Create, reuse, recycle – Repurposing your blog posts

Are you getting the most from your blog posts? Chances are, you’re posting your blog, perhaps sharing it a little bit on social media, and then moving on to the next thing. But is that the right way to go about it – or could you be making those blog posts work harder for your business?

Let me start with a quote.

“Nearly 60% of marketers reuse blog content 2-5 times.”

And here’s one more.

“Companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month generated 4.5x more leads than companies publishing 0-4 monthly.”

Just do me a favour and read those quotes once more, will you? If companies are posting 16 or more posts per month – that equates to one every other day! What?! Who’s got time for that? Certainly not me, and I’m sure you don’t either.

OK, so I think for the average small business like yours and mine, that’s a bit extreme. But it does go to illustrate that the more effort you can put into your blogging, the more leads you’re likely to get.

Let me give you a couple of examples, from my own experience.

A little while ago, I started writing weekly blogs for a company based in Wolverhampton. The company is a letting agent, and previous to hiring me, they did write their own blogs, but the content was a bit ‘meh’, and the length was on average 200-400 words.

Their brief was that they needed me to write more engaging subjects, based around things which were relevant to landlords in particular, detailing current legislation, property laws, and tenants’ rights etc.

I got to work. 6 months later, they emailed me saying that my blogs had increased their website hits by 3,000 per month. That’s 3,000 extra visits to their website, and a potential new client base.

More recently, I wrote an article for a lovely guy who had not long ago started his own design studio. He was getting some good work through the doors due to his reputation and talent, but he was looking for further growth, and knew that part of what he needed to do was to create more content. 

But he’s a designer, not a writer, so he asked me to help.

We agreed on a fortnightly post – he doesn’t have a blog set up yet, so he was keen to post to his LinkedIn page. So far, I have written 2 articles for him. The day after he posted the second one, he emailed me to tell me that an online magazine had approached him, asking if they could feature it in their next issue. They also shared it on their LinkedIn page, which has over 5,000 followers.

In both of those cases, the companies I wrote the pieces for were proactive in making the most of the content. They posted about them and linked to them on all their social media platforms. In the case of the first client, she did a series of videos around the subjects I’d written about, both on Facebook and LinkedIn. And they didn’t just share the posts once, or even twice. They shared them several times, over several days, across different media.

I don’t have time to write that many blogs!

OK, so it’s not very realistic to be producing 16+ blogs every month. You’d have to be writing for your blog practically every day to achieve that – and who’s got time for that?? For the average small business, I think that one blog per week is the ideal. Once a month is the very, very minimum, but you’re gonna have to work a hell of a lot harder to drive people to read them.

Whatever you decide, it’s no good writing blog posts if you don’t know how to get people to read them. This means you’ll have to put the time in on your chosen social media outlets. Share share share.

What about old posts?

As long as the content of your older posts is evergreen (i.e. isn’t time sensitive, and is still relevant), you can still share them. I’ve tweeted links to blog posts I’ve written 6 months before, if I think my readers might still get something from it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing that, and you should make it standard practice.

If you’ve got an older post that still has something relevant, but you have something to add, have changed your opinion slightly, or have a new spin on it, why not write a new post, and then place a link to the old post? It’s a great way to get people involved in the topic, and encouraging them to read past content on your site. Remember that stat – marketers reuse blog content 2-5 times? There’s nothing that says it has to be the exact same post. If the content is similar, it can still work for you.

Lead generation from your blog

If you are prepared to work at it, your blog really can help you to get leads. If you don’t believe me, Google it. I’ve seen time and time again with my own clients, by having regular blog content, and a good social media strategy, they have grown their businesses. And you can too.

If you’d like help to create a blog schedule, and need someone to write great blog content for your business, contact me. I’d be happy to help.