Maximizing Your Digital Presence: A Complete Guide to Repurposing Social Media Content

Ever caught yourself watching a blockbuster film, only to read the novel it was based on afterward? What a joy it was to delve deeper into the story, characters, and universe, right?

Repurposing your social media content into blog posts follows a similar idea. It's about breathing new life into those quick, snappy social media updates, transforming them into long-form, richly detailed narratives that offer your audience a feast of insights.

In this article, I'll show you how to repurpose your social media content to a long-form blog post.

What Is Content Repurposing?

Content repurposing means changing an original form of a piece of content to serve a different marketing goal. Repurposed content typically retains the message and core ideas of the original piece of content.

What is an example of repurposing content? You can repurpose a long-form blog post into an infographic to share the knowledge on the platforms that use visual formats (Instagram, Pinterest).

You may also repurpose video or graphic formats to written formats. For example, if you just published a YouTube video, you can use a transcribing software and publish a text version of your video.

Why Should You Repurpose Social Media Content

Imagine the social media where you built your personal brand disappears tomorrow. All the work you've been putting into gaining followers, building their trust, and establishing a thought leadership go poof.

Sounds awful, right?

The good news is – it'll probably never happen.

Bad news – you never know.

Publishing content on social media is always using a rented ground to get more eyes on your work. In content marketing, we call social media earned channels – you earn the attention there by showing up every day and engaging with other creators.

On the other hand, your blog or newsletter are the owned channels. You have a full control over them and should grow their potential by consistently delivering content through them.

The Fundamentals of Repurposing Social Media Content

Imagine stepping into your kitchen to whip up a meal. You'll first want to know what ingredients you have, right?

The same goes for repurposing content. Start by exploring your past social media posts. You're looking for anything that caught attention - posts with plenty of likes, shares, or comments. These are the pieces that your audience already loves.

While analyzing your social media content, take a good look at your demographic data:

• What content do they engage with the most?
• Which topics sparked discussion?
• Do they prefer spicy, controversial takes, or do they have a sweet tooth for inspiring, feel-good stories?

For instance, let's say you've been running a Facebook page for your business. You posted a photo six months ago of your team celebrating a company milestone. It had plenty of likes and comments.

That's a prime example of a great blog post idea! You could write a detailed blog post about that event, sharing anecdotes, team members' quotes, and even discussing what that milestone meant for your company.

Similarly, if you've had a tweet go viral, consider expanding on that tweet in a blog post. Discuss the reactions, the thought process behind the tweet, or even the larger conversation it was part of.

Which Content Type Should You Choose for Repurposing?

Just like you incorporate strategy into your social media content, you should be strategic about your long-form content.

Let me start by telling you what types of long-form content you can choose from:

Evergreen content

This is your long-term investment. It's content that retains its relevance over time. It provides comprehensive information on a specific topic and can be used as a guide for your readers.

You probably noticed it many times in headlines such as: "The Ultimate Guide to SEO."

This is evergreen content because it's, well, ULTIMATE.

I recommend creating this type of content for your blog first. Evergreen topics tend to have a higher search volume as they answer questions people ask Google all the time.

When I started out this blog, I opted for this type of content to start ranking for the phrase: "content marketing consultant." After a week, first people saw my content ranking on Google:

News-based content

It can be a great way to keep your blog updated with the latest happenings, but it is not ideal for building long-term traffic.

A very popular example of such content is: "The most popular hairstyles in Spring 2023."

This content will require regular updates from you. At the same time, using it strategically when the trends for certain topics rise can be extremely effective.

If you have the resources to keep your content fresh, you should try this type of content at least once or twice.

High-performance content

These are the "quick wins." If you have a tweet, thread, or a LinkedIn post that got a lot of engagement to amplify their impact.

A few months ago, I wrote a well-performing thread on Twitter. It explained a process I used to generate a year worth of content ideas in 10 minutes with ChatGPT:

After I noticed it working well, I decided to repurpose it into a whole blog post on planning content with AI and publish it on Medium.

The results?

I'm writing this text in June 2023, and so far, the text generated almost 4,000 views:

As they say: "The good seed can be planted multiple times."

User-generated content

User-generated content, or UGC, is anything users create based on their experiences, opinions, ideas, or feedback. The hubs of user-generated content are digital platforms, especially social media networks. In terms of marketing, UGC is the content that relates to your brand, but isn’t created by you.

