ProBlogger: Theme Week: How to Repurpose Your Content [and Why You Should Do It!]

---

Theme Week: How to Repurpose Your Content [and Why You Should Do It!] Posted: 03 Jun 2014 08:54 AM PDT This week we've been talking about what to do with your blog posts after you hit publish. So far we've talked about optimizing it for search and socializing it on social media - today we're going to talk about 'repurposing’ it. What is Repurposing Content? I like Erin Everhart’s definition of repurposing content. She defines it as: “repacking one piece of content across many different media. Each time, you're adding to it (or taking away from it), and making it unique for the source, the medium and the user who'll be reading it.” If you’ve been blogging for even just a few months you’re already probably got quite a bit of content in your archives that you’ve invested a lot of time into creating. The idea of repurposing some of those posts is that it enables you benefit again from the work you’ve already done by highlighting those ideas again in a new medium. What it’s NOT To be clear – what we’re talking about here is not simply re-promoting content you’ve already written on social media. We’re also not talking here about rewriting or updating old blog posts in a new way. There’s nothing wrong with re-promoting or rewriting – but repurposing content is about creating new content in a new medium based upon what you’ve already done. What are the Benefits of Repurposing Content? There are a number of benefits of repurposing content that you’ve already written. Reach More People with More Relevant Mediums For starters it can help you to reach more people with your ideas using media streams that are more relevant and digestible for them. Reading a blog post will appeal to a certain percentage of people, but not everyone likes to read – so communicating your ideas using other media makes them more accessible to people with different learning styles, personalities, and backgrounds. Rank Higher in Search Results There can be numerous SEO benefits of repurposing content. For starters, creating a video, slidedeck, or podcast that links back to your original blog post means more incoming links to that post. However that is just the beginning – create content in your repurposing that has a shareable component to it and you could just see your content appearing on other people’s blogs and websites – complete with link backs to your site. For example creating an embeddable infographic that links back to your article exponentially grows the incoming links to your site. It also is great for growing your brand and profile. Deepen Impact Upon Readers If you are trying to have a deep and lasting impact upon your readers with your ideas, then it is likely that you’ll need to communicate your core ideas more than once. It isn’t that your readers are stupid or that your communication isn’t good – it’s just that people are being bombarded with messaging, and they live lives full of distraction. Sometimes it just takes a few goes to get your message through. Repurposing content allows you to communicate your core ideas numerous times in different ways. It allows you to explore a topic from different angles. If done well it can significantly improve the impact of your ideas upon readers. Here’s what Seth Godin says: “Delivering your message in different ways, over time, not only increases retention and impact, but it gives you the chance to describe what you’re doing from several angles.” Take a Little Pressure Off Yourself One of the main ‘benefits’ of repurposing content that I see people preaching about is that it is an ‘easy’ way to come up with new content for your blog. My reaction to this is that ‘easy’ is not always a description I’d give to repurposing content. It takes work, in fact sometimes it takes more work than the original creation of the content. So it isn’t always easy – but it does take a little pressure off you as a blogger. Many of us as bloggers feel a lot of pressure to have to come up with something completely new, original and mind blowing every single day on our blogs. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to come up with a completely new and world changing idea every single day. Most of us struggle to come up with a BIG idea in a lifetime let alone every day! Repurposing content can give you as a blogger a little extra breathing room. It enables us to have a little extra time to better explore, deepen and communicate our ideas before needing to come up with the next one. What are the Risks of Repurposing Content? Repurposing content is something that has many benefits if done well – however I want to emphasise that it can also be done badly and has some associated risks. Every blogger that repurposes content has their own approach to doing so but from my perspective some of these risks include: Formulaic repurposing Going for quantity over quality Creating fluff Let me illustrate with an example. Last year I heard a speaker at a conference talk about how they had developed a system for repurposing every single blog post they wrote. Every week they would write three blog posts that would be sent to a virtual assistant for repurposing. That assistant would then create a slideshow, a video of the slideshow, five graphics with quotes from the post that would be shared on social media, and three rewrites of the original blog post to be pitched as guest posts. The speaker would also record himself reading his blog posts to post as audio files which were presented as a podcast. So for each of his three blog posts, he would be creating 11 other pieces of content – 33 per week! The blogger and his assistant are to be admired for their endeavour – but the result was overwhelming and probably hurt his brand. In order to create so much content, templates were used for slideshows, videos, and graphics which resulted in a certain ‘sameness’ in a lot of what was produced. As I listened to this blogger speak, I looked over his blog and social media accounts and was very quickly overwhelmed by content. His three blog posts each week were good – but the systemised repurposing of content and sharing of it was too much to digest, and by repeating it all three times a week it became quite formulaic, predictable, and repetitive. My Suggestions on Repurposing Content There’s a lot to be said about how to repurpose content, much of which comes down to your individual style, the type of content you create on your blog, the needs of your audience, your goals as a blogger and the type of content that will appeal to your audience. I can’t give you a blueprint, but here are a few suggestions to keep in mind: 1. Choose Your Content to Repurpose Carefully I’ve already alluded to this numerous times above, but the selection of which content to repurpose is critical. I would not suggest repurposing every piece of content you write, but instead to be a little selective. Personally, I choose to repurpose content that fits into one (or more than one) of the following criteria: 1. It is a core idea – if there is something that is central to what you’re on about as a blogger and what you feel your reader needs to hear, than this is prime content to repurpose. 2. Evergreen content – content that doesn’t date will enable you to repurpose it without fear of that repurposed content dating. This will enable you (and others) to refer to it numerous times into the future and gain maximum impact for your investment. 