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- Week 6: Repurposing, Resharing & Recycling
Week 6: Repurposing, Resharing & Recycling
Get maximum mileage from your content
Lisa Slater
February 07, 2025
Writing content for three publications isn’t an easy task. I certainly wouldn’t recommend attempting it until you’re consistent on at least one platform.
But despite already having plenty on my plate, I have an idea for a new Substack that I’ll be launching very soon.
I’m not going to give too much away yet because I’m still making sure I can give it the commitment it will need, but I will reveal that it’s going to involve the return of my Content Club.
Or at least, it will involve something similar with a new name.
Content Club was something I ran from June 2020 until July 2021 while we were in and out of lockdowns.
It was a monthly online meet-up where members could focus on writing their marketing content. We’d start by telling everyone what we would be working on, then we’d have 45 minutes of writing time, then we’d let everyone know how we got on.
Members could ask questions, share any challenges that had come up, and get feedback on what they’d written (if they wanted). We’d finish by setting goals for the month ahead (homework) and then at the next meeting I’d start by asking members to let us know whether they had achieved their goals. The main benefits for members were:
Accountability – hold each other accountable for achieving your content goals
Expert advice – learn copywriting tips and techniques from a professional copywriter
Focused writing time – dedicate time each month to content creation
Collaboration – get insight and feedback from a range of business owners
Results – create content that helps you achieve your marketing objectives
I loved running those clubs - they were so fun and productive. The only reason they ended was because the world started opening back up and I was focusing on other things. They kind of came to a natural end when most of the member subscriptions ended around the same time and I decided not to continue with it.
Anyway, when I launch my new Substack, I’ll be bringing them back as part of the paid subscription option. More on that in the coming weeks.
Why would you only use your best stuff once?
My Content Club idea isn’t the only thing I’m recycling. I’m a huge fan of reusing or repurposing business ideas and marketing assets.
A few years ago, I wrote a blog post all about why you should repurpose, recycle and reshare content called What’s Hiding in Your Content Closet?
It used fashion as an analogy for content before looking at all the ways you could reuse your content.
“You buy wardrobe staples like a good quality pair of jeans or a little black dress because you want longevity and versatility. You want clothing that you can dress up and down to suit different occasions, that you can wear multiple times and that won’t go out of fashion.
Content should be like a wardrobe staple. It should be versatile and long-lasting. Sure, you might have the odd bit of ‘throwaway fashion’ – content focused on current trends or industry updates. But when it comes to your long-form content, your value-adding content, your cornerstone content, this should be stuff you can get a lot of wear out of.
Sometimes you buy an outfit for a specific occasion, but that doesn’t mean you can’t wear it to a different event. Same goes with your content. You might have created it for a specific purpose – your website, a presentation, a product launch. But that doesn’t mean you can’t dust it off, add a few accessories, and wear it somewhere else.
The biggest mistake you can make with your content is only sharing it in one place, one time.”
The stuff I wrote in that article is a “wardrobe staple” - something I can reshare, recycle and repurpose multiple times (I’m big on practicing what I preach).
And repurposing content has been hugely beneficial to me during this experiment. As I said at the start of this email, running three publications (on top of running two businesses) is not an easy task. The fact that I already have tons of content has really helped me.
For example, every Wednesday, I share a web-only post over on The Freelance Fairytale (TFF) site. In this week’s edition, I shared my Posting with Purpose video and pasted the full transcript as the body of the post.
The point of the web-only content is to help attract new subscribers, and if they are new, they probably won’t have seen this content before, so why not reuse it?
But even those who have followed me for a while might have missed it first time around or might want to go back and revisit it. Maybe it wasn’t relevant to them before but is now or maybe they want to refresh themselves on what I said. And even if existing subscribers aren’t interested, it’s fine, because they are getting new content from me in the weekly emails.
I’ve also been reusing some content I wrote for this publication. This morning I shared the Pricing Structures article on Medium.
Medium has an ‘import story’ option which pulls through blog posts or articles from other places making it so easy to reshare stuff. It also adds canonical links so Google knows where it was published first.
I won’t be sharing every article I write for this publication on Medium, but if I share the odd one on there, it might help me increase my reach. It takes five minutes to import, check it has formatted properly, and make any tweaks, so it’s an easy way of getting more eyes on your content.
I’ve found a new trick on Substack too, which makes it easier for me to share my blog posts.
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