155. How do you repurpose content?
Wish you could speed up your content creation speed? 🏃🏼 In this fun Brand Therapy episode, you'll learn the ins and outs of repurposing content! Hosts Phil and Lauren dish on their tried-and-proven tactics for recycling content to save you time and energy without compromising on value. This episode breaks down how to transform a long-form piece of content into multiple pieces so you can get the most bang for your buck online. Enjoy!
Episode transcription
phil
Well, hello there. Welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren
And I'm Lauren.
Phil
And this is the podcast where we help you position, build and promote your brand. We're so happy you're here. You picked a great episode to listen to. We're talking about one of our favorite topics, which is repurposing your content. Guess where the idea for this episode came from? Do you have any guesses? Lauren Moore? Well, you already know the answer.
Lauren
You always ask me these questions when we've got a game plan for them. Do you want me to play dumb with these?
Phil
Yes, play along.
Lauren
I don't know, Phil, what do you have planned? Where did this idea come from?
Phil
Let me tell you where this idea came from. It was a voicemail from our dear friend Jean. Let's take a listen.
Jean
Hey, Phil, it's Jean here from your job escape plan. Wonder if you can help. I am looking to repurpose our webinar for several independent pieces of social media content, ideally on Instagram. Not sure if that's a good idea. In any case, I'm really looking for a steer on A, how to do that and B if I should do that. And I think you're probably the man to help me. If you already have some content with this, if you can maybe tag me on it. If not, if you can be create it, that would be amazing. But either way, I know you're the man to help me with it. Thanks a lot.
Phil
Thank you, Jean, thank you for submitting that question which is so great for an episode. We're gonna make a whole episode out of it because it's a good question that I think a lot of people are wondering, you want to be steered on how to repurpose content. In this case, Jean, you've got a webinar, I think, Laura, we can open this up to a discussion about video content in general.
Lauren
Oh, yeah. I think repurposing content, honestly, is the best way to do content, don't you? Because otherwise you're having to come up with new stuff all the time. It's exhausting.
Phil
Nobody has time. You know, on this topic of content creation, I think so much of what people talk about is how do you have time to do it? I don't really think time is the right issue. You know, I think people focus a bit too much on it if you're smart. And one of those ways of being smart is taking what already exists, what you work really hard to create, maybe not even work really hard to create, but how do you take inventory of your day and go, where am I being productive? And how can I do this once instead of twice. It could be as simple as recording a client call, not necessarily what your client is saying that's probably confidential, but even recording your own answers. In that context can make an amazing Instagram carousel, could make an amazing outline for a podcast episode, you could tweet it, there's so many ways to do this, what we call repurpose.
Lauren
Totally. And I think you make a good point about time not necessarily being the variable that you can control. Creating content, it's going to take time, especially at the beginning. But I think that the key differentiator between content creators who produce a lot, and content creators who produce less isn't necessarily about the amount of time that they spend, but it's more getting the most bang for your buck, out of the time that you're investing in content. It's going to take a few hours a week, no ifs, ands, or buts if you're committing to a content strategy, but what you produce out of those few hours is really, really important. And that's where repurposing content will kind of help you get a little leg up.
Phil
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Lauren
Let's talk through our content repurposing process to help inspire Jean and anyone else who might want to try it.
Phil
I would love to do that. This is something that could be used for video content, it could be used even if video content is not something you create a lot of. But let's go through ours because I feel like we've taken years to master ours, and I'm very proud of it. It works very well.
Lauren
Yeah, it was completely your idea. By the way. You're the one who tinkered with this system until it got to the place where it is today, which is a great place if I do say so myself.
Phil
I think people are so focused on how many podcast listeners do I have? How many YouTube video views do I have? How many saves and shares Am I getting my my Instagram posts when really I think that's, you know, of course, we're always curious and we want to succeed online. But I think sometimes we need to be a bit more selfish, instead of being so focused on what you know how everyone else's responding to your content and how they're showing that. I think we need to be selfish in that what value do you get from the content you're creating, and specifically long form content?
