Sujan Patel: The Secrets of Content Repurposing

This post is a repurposing of the webinar “Sujan Patel: The Secrets of Content Repurposing”. You can watch the webinar here. 

Content repurposing can help you maximize your content ROI.

Pushing out a constant stream of fresh, original content is not easy and if for any reasons you content doesn’t perform as it planned, repurposing can help you give it a second chance.

Expert content marketer Sujan Patel shares with us the exact process he uses to repurpose his content, extending its lifespan and increasing its reach.

Put simply:

Your job is not done when you press publish, there’s a lot more to it! – Sujan Patel

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Some of your best blog posts may be behind you, which doesn’t’ mean you can’t reuse them.

1 – RE-BREND YOUR FLOPS

Most of you content won’t perform as planned, but the fact it didn’t work before doesn’t mean you can’t reuse it.

Which post should you reuse?

Pick those that didn’t do well due to factors like:

• Wrong title
• Bad timing
• Poor promotion
• Lack of audience

Here’s a practical example:

“One mistake I did when I launched my blog was not building an email list from the get go. So when I started collecting emails, the first thing I did was sharing with the subscribers my old posts. Some of those posts where flops, now they are not: they got shared, comments and so on.” – Sujan Patel

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2 – ENHANCE YOUR TOP PERFORMERS

Your content is a living organism, so if there’s a chance to improve its results, do it. – Sujan Patel

Your old articles are those that drive the most traffic (Google loves old pages with fresh content), and you need to optimize them to make them even more effective.

Find the posts that performed well and find way to further increase their ROI.

Put simply, over promotion is bullshit! Squeeze your content for every drop. Look at your analytics, find your most visited pages and turn that content into much more. – Sujan Patel

http://sujanpatel.com/customer-delight/ too long to read, he made short video out of it.

You can:

a) Enhance your posts: update them with new information, refresh the title, add new images.

b) Test new promotion strategies: such as click to tweet buttons and other CTAs.

c) Give them a new shape: turn your posts into ebooks, ebooks into videos, videos into infographics and so on.

Videos are extremely effective:

“My youtube channel, for instance, is all exactly the same content of what I write on my blog, which is fine: some people want to read, some other want a 5 minute video overview, and that’s who youtube content is for.”

2 reasons why you should do video…

1. Less competition: videos are harder to produce, do a good job and you’ll stand out.
2. Videos trigger emotions and generate more engagement.

“During the video you can see me and hear my tone, I can call you to take action like share, or like or comment. That’s why my videos generate 5X more engagement than my written content”.

…and 3 secrets to record good videos:

Keep it simple, Sujan started with he just recorded using an iPhone 5s:

1. Use a tripod to keep the recording stable
2. Equip yourself with a mic, use one that clips to you (lapel mic)
3. Keep it short and concise and find good lighting.

Here some additional repurposing tips:

1 – Use Rel=Canonical: if you decide to duplicate content (you reuse 3/4 of it or more), make sure to use the rel-canonical tag on the new post. This it will link back to the original article giving it the SEO value.

2 – Change the date : another way to draw attention to your old posts is changing its to bring it back to the top, no one will even notice it.

3 – Leverage your top posts: send your top posts to new subscribers, they most likely didn’t have a chance to read them.

“Hubspot, for instance, sends a drip campaign of their 5 best articles to new subscribers, and don’t send them new articles up until a month later, so that they all see their best content.”

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3 – SYNDICATE TO GAIN EXPOSURE

Syndication is one of those non-SEO value additions that isn’t difficult to explain: you need to get your content on screens. – Sujan Patel

In a nutshell, syndication is about diversifying your presence on the internet. It doesn’t matter if you’ve published it before, using rel=canonical you can tell google who the original author is.

Great sites you can syndicate your content on, are :

• Business2Community,
• Marketinginsidergroup,
• Huffington Post.

Other places to repurpose content.

a) Medium: simply sign up with a twitter account and start publishing.

“Look at my medium, all of my best content from Inc, Forbes, Entrepreneurs gets republished on Medium and gains a new exposure to the medium audience.”

b) Reddit: share your content in subreddits where communities’ interests are more specific.

“Reddit is not just about cat videos or funny memes, you’d be surprised how much content gets shared on Reddit, and if your content is uprooted you can get hundreds, even thousands of visitors. Try promoting a “bridge version” of your article, not just a link to your article but a shorter version of it that links back to the main one.”

c) Examiner: apply for examiner (now axs.com), once you’re in you have a lot of reign to publish what you want, when you want.

d) LinkedIn: users are allowed to submit long form content directly to their linkedin profile. Cross-promote content that you are already creating on your own blog.

“With the acquisition of pulse, LinkedIn now has its own medium-like content syndication network, which means a whole new audience. You can even get featured in the Pulse section, which translates into hundreds of thousands of views. I’ve been doing this for quite some time, and the same stuff I share on medium, reddit and so on I republish it on LinkedIng, because it will reach a new audience.”

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REACH OUT TO SUJAN