We all know that high-quality, polished content is an essential part of any successful content marketing strategy. But what about those raw, unpolished pieces?
While they’re not perfectly packaged and may never be published, they often contain the most valuable and authentic content. The kind that your audience craves… these ‘diamonds in the rough’ are prime material for repurposing, so let’s dive into why you should be digging through the archives for this type of content and how you can turn them into excellent, highly valuable content…
What is unpolished content?
Unpolished content includes examples like, internal team meetings, interviews with SMEs, conversations with advisory boards, training and development sessions, town halls, sales calls, customer interviews, candid conversations taking place on your posts and online content and so on.
It’s raw and not fit to be published as is, but it’s ideal for repurposing.
When it comes to repurposing, we often focus on our polished content — a podcast episode, blog posts or a webinar series for example. This is in top shape and already published or ready for publish. Repurposing it is a straightforward process.
Then there’s the unpolished content that is created on a daily basis — the bits mentioned earlier that we don’t always view as ‘content’ at all.
It’s like content hidden in plain sight!
It’s often made up of informal conversations and therefore, it’s authentic, candid, and insightful… which are three things your audiences are after — making it ideal for repurposing.
There are many types of unpolished video that all businesses create that are ideal for repurposing — such as training videos, internal calls, and sales calls. But it’s not just video.
Maybe it’s the transcript from the strategy session, or roundtable event that you could repurpose into LinkedIn posts and Tweets.
Perhaps audio segments from your town hall could become audiograms and the content could also become a blog post.
Why is unpolished content so valuable?
As we know, consumers value brand authenticity and they can sniff out anything inauthentic from a mile away…
Authenticity is an important part of the customer journey — if you don’t relate to a brand’s content then you’re not going to support the brand. It’s simple as that…
So we must not neglect our unpolished content, it consists of repurposing gold, helping us create highly relatable content.
How do you make the most of this type of content?
Unpolished or raw content can’t be repurposed or recycled in the same way that the polished content can. It needs to be reworked and finessed before you can publish it.
So how do you choose what to publish?
Look for angles –
- Conversation starters
- Stories
- Insights
- Different perspectives
And repurpose this content into new formats.
Here are a few examples:
Example 1:
Start a conversation by posting an interesting issue that came up during a sales call. Encourage your audience to share their thoughts and opinions. This discussion itself will create more unpolished and polished content ideal for repurposing sometime in the future too, so it’s the great repurposing circle working yet again!
Example 2:
Turn a powerful statement made by a team member during an internal meeting into an eye-catching graphic for social media.
Example 3:
Use a topic that came up during a town hall to create a poll, asking your audience their thoughts and opinions.
TOP TIP
Follow your usual repurposing principles — changing the format to suit your brand guidelines and overall strategy — as well as the platform.
Plus, it’s important to also create plenty of zero-click value add content from your unpolished archives too.
In conclusion
Unpolished content is “raw” content that hasn’t yet been refined and published. It’s what you’re left with after the informal conversations that create valuable ideas and insights… it just needs to be finessed to get it repurposing ready.
Use your usual repurposing principles — ensuring it aligns with your content pillars and overall strategy…
The result is a wealth of authentic content that your audience will love!
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Originally published at https://www.content10x.com on June 1, 2023.