So it was a bit of an ‘aha’ moment for me that you and I hop on and record 20 to 30 minutes on a particular topic, you know, that gets posted as a podcast episode, and then what? There was a missing link between all the other content I was creating. And the fact that really, as much as I'd love for 1000s of people that listen to our podcast episodes, it's that sanctioned ongoing in our calendar time that you and I have to be creative, to have productive conversations that we let other people in on, and then for me to take this and turn it into actually two, three, sometimes four other things. So let's talk about that process.
Lauren
And to add, well, we might not have 1000s of podcast listeners, you do have 1000s of YouTube viewers, and we break down the process, people are gonna see how the discussions that we have on Brand Therapy directly fuel the content that you create on YouTube, which is very cool.
Phil
It means that we have two brains instead of just one in on the content that I share, the tips that I share to YouTube videos. So it's almost like we work on it together while creating another independent piece of content. Some people like to listen to podcasts, we can't assume that just because we create one piece of content that it's going to be consumed by the same pool or the same group of people. It's also you have to be aware that people like to consume different mediums. You for one, listen to podcasts. I don't listen to podcasts. It's like not a way that I like to get information.
Lauren
But I barely watch YouTube videos except for your own and our clients to check in.
Phil
I watch YouTube videos. Yeah, sometimes play them in the background, you know. So exhibit A. Also, there's other people who don't listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos, but they read blog posts. And so you have to think how can I create in a variety of mediums, and how can I do this efficiently? So let's maybe talk about that process.
Maybe we start by identifying well, not every content form is the same, some are shorter forms of content or micro content. A good example of that would be a tweet. You're limited to just a handful of characters to make a statement or share a message. And then there are longer forms of content. For us, that would be the podcast. That's really where our content creation process stems from.
Lauren
So with us what has worked, is basically starting big, and then chipping away to make our way down into smaller sizes of content. As Phil mentioned, the podcast is really our longest form of content, I would say. But by longest I don't necessarily mean long in terms of time, but longest in terms of the different topics that we can quickly cover within an episode that can help inspire future scripts. So we used to just kind of do a free for all with our podcast recordings, and we don't really do that anymore. We don't necessarily announce the format to our guests, or even to each other. But there's definitely more of a pattern that we follow in each episode.
So we do framing, examples, tools or strategies and next steps. So on this episode, the framing was us talking about why it's important to repurpose your content, right? That's the hook. It's the reason why someone might want to keep listening, because you're creating value at the beginning. We are currently in the example stage where we're talking through our content repurposing system as an example. And then later on, we'll get to tools, strategies, and next steps. So for the past 50 episodes, perhaps, we've been following the structure. And it's so great, because it gives us a lot to pull from when we get to step two, which is the blog post stage so far. Could you talk about the process that Sue does?
Phil
Yes. So once the podcast episode is recorded, it is transcribed. By transcribing the episode, it gives us a high level view of everything we talked about that can be turned into notes that you would then turn into a blog post. The blog post gets posted on our website, the blog post, also copy and paste is very easy for me to turn into a YouTube script in my own little format. So on YouTube, I do my intros a certain way, and I do my outros a certain way. And typically the sandwich of those is three to five tips on something. And so I just modify what we already have. But often what we already have is already formatted that way three to five takeaways or three to five points, because we followed that format that you described with examples, resources, tools, etc. So we're already close to that, right?
So even when we're designing that long form, layout, a long form piece of content, the layout or the structure of it, so for us is a podcast episode. Jean, for you, it's a webinar. Lots of time and work goes into that. You can really think about how is that format conducive for the next forms of content that you're creating. We've done that and it works well.
Lauren
Something very cool that I've discovered in the blog writing process is that the structure of the podcast actually allows us to pick and choose what we want the angle of the blog to be. So I'll give you an example.
