Have you been meaning to go all-out with repurposing content in 2022 but overwhelmed with the idea?
First of all, great job for thinking about content repurposing in the coming year!
The pandemic has changed how we create and consume content — from visuals and infographics that are saving lives during COVID-19 to virtual events taking off like your favorite meme stock making a parabolic move.
Now, for the most intimidating part: how do you do content repurposing right in 2022?
What do your customers want from you? Which content format holds the most promise for repurposing?
Repurposing content tips, trends, and predictions from 10 experts
You don’t have to spend too much time and money creating content for the new year if you play your cards right and do content repurposing well.
To make sense of the ever-changing content creation and repurposing landscape, we set out to hear directly from content repurposing experts.
We have 10 of them to inspire you to get started!
Table of contents:
- A cohesive content experience is the new Holy Grail
- Long-form content is here to stay
- TikTok is the next frontier for B2B marketing
- People are hungry for “how-to” guides
- Rising demand for visual, data-driven stories
- Short-form video will be a content powerhouse
- More automation in the content repurposing world
- More repurposing tools will pop up
- High demand for audio content
- Effective content distribution is the key to success
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1. A cohesive content experience is the new Holy Grail
For Adrie Smith, Content Strategist at Foleon, the coming year will see a lot of content marketers focusing on relevance, interaction, and the journeyed content experience.
“We see people trying to replicate this all of the time (with varying degrees of success) — a social post that links to a downloadable, a blog that has a video embedded, an event that’s made into a recording or podcast afterwards,” shares Smith.
“There’s a real desire to make multimedia content to share and reinforce your brand messaging, but until recently there were very few products that could help content marketers package this together in a way that didn’t lose engagement along the way. Thankfully, there are a lot of scalable and easy-to-use formats (like Foleon or Webflow) out there that can now cater to this. We just have to catch up tech-wise as a community.”
Adrie’s content repurposing pro tip: Think about impact rather than vanity metrics
“Before you get caught up trying to multiply the impact of one piece of content, think about the actual content experience your audience will receive as a result. I think every experienced content marketer will thank you when you embrace the mentality that less is actually more.
And finally, strategize repurposing content with a view towards campaigns that will make a real impact with your audience rather than opportunistically scooping up views, likes, downloads, or any other vanity metric that won’t really move the needle for you.”
2. Long-form content is here to stay
For Mackayla Paul, Content Marketing Manager at Pragmatic Thinking, blog posts and even longer pieces like whitepapers were underrated in 2021 and will regain their popularity in 2022.
In addition, she foresees brands (B2B companies in particular) using their evergreen blog posts as the basis for podcast discussions or even podcast scripts.
“Once created, these podcasts can be clipped and turned into short videos for social media and even uploaded to YouTube. There’s so much you can do when you’ve got a strong base of written content to work with,” says Paul.
“I could see organizations going as far as to turn their most useful evergreen whitepapers into scripts for video courses to further showcase their expertise and provide value to their audience.”
Mackayla’s content repurposing pro tip: Keep it valuable and interesting
“It’s really important that before you start the process of repurposing, you consider what content has performed well in the past, and which content is always going to be relevant and useful. Whatever you end up creating through repurposing should be valuable and interesting to your ideal customers or clients.”
3. TikTok is the next frontier for B2B marketing
Camille Trent, Head of Content at Dooly, predicts that smart companies will take their content distribution further by hiring a full-time person for it. “This might be a multimedia designer or content strategist or both”, shares Trent.
She also thinks that podcasting and LinkedIn remains to have a high upside in the coming year. The same goes for TikTok.
“Despite the saturation, I’ve also seen a few companies grow quickly on Twitter and Insta. Lastly, more millennials are on TikTok now, making it more interesting for B2B. I’d guess TikTok will get big for B2B since it has the most organic growth potential right now.”
Camille’s content repurposing pro tip: Start with the business goals and work backwards from there
“Think bigger. When you have that itch to create or get a task done, step back. Could that task turn into a project? Could that project turn into a repeatable program? Start with the business goals and work backward from there. As my friend Justin Simon says, figure out what comes first and what comes next before you start”.
4. People are hungry for “how-to” guides
For Liz Pipitone, Content Repurposing Strategist and Founder of Navigation Virtual Solutions, there will be more massive changes to come— just like the monumental digital shift we saw at the beginning of 2020.