This is a more advanced type of content, as it requires your customers' input, but it can be extremely beneficial if you sell products/services on your website. It explores the user's experience with your brand and amplifies the value of your work.

How to Repurpose Social Media Content

It all sounds simple:

A series of tweets can be expanded into a blog post that dives deeper into the topic.

An Instagram photo series could inspire a step-by-step guide or a behind-the-scenes post on your blog.

But writing a blog post is a bit more complex than simply "sitting and writing."

Here are a few tips to help you craft a high-quality blog post from your social media content:

Start with research

While your content on social media catches attention thanks to good hooks, long-form content needs to both catch and hold the attention throughout its entirety.

The best way to do it is through an extensive research of your target audience.

Now, because you already write high-performing social media posts, the job is partially done. You don't need to find out what your target audience looks for online.

But you need to know HOW they look for it in Google.

To do it, open Google and search the topic of your social media post in Google.

Let's say I want to repurpose my LinkedIn post about becoming a thought leader in a certain niche:

Kuba Czubajewski on LinkedIn: #contentmarketing #contenttips #contentstrategy | 18 comments

How to become a go-to source for a topic (must-read for solopreneurs): 1️⃣ Pick a niche within your expertise. The more specific, the better. Become… | 18 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInKuba Czubajewski

I simply type in "how to become a thought leader" in Google and start analyzing the results (also called SERPs).

The first few links I see indicate the target audience for this blog post is interested in business-related topics, as most of the articles on thought leadership come from respectable sources about business and economics.

But to understand my audience even further, I take a closer look at the People also ask section. It contains the most popular questions people ask around the topic I want to write about.

I open the questions one by one and start analyzing the answers crawled from my competitors' websites. Do they answer the question thoroughly? Can I do it better?

I take notes of it and move to the next stage of the process.

Create an outline

After analyzing all the SERPs around the topic of my blog post, I create a bullet point list with all the most important points I want to mention in the blog post.

This can be done in two ways:

• Manually: You pick the most relevant questions and formulate an outline based on this
• Using AI: You use a prompt that helps you create a detailed content outline

After the completing the work, you should end up with something like this:

Write away

The last step is the most straightforward. After the research is done, and the outline is written, you should start putting the first words on the screen.

Now, there are a couple of blog writing templates you can use to make this process easier. I suggest starting with those 3:

• How-To Posts: They showcase your expertise and provide a lot of value for the reader. The best format if you want to become an expert in the field
• Comprehensive Guides: You break down a complex topic into digestible pieces to boost your audience's understanding of it. Another great example of thought leadership content.
• Comparisons: Comparisons between two solutions can be a great way to build authority in your field and help your readers understand the pros and cons of solutions available on the market.

When it comes to blog post writing, prioritize consistency over volume. It's not worth it to squeeze out 10 blog posts per week for 2 weeks, and then disappear for the next 3 months.

Take a slower but steadier route to achieve long-term success.

Measuring the Success of Your Repurposed Content

To measure the impact of your long-form writing efforts, you should evaluate how your repurposed content is performing.

You can measure the success of your repurposed content in several ways. Quite ironic is that social media engagement metrics – likes, comments, shares - can be a great way to do it. They give you the instant feedback for your content.

Then, there's website traffic and the time-on-page:

• How many people are coming to your website from the search engines?
• Are people reading the full post?
• Do they click on another blog post after finishing or just leave your website?

You can answer all of those question using tools like Google Analytics. Its dashboard will show you most things you need to assess your long-form content performance.

Lastly, don't forget about conversions! Are readers signing up for your newsletter, downloading your e-book, or reaching out for more information?

These are the best indicators that your content leaves the mark.

Future Trends in Social Media Content Repurposing

What's the next big thing in repurposing? Artificial Intelligence is making waves, helping creators develop content more efficiently.

Personalization is becoming more sophisticated, letting us cater to the specific tastes of different audience segments.

We also see video content becoming more popular, with platforms like TikTok and YouTube taking the lead in the social media world.

Luckily, all of them can be easily repurposed to long-form writing. And if you incorporate automation tools into your workflow, the entire process can be surprisingly simple.

Conclusion

Repurposing social media content into blog posts is not just about being cost-effective. It's about sustainability. It's about respecting the effort that went into creating your original content and maximizing its potential. It's about delivering a satisfying, fulfilling experience to your audience, no matter where they encounter your brand.

And remember: Create once, repurpose all the time.