In the framing part of our podcast where we talk about why it's important, that could be a good ‘here's why you should consider XYZ type blog posts’. So it's more of a cell or even a perspective piece.
In the examples structure. That's a really good ‘three examples of mind blowing brand identities’ right? Where we are actually lifting from that section of the podcast.
And the tools and strategies, that's where it could be ‘five tools to make content creation easier’.
And then in the next steps, it could be ‘five steps to get your business off the ground’.
So you can see how it could all come from the same episode. But you could actually get four different blog posts out of it if you wanted to. There have been a lot of times where I can't decide between what the blog angle should be, and so I just write two, which is great, because that's two YouTube scripts for you. Tube scripts. Yeah. And it could be four.
Phil
I can’t always anticipate that a certain title is going to take off, but honestly, the more I have to work with, the faster, or I should say, the less time it takes for me to write scripts. What's also cool is that I'm less worried about always creating a hit with my YouTube channel. I know that I can talk about certain topics like Instagram, and it increases the likelihood that that video will perform better. But I also think it's important to mix in other topics, so people don't just come to me for Instagram. I wouldn't just create that type of video because I know it does. Well, I want to mix in and experiment with other types of content.
In fact, my best performing video ever, it has nothing to do with Instagram, I guess it could be, but it's ‘three free apps for content creation’. Instagram is not named in that video, so you have to kind of experiment. And by leveraging the work that's already gone into the creation of something else, it means you have more time to either show up on other platforms, or spend some time creating other forms of content that might take longer. So some of my instagram videos require a little bit of research. But I have permission and time to build those out. Because I've already saved time, you know, and the other ones thanks to the work that's gone into this.
Lauren
Well, let's actually talk about time for a second because I feel like it seems like there's a lot of work happening. And there is but it's being distributed among different people. So between you and I, with this podcast, each episode, I think, on average is probably about half an hour, right, like 20 minutes when we're on our own 45 minutes when we're with a guest, so about half an hour. So combined, that's about one hour of time, then when we get to the transcription phase, I don't know how long that takes Sue, do you know, probably like an hour?
Phil
Yeah, something like that? Probably an hour.
Lauren
And then from there, it takes me about 15 minutes to write each blog post. So let's say we're doing two blog posts, then that's two and a half hours of combined work across all three of us. Now, how long does it take you to do a YouTube script?
Phil
If I gave you an average 30 minutes to an hour and a half closer to an hour and a half. But if I have something existing, I'd say closer to an hour. Okay, range is half an hour to 90 minutes.
Lauren
Great. So let's just say an hour. And that's that's three and a half hours of time. And then it probably takes you about 15 minutes to film?
Phil
Yeah, takes 15 minutes to film a video.
Lauren
So in three hours,
Phil
Also, editing time, maybe add an hour for the editing.
Lauren
So four hours and 45 minutes, we have a podcast episode, we have transcriptions of the podcast episode, which goes on the blog. We've also got two additional blog posts. We have a YouTube script, YouTube filmed and video edited. That's a lot of content right there in about half a day.
Phil
It's a lot of content. I would say. We're also continuing to refine our process and even build it out. I'd say we've refined it. I mean, that's pretty impressive as you said. Next for us, we're tackling Pinterest. How can we sprinkle pins out into the internet that drive traffic to this work that we've created in an ongoing way that's really just sitting there. There's people on Pinterest that are typing those keywords into it to find answers, and that's kind of the next thing that we're tackling
Lauren
Amazing. So now once the YouTube video is edited and ready to go, talk about how you create micro or smaller forms of content out of that.
Phil
So everyone's workflow’s a little bit different. I love to script everything out word for word, because then I can look at a script at a glance, and literally copy and paste phrases around the tips that I give that turns into an Instagram carousel. I can literally put them side by side script, whatever software I'm using to design that piece of content, I can look at them side by side, and I can go wow, copy, paste, copy, paste into a template that I've already created prior.
