How to Repurpose Content for Different Social Media Platforms

In today's hyper-competitive social media landscape, brands must post consistently to stay above the noise. However, creating new content takes work and a lot of time. For businesses with smaller teams, it can be a grueling process.  

So, if you have yet to experiment with repurposing content for different social media channels, now would be the best time to start. 

Repurposing content is all about refining and optimizing the already published content and using it as a brand new post, like turning your highest-ranking blogs into LinkedIn carousels.

Now, with that clear, here are five practical ways to repurpose content for success. 

Start With Research

Insightful research is the bedrock of every successful marketing strategy, and content repurposing is no different. You need to understand your target audience, what they engage with, the latest industry trends, and the unique characteristics of each social media platform. 

Therefore, before you start repurposing, conduct in-depth research to solidify your content strategy. Leverage descriptive research to gain the much-needed context to all the data and make better decisions when it comes to content creation and repurposing.

Here are a few key research areas:

Audience Analysis

• Customer Personas: Create your ideal customer persona and underline their key demographics, interests, pain points, and behaviors. 

• Social Listening: Use social monitoring and listening tools to analyze your customer sentiment and behavior on social media.

Trend Analysis

• Google Trends: Leverage Google Trends to identify trending topics in your industry.

• Industry Reports: Keep an eye on industry-specific reports and publications to stay on top of market news.

• Keyword Research: Use SEO tools to find top-performing keywords and repurpose your content around them. 

Platform and Content Format Research

• Platform Demographic: Analyze the demographic of each social media platform for better content engagement. For example, if you are targeting GenZ, TikTok and Instagram can be better alternatives to Facebook. 

• Algorithm Insight: Research and discover the algorithm changes on each social media platform for better content reach.

• Format Experimentation: See how different content formats (videos, text, images, etc.) perform on various channels and adjust your content repurposing strategy accordingly. 

Repurpose Content for DM Outreach

Repurposing content for your DM outreaches is a fantastic way to streamline your communication and increase conversions. 

So, choose your high-performing content and adapt it to the DM format. Most social media channels have a character limit. Therefore, you'll have to condense the content while keeping its engaging essence alive.

Here's how to go about it:

• Create attention-grabbing headlines that can entice your audience to open the messages. 

• Distill the takeaways into bite-sized chunks in the form of bullet points or short paragraphs. Using Issuu's Articles feature, you can also share engaging snippets with your prospects and drive their attention to your publications.

• Add attention-grabbing visuals, such as infographics, videos, and GIFs.

• Personalize the DMs by using their names and highlighting the content that benefited them personally.

• End with a clear Call-to-Action, like reading a blog post, signing up for a webinar, or making a purchase. 

Reaching out to every single follower can’t be done manually. Automate the process using tools that allow you to automate LinkedIn messages and send personalized DMs at scale.

Capitalize on Video Marketing Trends

Videos have quickly grown to become one of the top-performing content formats on all social media platforms. Starting from TikTok and YouTube, today, short-form videos have made their way to hard-line-text platforms like X (formerly Twitter).

From cross-posting on different channels simultaneously to remixing, videos are one of the most flexible content types. But coming up with new Instagram or TikTok video ideas for your social media is hardly easy, and that's where repurposing comes in handy.

Below are the four ways you can repurpose your videos to capitalize on the video marketing trends:

Cut Long-form Videos Into Short-form Content

Your long-form, high-quality video is a goldmine for repurposing. By cutting longer videos into reels or TikToks, you can maximize the opportunity to deliver your content and attract even more viewers to the original post. 

Most social media platforms allow short videos for 15s, 30s, 60s, and 90s. So open your top-performing long-form video and edit it into bite-sized content.

• Stories

If you publish a video on Instagram or Facebook and want to get more views, share a section of the video on your story and link it back to the original post. You can even use interactive stickers, like polls and quizzes, to encourage the audience to join the conversation.

• Remixes

Remixes are a great tool to engage with influencer content, respond to customer reviews, or join in online conversations with other brands. Thus, turn your remix videos, especially short-form videos like TikToks and reels, and use them as conversation pieces with creators or brands. 

• GIFs

GIFs make another easily shareable short video content format. So, transform your published video into a custom GIF using Issuu’s platform and add them to tweets or Facebook posts for better engagement. 

Understand Each Social Platform

Even the best content format won't work great on every social media channel. Every platform has its own appeal and purpose, and people use each social media channel for entirely different reasons.  

Therefore, when repurposing your content, delve deeper into the intricacies of different social channels. Here are the top-performing content ideas for the most popular social media platforms:

• Facebook

Facebook houses all types of content—videos, photos, text, job posts, and more. While informative, attention-grabbing content often wins, it's best to experiment with different formats on the platform. See what your users engage with the most, and always post a mixture of photos, videos, and blog posts to keep your page visually appealing.

• Instagram

Instagrammers appreciate high-quality visual content, including photos, in-feed video stories, and, most importantly, reels. As the platform evolves, people have also started engaging with text graphics, educational content, inspirational messages, and even memes.

• Pinterest

Since Pinterest is mainly used to collect ideas, inspirational and educational content works excellently on the platform. One way to repurpose your content into stunning visuals is using Issuu’s Social Posts feature, allowing you to instantly create and share social media-ready posts on your Pinterest board for maximum engagement and conversions. 

• LinkedIn

Being a more professional social channel, LinkedIn is a great place to build yourself as a thought leader. Content such as job postings, corporate updates, industry insights, and in-depth articles all garner significant engagement here.

Consider AI for Help With Ideation

AI tools are becoming extremely popular. Even though it's not a be-all-end-all of digital marketing, AI-generated content can definitely empower your content repurposing efforts beyond match. 

AI-powered language tools, like ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, have made it easy for content creators to produce written content at scale. From assisting you to generating social media captions and product descriptions to personalized comments and DMs, AI can not only help you with creativity but also produce content instantly. Only leaving the final editing work for your content team. 

Hubspot's The State of AI in Marketing in 2023 shows that 33% of marketers use AI to generate ideas/inspiration. Ensure you are also leveraging this new tech.

Prompt results using the correct social media terms and create multiple new content ideas from your already published content. Here are the top AI tools you can use for social media content generation:

• ChatGPT: Content analysis and blog creation

• Bard: Social media posts and outreaches

• Midjourney: Illustrations

• CanvaAI: Text-to-image creation

• Lensa AI: Stylized avatars

• Lumen 5: Text-to-video

Over to You

If you've already posted multiple high-performing content, it's time to leverage it across different social media channels. With a little creative reformatting and experimentation, you are ready to make the most of your brand's greatest content. 

However, repurposing isn't meant to replace new content creation but rather to supplement your content strategy. So, continue creating amazing content while fueling new life into already successful pieces and providing your audience with valuable, timeless information. 

Nikola Sekulic is a seasoned brand developer, writer, and storyteller who turns fresh ideas into engaging stories for the online community.