“I think that reopening post-COVID is going to make more people feel the freedom to try new jobs, visit new places, and test out new business ventures. What are they going to need for this? Guides. My prediction is that guides in various forms will gain some huge traction within content marketing plans,” predicts Pipitone.
Liz’ content repurposing tip: Don’t put all your (content) eggs in one basket
Pipitone further recommends pushing for content in as many places as possible (where it makes sense for the audience, of course) in 2022.
“Between engagement and reach changes on social media platforms and Google algorithm changes, I believe it’s more evident than ever that putting your content out on multiple channels is necessary— should changes that are out of your control happen”, says Pepitone.
“What happens if you build your business on solely one platform which undergoes a major change? You have a LOT to lose if that was the only place where you were connecting with your leads. I know nothing about money investments, but I’ve heard the term don’t put all your eggs in one basket— you are supposed to diversify. The same goes for your content living primarily on a single channel. It’s risky.”
For teams and brands who are new to content repurposing, Pipitone suggests the following steps:
Step 1: Figure out what content is going to be your pillar content.
What is the large piece that your audience is most likely going to consume? A blog? A YouTube video? Figure out a posting schedule for your audience.
Step 2: Identify the content that can be repurposed from that pillar content.
Make sure this repurposed content is actually something your target audience cares to consume.For example, if your pillar content was a YouTube video, the main ideas could be repurposed into a blog post, Facebook posts using tips and quotes pulled from the video, an audio snippet for Facebook, and Pinterest pins for the blog. Figure out posting schedules based on when your audience is on these platforms most.
Step 3: Create a quarterly content plan.
Using a spreadsheet or project management tool of choice, plan out a quarter of posting topics around your core strategies.
If you were doing the above plan for your business weekly, you could identify around 12 weekly topics to base the pillar/repurposed content around. Take into account holidays, launches, vacations, etc., when planning these topics.
Finally, it’s also important to plan the topics around the keywords, tags, and hashtags as you focus on growing your brand on that platform. So in the above example, YouTube search phrases would need to be researched for the weekly topics you’ve chosen.
Step 4: Fill in the repurposed content’s topics (and long-tail SEO terms, hashtags, etc.).
All of these will need to fit together with your topics of the week and your marketing strategies.
Step 5: Optimize your plan for content repurposing opportunities and workflow.
Do you have any old content you can refresh throughout the quarter? How can you make your team’s creation steps smoother and more efficient?
5. Rising demand for visual, data-driven stories
According to Vartika Gupta, Content Marketing Manager at Observe.AI, visually heavy, data-driven stories are a huge missed opportunity for brands in 2021, particularly SaaS marketing.
It is the perfect content piece for SaaS in 2022 because it kills 3 birds with one stone:
- Provides value to your target audience
- Provides a sneak-peek into your product capabilities
- Establishes authority and trust
“At Observe.AI, we host at least 6 webinars every quarter. Off late, we’ve been transcribing interviews and webinars into thought leadership blog posts. It’s easy, fast, smart, and gives a startup like ours extra street cred in the industry, ” shares Gupta.
“It often boils down to watching a 65-minute webinar versus reading it condensed into a 10-min condensed blog. It’s a gold mine of content we’ve already generated. So why not utilize it?”
Vartika’s content repurposing pro tip: Avoid the one-size-fits-all approach
For example, don’t just transcribe a webinar into a blog. Repurpose it via email for your subscribers. Turn the blog post into infographics and images for LinkedIn; a thread on Twitter, or condense it into a reel on Instagram. Go where your audience is, and repurpose how your audience demands the consumption.”
6. Short-form video will be a content powerhouse
For Shan Morrison, Content Strategist at Zag with Shan, video is the powerhouse content marketers should focus on in 2022 — especially short-form content.
“Brands who are repurposing their long-form video content into short, informative, entertaining, and engaging short format videos are going to be able to reach their audiences much more effectively,” predicts Morrison.
Shan’s content repurposing tip: Start with long-form video and repurpose it
“Long-form video content can be repurposed into multiple other forms of content: obtaining transcripts and using this to create social media captions, blogs, eBooks, white papers.
Stripping the audio out and turning these into podcasts (and with Facebook introducing podcast on its platform for pages, this should be maximized). So in 2022, start with a long-form video and build your content around that.”
7. More automation in the content repurposing world
Amy Woods, Founder of Content 10x, expects to see more automation tools to repurpose content into different formats like video in the coming year. However, Woods thinks that blog posts, text-only social media posts, and email newsletters will remain essential.