Lauren
Amazing, amazing. And then you can also lift it for, I guess, tweets for LinkedIn posts for whatever?
Phil
Yeah!
Lauren
Just lift your favorite sentences or lessons.
Phil
Exactly. Wherever you show up online, wherever you figured out, okay, these are priority platforms for me, this is where I need to carve out some time to be. Ideally, you're pulling from something that has already been created. So maybe to round this discussion off, let's pretend we're Jean and we've got a webinar. She doesn’t have a podcast episode, she has a webinar, how could we go through the process of repurposing that form of video?
Lauren
Great. So first, just looking at the video, as is, where can you host it, just the full video, YouTube, probably maybe LinkedIn?
Phil
Or Vimeo, you could embed it on your own website.
Lauren
Mm hmm. From there, I would say transcribe it.
Phil
You need to be able to see the content and seeing it, it's not sitting and necessarily watching it start to finish, but seeing it at a glance as being able to read it. Being able to look at the written words from that piece of content. From there, you can start to extract content that would make a great blog post: three tips on, three ways, five ways, five apps for. Numbers often help kind of group and make sense of that for someone.
Lauren
Mm hmm. And then you can also see if there are any, just really, really awesome places where you're just rocking it Jean, in your long webinar, maybe you could cut down that 20 to 32 second clip, and post that somewhere else too.
Phil
Maybe you tell a story, you know a client story or a story of your own in about a minute or two minutes about how you overcame something or you want to give an example that could be used as an individual video post on Instagram, it could be used in combination. You want examples on this go to my Instagram, often than carousels, I'll take up to one minute clip of a YouTube video and actually intermix it into the carousel. It's pretty unique because not a lot of people create content in so many different places, but I do. So I kind of use that as my advantage rather than saying like, go follow me on YouTube. I actually post a YouTube video. So people go oh, wow, how cool.
Lauren
Yeah, I think, just slice and dice. Really?
Phil
Yeah, exactly. Slice and dice and figure out where you want to show up, where you should show up. We have other podcasts episodes where we dive more into detail on choosing the right platforms, that Jean, I mean, I wouldn't overthink it. I would really, like Lauren said at a glance, look at that hour. Let's say that webinar, what are the best moments? What are the best tips? How can you start to share those in unique ways make your life easy. Set a timer. If you have an hour to create content then set a timer and you stop at the end of that hour being on the clock really helps me I would say really balance what you can extract from that hour of video with what you know people want. I don't show up in a very promotional way on platforms like Instagram because I think it feels salesy and inauthentic. But if I'm really excited about something or a particular part of that webinar, it excites me and I know if one of my audience members, listen to that five minute clip, they get some value from it, then oh my gosh, right. Take that and do something with it. Don't just use it because you have it. Make sure that what you're repurposing is valuable for other people.
Lauren
Very good point. There is something a little annoying when people just post videos of them speaking because you know they're on a stage. But the essence of what they're saying maybe isn't the most valuable to spend a few seconds on on Instagram. So I'm glad you brought that up. Don't post for the sake of posting.
Phil
Don't post for the sake of posting you need to filter a little bit. Maybe that's more once you kind of iron out the details. Certainly start, it won't be perfect. The more you post, the better you'll get. But that's how we repurpose, that's how you can repurpose.
Jean, thank you for the excellent question for taking the time to send that to us. By the way, any of you out there if there's a question that you want answered, that you think we would have an interesting perspective on that we haven't made enough Episode on and 150 episodes you should let us know. Drop us a little DM on social media or send us an email on social media. I’m @Phil Pallen.
Lauren
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil
#brandtherapy to continue this conversation. And while you're at it, go to the iTunes Store and leave us a review-five star, five star! That helps other people discover this podcast that we work very hard to create. Well, you know how this works. We'll be back next week with a brand new topic and a new guest right here on Brand Therapy. Thanks for hanging out with us. We'll see you then.
Lauren
Bye bye
