Having a Content Repurposing Strategy when Reviewing Content Requests

We all need a bit of help now and then. And whether it’s a few words of wisdom or a nudge in the right direction, giving your time to support someone else is a great thing.

But when it comes to reviewing content requests, especially those that require a decent amount of time commitment, how can you be sure that every ‘yes’ is also going to be helpful for you?

In this article, I talk about what to do when someone comes to you asking for you to create content for them, e.g. a training video, a guest blog post, a talk at an event — and why it’s so important to have a content repurposing strategy in mind.

Why a content repurposing strategy is so important

A few months ago, I was asked to create a video tutorial on content repurposing.

I wouldn’t get paid, but it was for a friend of mine who was launching new online course and membership community. I was glad to help — after all, the video only needed to be an hour long. Plus, it’s always nice to gain exposure to new audiences.

But, eight hours later, after planning, preparation, recording the video, and technical issues, the ‘one hour video’ became more time consuming that I expected.

I was thankful that I had a content repurposing strategy for the video. After-all, the video tutorial went well. It was an hour of great content. But what about all the extra time I’d spent on all the editing and back-and-forth tweaking and poking? Did I want that to go to waste? Hell no! While I was more than happy to help my friend, I know that my time is valuable. And I was determined to get the absolute most out of every minute I’d spent.

By having a content repurposing strategy, you’re valuing your own time. It’s as simple as that.

Reviewing content requests

When I talk about content requests — what I mean is when you’re asked to deliver a masterclass for a membership community, write a guest blog post, record a video tutorial, talk at an event…etc. Basically when someone asks you to work on something for them to deliver to their audience/community. This kind of request often involves you creating and delivering content, it takes time and is often not paid.

I get these kind of requests on a fairly frequent basis. It’s flattering because the requester obviously thinks you’re someone who can deliver great content and I never take that for granted.

But, every request needs to be weighed up against all sorts of parameters. One thing that I always do is work out if I can go on to repurpose anything that I create.

If you ever find yourself getting these kind of requests — firstly, congrats! Whatever your area of expertise, you’re clearly someone that people want to learn from. Give yourself a little pat on the back.

All done? Great. Here are 3 tips for handling these kind of requests.

1. Weigh up the benefits to you

Helping others is a great thing. But in the world of business, when you’re asked to do something for free — or for a lot less than what you would usually charge for you time — you need to be honest with yourself.

If it’s going to put you behind schedule or leave you out of pocket, you might just have to bow out. And that’s okay. Your time is valuable too, and there will be other opportunities to give back.

On the other hand, spending an hour (or eight) helping someone else can be hugely beneficial for you if you do it right.

Most of the time, when you get requests like this, the person asking believes that they are offering something beneficial to you too — they are putting you in front of their audience.

So firstly, ask yourself, are you going to benefit from the audience you’ll be getting in front of? Are they relevant to you? Is the content you’re creating going to put you in front of new potential customers? Could it open the door to a whole untapped network? Will this audience follow you and share your content?

If so, this could be a great opportunity to expand your reach, even before you start looking at your content repurposing strategy.

Another benefit to weigh up is if you can come up with a reciprocal arrangement. For example, you deliver a masterclass for their audience, and they deliver one for yours. If you’re going to need this kind of help in the future then be sure to ask.

2. Review if you can repurpose your existing content

Saying yes to a request for content doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch.

Before you start brainstorming and blocking out your calendar, ask the person who’s requesting the content whether it needs to be something totally original.

Often, you’ll find they won’t mind you repurposing content that you’ve already created, particularly if you put a fresh spin on it.

Have you recorded a podcast episode that meets the theme? Done a similar talk in the past to a different audience! Already written a blog on the subject?

Look for opportunities to repurpose existing work, and you could save yourself a lot of time — while providing really useful guest content for someone else.

3. Call the shots

The best way to make your content easy to repurpose is to be in control of the topic from the get-go.

If you’ve been given a fairly loose brief, or if the person asking you for help has left it up to you, think about what content you’ve been planning to create for your own business anyway.

Is there a gap in your blog you’ve been meaning to look at? Have you been planning a podcast episode in the back of your mind for a while, but not had the time to get round to it? Here’s your chance.

You can use this opportunity to kill two birds with one stone — create great new content for someone else, while meeting your own content needs.

When you’re in control of the topic from the beginning, it makes it much easier to plan and create a whole suite of content for your future use.

If you’ve been asked to make a video tutorial, you could format it so that it’s easy to break up into shorter clips to share later. If you’re making a presentation, think about using some of the slides as images on social, or recording it and using the audio for a podcast.

There’s loads you can do to make sure that the content repurposing strategy you create is useful for you and the person you’ve agreed to help — while making sure that all the additional planning and research isn’t for nothing!

As for me, I ended up spending well over a day on my hour-long video tutorial. But by repurposing it, I came up with an epic 3000+ word article, several solid social media posts, a chapter in my upcoming book, and, of course, the idea for this blog. Nice.

To sum up…

It’s great to help others. But in business, when you’re giving your time up, you need to make sure it’s worth the effort — and that’s when you say “yes”, it’s a yes that benefits you as well.

By having a content repurposing strategy in place, you can make sure that creating content for others works for you too. And by following the three tips above, you’ll soon see that there are loads of opportunities to get a little more back.

Thanks for reading!

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Originally published at www.content10x.com.