3. Content that has already been shared or received well – if you’ve published a post that has been well-received it might be the kind of content that will do well again if you repurpose it. Look in your analytics for your most popular posts and you’ll probably find something you could repurpose. 2. Think Carefully About the Medium Not every post will lend itself to every medium for repurposing content. Similarly, not every medium will appeal to every audience. There are many different mediums available to you for repurposing content – here are just a few that come to mind that you might want to experiment with: Slide Deck – use a tool like Slideshare or AuthorStream to communicate your main points, share quotes, highlight statistics etc. Infographics – present key stats, stories, histories etc in a visual form using a tool like PictoChart or Visuall.y Instructographic – similar to an infographic, but more focused upon presenting a ‘how-to’ or a step-by-step process Podcasts – take the core ideas in your post and record yourself exploring them as an audio file. Alternatively, set up a conversation that explores the topic with one or more other people and record it. Interviews – seek out someone else in your niche to interview about the topic of your blog post. This could be presented as another blog post, podcast, video etc. Interview numerous people and it could be compiled together as an industry report. Screen capture videos – if your blog post talks people through a process that can be captured as a screen capture video, record it and upload it to a video sharing site like YouTube. Use tools like Camtasia, Jing, Screenr or Screenflow to do this. Talking head videos – set up a webcam and talk to camera about some aspect of the blog post you’ve written. PDF download – convert your blog post into a PDF for downloading for those who wish to have a copy for future reference. Services and tools that could help with this include Anthologize, Zinepal and BlogBooker. eBooks/Reports/Whitepapers – expand upon your blog post or compile it together with other content you may have written and present it as an eBook, report, or whitepaper. Graphics for Social Sharing – take key quotes, points, or stats and put them into an eye-catching graphic for sharing on social media using a tool like Canva or PicMonkey. Alternatively, outsource it using a service like Swiftly. Autoresponder – break your content down into digestible parts that readers could subscribe to as a series of emails. Guest Posts – write a blog post that extends upon your post or that explores a related topic that you could submit as guest posts to other blogs. If not accepted, these could be used as followup blog posts on your blog or could be published on Google+, Tumblr, or LinkedIn Articles for Media or Industry Publications – take the key findings or points in your blog post and submit them as an article to mainstream media or industry associations for republishing. If not accepted, these could be used as followup blog posts on your blog or could be published on Google+, Tumblr or LinkedIn. Webinar – create a webinar based upon a post (or a series of posts) using a tool like Gotowebinar Hangout – hold a Google+ hangout for your readers to come and have a discussion about a piece of content you’ve published Twitter/Facebook Chats – hold a social media chat session to expand upon a blog post, interview someone related to the topic and generate reader discussion about your topic. Workshops – compile your main points into a workshop that you could deliver at a real-life event Transcription – if you’ve done a podcast, webinar, video or workshop, get the recording transcribed for those who might like to read it rather than listen/view it. Create a Printable – create a downloadable printable checklist or template that relates to your blog post. 3. Take a Different Approach to your Original Content A key with repurposing content is to present something that relates to the original content but that doesn’t present exactly the same information. This means if your readers do see the repurposed content in different forms, they don’t get annoyed by hearing the same thing over and over again. There are a few ways to do this: Extend One way is to find related ideas to your original post. Extend what you’ve previously presented. I’ll write more on this later in this series. Drill Down Another method is to drill down into just one small aspect of your original content. For example, highlighting a key quote or stat, point or quote that you might have covered in a longer blog post and present it as a graphic. Similarly if you create a longer webinar, podcast, or video – why not take a key 30-second grab from that content that you can share as a ‘taster’. The snippet might be a self-contained idea that by itself is useful to anyone who listens to it, but which also might serve as a way to get them to listen to the full presentation. Compile Another method (and one of my favourites) is to make your repurposing a summary of numerous previous pieces of content. For example many of the teaching webinars that I’ve done compile information in numerous blog posts that I’ve written. So take key articles from a category on your blog and compile them into a single eBook, whitepaper, webinar, or presentation. Final Thoughts Before we wrap up this post today – here area few final thoughts on repurposing content to keep in mind: Spread it out There is no need to bombard your readership with loads of repurposed content on the same topic quickly. Spread it out over time. You might publish a blog post today and then share a slide deck based upon it next week, and followup with a video or info graphic next month. It all helps build momentum naturally over time without annoying your readers. Repurpose as You Write As you write your original blog posts pay attention to the ideas you get as you write on how you might repurpose them. Quite often when I’m in the middle of writing a blog post I’m also making notes on how I could get graphics or slides made for followups or to insert into the post that could also be used for social sharing. The more you repurpose content the more you’ll find yourself naturally doing this. Pay attention to your archives Repurposing content can happen relatively quickly after you publish a new piece of content but also don’t forget about your archives. Some of your older blog posts might actually be the best ones to repurpose so dig back into your archives for the gold hidden there! Make it Visual The web is increasingly a visual place and on social media – where the bulk of your repurposed content will probably end up – the visuals are what can make or break what you do. So pay particular attention to the design of what you’re creating and consider investing in some outsourced help if design and visuals are not your thing. Cross-link I’ve already mentioned this in passing above but when you repurpose your content you will want to leverage that new content to link back to your original posts that relate to it. This is key for SEO and for sending readers deeper into your site. What Would You Add? Repurposing content is a massive topic and there are no right or wrong ways to do it – so I’d love to hear YOUR perspective on the topic. I’m particularly interested in seeing your examples of where you’ve repurposed blog posts into other formats and would love to see any links in comments below with examples of when you’ve done this for yourself! Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Theme Week: How to Repurpose Your Content [and Why You Should Do It!]

