The strategy is to take a few snippets of your original content and use it as a quote, infographic, and/or caption on Instagram. I This can be on top of sharing your original content on the platform. You see authors doing this often with their books — pulling a handful of powerful sentences and turning them into quote images. And it’s popular because:
It reinforces your message in a digestible way. It takes no time at all to read an Instagram post but your followers over time are getting a better and better sense of who you are and your message. It also sparks interest in your larger pieces of work — like your original content.
It gives you more social content without sacrificing quality. The faster the platform the more content it requires to gain traction on it. Posting three times or more a week on Instagram can be daunting. Using this strategy makes it a whole lot less so don’t you think?
It increases your exposure. With an average engagement rate of around 4% (at the time when this post was published), you don’t want to just share your content once. Give each piece a longer shelf life by sharing it more than one way.
04 Instagram Story(ies)
Just as you can turn your content into a few posts on the ‘gram, you can also turn it into Instagram Stories or even a Reel (not my thing, but you do you). You can do this by creating a quote graphic, infographic, or graphic with audio over it. Or by simply recording a video of you speaking on the topic — whichever feels more doable for you.
Unlike posts you can save your Stories as a highlight to get extra extra mileage here. Create a Story Highlight for each of your main content categories and viola you’ve got mini-trainings right on your page for new and existing followers to enjoy!
05 Pinterest Graphic(s)
Did you know that the average lifespan of a Pin is 110? The average shelf life of an Instagram post? Two days. Basically, your content can become obsolete in 48 hours or it can last the better part of a year.
And a big perk of Pinterest is that for every piece of original content that you publish, you can create up to 10 to 15 Pin graphics for it. For example, one blog post can equal up to 15 different pins and each one will be considered a NEW Pin. That’s pretty amazing, right? You can learn more about Pinterest here if I’ve peaked your interest.
06 Guest Post
You can rework — not repurpose — your original content into a guest post in an online publication or someone else’s blog. By rework I mean writing it for a different audience (for example food bloggers versus life coaches), updating the info, or taking a different angle on the subject matter.
By leveraging someone else’s audience you increase exposure to your ideas exponentially. It’s a similar piece of content — it’s just living on someone else’s site. This works whether or not their audience is bigger than yours. It’s more important that they have a different audience and your content is relevant to them.
This helps you grow your own audience especially if you include a link to your blog, podcast, or even a lead magnet — something your new readers can download by subscribing to your emails. Include this link within your author bio on the guest post page.
07 Lead Magnet
This may be my favorite strategy because it’s kinda fun. Then again, I really do love all of these because they’re all so good. Anyways you be the judge of which is your favorite.
Strategy number seven is to take your original piece of content and turn it into a worksheet, checklist, cheatsheet, or ebook that your readers can download. How useful would it be to print out a blog post that you come to over and over again?
This can be super simple but it will grow your email list when you’re putting out great content that your readers want more of — which of course you are.
Let’s talk more about what this could look like. Using a coach as an example, imagine that they have a blog post on how to create a morning routine that helps people have a more productive day.
This post has some specific steps and some ideas to incorporate into a morning routine that could easily be turned into a fun morning rituals checklist or a worksheet that helps readers build their own morning routine.
The idea is that it’s the same content presented in a different way that makes it even more tangible and actionable to readers, which definitely makes it worth subscribing to.
09 Paid Social Ad
I think we all probably have a love/hate thing for ads. And yet, a paid social ad is a great way to get more eyes on a piece of content — one that you’re particularly proud of and serves as a great “read magnet” for potential subscribers or customers.
If you don’t have a large existing audience, this strategy, combined with an attractive email opt in, or lead magnet, can help you grow your email list a little quicker than working with organic traffic alone.
Plus if you’re sharing content namely through Instagram or your email list, that content is done within a day or two. So why not make it work a little harder for you by introducing it to a new audience over and over again?
Picking Your Strategies
If you implement even just two or three of the strategies you’re going to get so much out of what you’re already creating. You’ll get in front of more people, and therefore create more impact with your work. There’s a lot to love about that.
Again, I do not want you to try to implement all nine of these on your own! So how do you choose?
The answer is that it depends on you! (I know, don’t you hate it when people say that?) Which platforms or channels are fun for you? How much time do you have to dedicate to content creation? (Remember the faster the platform the more content required.) Who are you trying to attract to your business? Where do they “hang out” online?
I want you to focus on doing what you can do really well. And just let go of the rest.
About Bonnie Morata
Bonnie is a business strategist, entrepreneur, and creator of The List Lab. She promotes an intuitive, feel-good approach to everyday business and life. Learn more about creating a stress-free content routine by joining her inside her free workshop How To Execute A Month Of Emails In Just 2 Days.