How to Repurpose Content in Your Wedding Business: Tactics to Help You Save Time
Picture this:
You've just started your business. The paperwork has been submitted. You did the damn thing.
Now the excitement is starting to wear off, and the uncertainty is taking over. So you head to the internet and learn absolutely everything you can about running your business.
And the #1 thing you see over and over is "get out there and be seen." AKA...become a content creation machine. Okay great. So how do you do that?
You get a bunch of answers like this: "Creating a content calendar is so easy– repurpose pieces of content over and over again!"
"Yeah okay, but HOW do I do that?"
Here's my advice: create your content for ANY platform other than social media. Keep reading and I'll explain.
Why Should You Repurpose Content?
Bottom line? It saves you time.
Creating content, specifically in the age of social media, is exhausting. Between algorithms and an average 24-hour time frame, half the time your content is seen by the same 10 people– and 1 of them is probably your mom.
Your write 1 strong piece of long-form pillar content, and you've already done 75% of the work.
Then you can fill in your content calendar with repurposed pieces.
The difference between repurposed content and cross-posted content
Repurposed content changes based on the characteristics of the platform, whereas cross-posted content is copy-and-paste (like making the same post on Instagram and Facebook).
How to create a content repurposing strategy
Think of your content repurposing strategy as a pyramid. At the top will always be your pillar content, and your secondary content will fan out from there.
1. Choose your pillar content
Before you do anything else, figure out where your best content will be published. Pillar content needs to be in-depth and packed with quality information. There are only a few platforms that support such content. The most popular options are blogs, podcasts, and videos or vlogs.
Blogs are my personal choice for pillar content. Through my blogs, my audience gets to know me and my business better. Blogs are a great choice for pillar content because they’re so versatile. They build trust, help clients figure out if you’re a good fit for them, educate, and can even be an extension of your portfolio.
Youtube videos and podcasts are both auditory platforms, but have much different user experiences. If you’re more comfortable talking than typing, but prefer to stay off-camera, podcasts are the way to go. You can link to them from anywhere and it's easy to gain loyal subscribers.
Youtube videos are great if you like being on camera. Sometimes watching people is more impactful and fun for viewers than simply listening. Today, there are few people who have access to Youtube that don’t also have access to podcasts, but many people prefer to use one over the other.
It’s easy to repurpose your podcasts for Youtube or vice versa. This is a good option if you’re stuck between one or the other or are looking for a platform that will give you more subscribers. You can reach people you might not have otherwise if you do both.
Similarly, you can easily repurpose podcast content on your blog by posting the transcript of your podcast or adapting it slightly. You can link to the podcast on your blog so your audience can read along while they listen. This is also a good way to link to other resources your audience may be interested in.
Even if you choose two or more of these platforms, make sure you stick to focusing your pillar content on just one. You can reshare it on other platforms, but you should have consistency when it comes to your best content.
2. Decide where you'll repurpose content
Once you have your pillar content nailed down, start experimenting with supporting content. It’s important to note that you can’t plan this content without already having your pillar content written. Here are some examples of platforms you can use and how you can repurpose your pillar content to fit them.
Email Newsletters
Email lists are a great option for promoting content. As copywriting guru Ashlyn Carter explains, your email list is one of the only platforms you own and have complete control over. If you’re looking to write kickass newsletters, Ashlyn is the one to learn from.
To repurpose your pillar content for emails, pull the top 3-5 points from your content as a preview for your audience. Don’t give them too much information! You want to pique their interest and drive them to your original content. I like promoting my blogs through my email list because it’s such an easy way to stay consistent.
Social Media
This is a huge category because there are so many different platforms out there. Entrepreneurs today are turning from older platforms like Facebook and Linkedin to newer ones like Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok. Although each platform has its own qualities, many platforms share similar components. Today we’ll go over the most popular three: general posts, lives, and stories.
Posts & Videos
Across the board, social media platforms favor short content over long content. To repurpose regular social media posts or videos, pull a quote, concept, or interesting piece of data from your pillar content to focus on. If you have more, you can easily create a separate post for each one, stretching your pillar content even further.
Graphics give a great visual for your audience. They’re also more successful to share because your audience doesn't need to read your caption to get the information. Because of this, there’s a good chance you’ll get higher engagement if you make an accompanying graphic. It works the same way for Reels: people are likely going to watch the video, and then maybe read the caption, but not always.
Live Videos
Lives are often used for mini trainings. Mini trainings are huge on Facebook and Instagram right now. They’re a quick and easy way to get information to your audience, and they’re interactive! Think webinar without the formality. Plus, you don’t have to put in all that effort to get people to sign up or register. They just have to click on your profile to view!
You can repurpose your pillar content on Live by having a follow-up conversation, answering any questions that might have popped up from readers or listeners, or by summarizing your pillar content to tease the full content.
Stories
Stories have taken Instagram by storm. With stories, you can promote social media posts, share posts that aren’t yours, and interact with your audience through polls and open-ended questions.