“I really do think that more people/businesses are going to lean into the power of words and written content,” says Woods.
Amy’s content repurposing pro tip: Consistency is the key
“If you’re just starting with content repurposing, then try not to do it all at once! Try to take it one step at a time and become consistent – it’s better to repurpose your content into a few different formats consistently than randomly repurpose it into lots of other forms. Develop a system with the types of content and the platforms that work for you and do this always.”
8. More repurposing tools will pop up
When asked about what will change in content repurposing in 2022, Valerie Tate, Content Manager at A Clever Cat, anticipates that AI will play a significant role in content creation and repurposing going forward.
“One obvious application of this is manipulating video content. Expect to see tools to drastically simplify repurposing longer videos into shorter ones, add interactivity, automate accurate transcriptions, and more,” shares Tate.
“As podcasts have continued to grow in popularity (and competition), we’ve already seen new audio options like Clubhouse. Even more exciting ways to use audio will also pop up as creators look for the next new content darling.”
Finally, Tate believes that blog posts will remain important for content marketers who want to connect with their audiences.
Valerie’s content repurposing pro tip: Start with the format that you’re comfortable with
“Don’t let repurposing overwhelm you. As with any new habit, take baby steps and then ramp up as it becomes more comfortable. Start by repurposing into a format you’re already comfortable with. Don’t go straight for the scariest, most complicated thing you’ve never worked with before.
Repurposing should be a way to reduce your content creation load, not add more stress to your plate. So, take it easy until it becomes a natural part of your process. Then you’ll be ready to experiment with another new transformation.”
9. High demand for audio content
Nedra Rezinas, founder of Nedra Rezinas Consulting, expects voice as a rising medium to repurpose in 2022.
“Non-screen search devices are on the rise, so being able to transcribe your content into audio is key,” says Rezinas. “Audio was underrated in 2021, we have seen a huge explosion of podcasts and platforms like Clubhouse, that will continue to grow.”
Nedra’s content repurposing pro tip: Publish great content repeatedly
“Start simple. If you have a few posts that can be evergreen content (content that can be published at any time of the year), re-share them. You can change the photo, the title, the headline, or the post’s call to action. Notice which ones draw people in and archive them to re-use in another few months.
If you have a video, transcribe and use parts of the video for social media posts and inspiration for blogs and newsletters.
Finally, it’s okay to post great content over and over; I give my client permission all the time. Repeating content helps solidify your message. It takes folks up to 7 times or more to react to a message.”
10. Effective content distribution is the key to success
When asked about his content repurposing prediction in 2022, Filippo Piras, Head of Growth at Shield App, believes that more marketers will understand the importance of repurposing content and realize that effective content distribution will be key to success.
“We’ll see TikTok videos reused as Linkedin stories, posts, or YouTube videos. In addition, video content is underrated. It will definitely blow out in 2022. Video content can be reused and distributed in so many ways, it has so much potential”, predicts Piras.
Filippo’s content repurposing pro tip: Start with 3 topics that your audience cares about
“Start by understanding your target audience. Create content for them and come up with 3 topics that they really care about. Provide actionable, problem-solving content for them consistently over time.”
You’re now ready to repurpose your content
The expert tips and predictions for content repurposing covered here might sound really basic and simple at first glance. However, the key to successful content repurposing is to stay consistent with these small, basic steps until it all adds up.
Here’s a quick recap of what to focus on when repurposing content in the new year:
- Start with your business goals and make a content repurposing strategy from these goals.
- Think about the content experience of your audience.
- Don’t put repurposed content in just one platform or channel. Diversify to reduce risk (in case one platform undergoes a major change).
- Start with pillar content that you can repurpose into multiple formats.
- Pay particular attention to short-form videos and audio snippets. You can easily repurpose your webinars, virtual events, and Zoom recordings into shorter clips with Piktochart Video. Try it out for free.
- Long-form blog posts will remain crucial for building authority and trust.
- Take baby steps and start with the format that you’re familiar with.
- When repurposing and distributing content, focus on relevance, interaction, and the overall experience of your target audience.
We’re rooting for you and your content repurposing goals in the new year!
Kai Tomboc
Kyjean Tomboc is an experienced content marketer for healthcare, design, and SaaS brands. She also manages content (like a digital librarian of sorts). She lives for mountain trips, lap swimming, books, and cats.
