Repurposing content is a great thing to do but like anything in life, there are good ways to repurpose content and not so good ways.
I’m about to share with you what I think is the biggest mistake that I see people make when they’re repurposing content.
Firstly, before I share what it is, let me ask you a question…
Imagine you have been invited to a party and you respond “hell yeah! see you there!”.
Then, you get invited to another party at the same time.
You can’t be in two places at the same time can you? That would be madness!
Or, maybe you can. If you had the option to send a large, life-size cardboard cut-out of yourself to the party that you’re not going to, would you? Or would you send a mannequin dressed up like you?
People would comment on how you turned up (if they were totally unobservant and didn’t notice that you were a cardboard cut-out…please just bear with me…), but they’d say that you were pretty antisocial. You didn’t really speak to anyone. You didn’t talk at all. Even when people asked you questions, you remained silent…in fact….quite frankly you were pretty darn rude!
Even though that sounds ridiculous, this is what I see people do when they repurpose their content on social media.
The social in social media is not to be ignored!
Don’t send your content onto social media platforms where you have no intention of showing up to engage with people. Either you, or a member of your team, should follow that content and monitor responses and interactions at the very least.
For example, let’s say when repurposing content that you decide to repurpose your blog post into a series of tweets. You use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite, and you schedule all of your tweets to go out. No more action required from you. You don’t actually use Twitter yourself, you’ve never even logged in. You have no idea if people are following you, or commenting, liking or retweeting any of your tweets. You have a presence on Twitter but you do not interact with anyone.
Social media is about socialising. So in a way, you should think of it like turning up to a social event. We could call Facebook the party, LinkedIn the networking event, Instagram an art exhibition…
One important reason why you should be present and engage with people is because you most likely wouldn’t turn up to in-person social events and not interact with anyone, so don’t do it online. Added bonus that you’ll start to build relationships.
But, there is another really important reason why you should engage with people on social media.
Here’s a clue…robots are coming!
Jumping back to my party analogy. Let’s say that you put the cardboard cut-out of yourself in the kitchen. All the cool kids hang out in the kitchen at parties (I like to because it puts me closest to the food and drink!).
People are coming over and talking to you (cardboard you…again, please bear with me!). Of course you’re not engaging and you’re actually being very rude and ignoring people.
Somebody (Big Brother style…) is monitoring the party and wants to make sure that only the most popular and interesting people are in the kitchen. They notice this is NOT you and they move you from the kitchen to somewhere else — in fact you’ve been so disinterested in people, they put you in the cupboard under the stairs. Even if you try to speak now, not many people will hear you.
Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it?
But, you know what, something similar to this takes place on social media with algorithms.
An algorithm is a process or a set of rules to follow. In social media, it’s basically a program that sets out the rules of how it treats content.
Social media algorithms look at certain factors when deciding what to do with your post e.g. how many people to put it in front of. If they see that you are not engaging with others, and that others are not engaging with you…basically that you don’t appear to be particularly interesting or popular, they will stop prioritizing your content. They won’t put you in front of as many people….you’re heading to the cupboard under the stairs!!
What should you do instead?
When you repurpose your content you take the ideas and concepts from one piece of content, and share them in a different ways to a new audiences. This is a great thing to do. Just make sure that you are there to have conversations with people. Make sure that you respond to comments and engage with people. In fact, better skill, make engagement a priority. Ask questions and invoke discussions.
You will build relationships, build trust with people, show your human side, and you’ll send positive messages to the social media robots!
And…do you know what…hopefully you’ll have fun too!
I have focussed mainly on social media, but the same goes for pretty much anywhere that you send content where others have a chance to comment and interact. So YouTube, Medium, SlideShare, HuffPost… it’s not about spending lots of time monitoring interactions. You need to be sensible of course, time is precious, but don’t embark on 100% ‘set and forget’ content.
At Content 10x we create all of the repurposed content for our clients, and we will schedule and publish content on social media platforms. I see it that we take our clients to the party! We do everything for them prior to the party, but when they get there, the floor is theirs to have fun, meet people, maybe even have a little boogie!!
Thanks for reading
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Originally published at www.content10x.com.