To repurpose your pillar content, use your stories as promotion for your general posts about that content. You can also hype people up by adding an interactive feature like a poll. For podcasters and vloggers, Amy Porterfield suggests taking a snippet of audio from your podcast or video and turning it into a teaser for your story [2]. Stories easily allow you to drive your audience to your pillar content.
Instagram also has highlights, where you can save stories for new followers to discover later on. Stories are a quick way to get interaction from your audience. You can make templates for people to share, do some informal market research, and more!
I separated Pinterest from other social media platforms because it's a totally different beast. There’s so much to say about the benefits of Pinterest. Followers don’t matter, content lasts much longer, and creating content takes less time than on other platforms.
Pinterest is so important for wedding professionals. Wedding inspiration and content dominate the platform. As the only visual search engine, Pinterest is the top platform newly-engaged couples go to when they start research for their wedding. If you’re on Pinterest, you can be one of the first wedding professionals a couple is exposed to.
Guest Posts
Guest posting opportunities may be far and few between depending on who you know. They're a great networking opportunity and a way to find new audience members.
Remember, you can't copy and paste your existing content into a guest post. Even if your content is on another website, the repetition will butcher your SEO. You can rewrite an existing post to keep the same topic, however. It may take extra time to do this, but you’ll be able to reach a new group of people on a different corner of the internet, which has its benefits.
A word of warning
Be careful though: if you think that this process will make creating content so easy that you can post on every platform available, you're wrong. You're going to exhaust yourself, quickly. Not to mention it’s totally unnecessary, and the quality of your content will suffer.
More than three platforms can cause overwhelm, and chances are your audience isn’t hanging out on every platform anyway. Don’t make more work for yourself.
How to repurpose content for other platforms
You can repurpose your pillar content using these 3 steps:
1. Break your pillar content into bite-sized pieces.
2. Choose one of those pieces and edit as needed.
3. Create a new CTA that's appropriate for the new platform.
You can reuse this process over and over again, as many times as you need. Let's look at an example.
Head over to my IG and look for these 5 posts:
Then pull up my Local SEO blog post.
It's pretty easy to see how I repurposed 5 pieces of my blog into social media posts. For some, like the "How to optimize your Google my Business profile," I elaborated on IG more than I did in my blog.
But for most of the content I repurpose, I share a small piece of info on social media, and my audience needs to read my blog to get everything else.
For the majority of my repurposed content on social media, my CTA is going to be "read the blog," but you don't have to use that! You can ask for engagement (like, comment, share) or something totally different.
Creating evergreen content
You've heard it here before: we need to see the same thing 7 times before we really process it. So really, we need to repurpose our content.
We all have topics we talk about constantly as business owners. Gather common questions you get and basic topics you need couples to understand in order to see the value in your work. These frequently-revisited topics are perfect for creating evergreen content!
You could take 3-5 blog posts and create an email welcome sequence with action-packed advice. Or turn a youtube video into an opt-in guide or video series.
It's easy to create an opt-in, webinar, or email sequence based on topics you’ve already published. Determine what content would make a good opt-in or webinar by looking at engagement. Did one blog post or youtube video have twice as many views as your other content? Use that to create your new content.
You have to be careful when repurposing your content for these platforms because you don’t want to be repetitive. For example, you can’t just copy and paste your pillar content into a PDF and call it an opt-in. Chances are if someone is giving you their email in exchange for your PDF, they’re going to expect something exclusive that isn’t already on your website.
Topics that are interesting to your audience are likely to perform well as an opt-in. Say you’re a wedding photographer. You write a blog post about finding the perfect location for your engagement photos. It does well, and you have a handful of brides respond to your content to ask what they should wear for their photos. You have an opportunity to create an opt-in from this engagement!
How do you know when it's time to outsource?
We all struggle to dedicate enough time to our marketing strategies. There are just so many other things going on, and content creation is often placed on the back burner.
Business educator Amy Porterfield suggests delegating this content repurposing process. She creates pillar content (her podcasts) and has another member of her team repurpose it for other platforms. She believes it's a key investment for her business, as it saves her so much time and energy.
This is a great idea if you’re short on time or struggling to reformat your content to make it diverse enough to post elsewhere. A virtual assistant or member of your team can act as a fresh set of eyes.
And of course, if you’re looking to outsource part or all of your content creation process, a copywriter is a great investment. Many of my clients hire me to write blogs or emails and use that work to create posts for social media.
With a copywriter, you don’t just get a fresh perspective. You also get market, client, and industry research, as well as editing and formatting. Visit my website to learn more about my copywriting services!
Considering blogging as your content pillar?
Blogging is my personal favorite for content pillars, because it has so many benefits other marketing strategies don’t.
My new resource, Crafting Blogs That Sell, walks you step-by-step through my blogging process. You’ll learn everything you need to research, write, edit, and optimize blogs that convert.