You are subscribed to email updates from @ProBlogger To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

---

Why I Don’t Recommend Entrepreneurship to Everyone Anymore Posted: 03 Jun 2014 06:30 AM PDT When I got started in business, I really didn’t have a choice. It was either put up or shut up. Make or break. Sink or swim. Not because I thought this was nice to have…or that it was my destiny to be who I am today, but I just HAD to make my business successful. Since then, I’ve had my share of ups and downs. Sold some businesses, built some cool products, and made a boat load of money. When things were going well, I was on cloud 9. I would see my friends and family members still struggling, and I always wondered ‘why don’t they do what I do?’ I even went up to them and said, ‘hey do XYZ and you can quit your job forever’. Of course, people don’t like receiving advice when they’ve never asked for it. I would be adamant about how everyone should be an entrepreneur, and if anyone would disagree, they were permanently branded as a “turd” in my mental book. Of course, I’ve changed as a person. What I’ve experienced is nothing in comparison to most people, and while I don’t claim to be better than anyone, I see things differently from most people, and time has given me the benefit of wisdom. So now, when I see people who can barely wake up in the morning to go to a job they hate and come back to a life they hate, I no longer advise them on quitting their job and pursuing business. In fact, even if they’re young and energetic and passionate, if they ask me if entrepreneurship is their path of destiny, I leave it up to them. Why? Because no matter how rosy things may seem, I can never gauge their inner game. A perfect example is a team of 2 founders I’ve met: a VP of sales at a large ad network and a brilliant self-taught engineer who turned down job offers from Google and Zynga. They were going around the town, pitching people to give them money to start their own whiz-bang-tech thing they were building. The sales guy was the schmoozer and the engineer guy was the brains. Perfect match: like Jobs and Woz. They managed to raise over $650k from unsuspecting “investors”, most of whom were friends and family. So what happened? The typical startup happened. They blew 80% of their money on building their product in a complete vacuum (instead of going out and getting feedback for their beta products) and on marketing for a product that had no fit (nor existed). While they stayed lean, their investors were getting antsy. The engineer guy, in the middle of development, had a mental breakdown and disappeared (turns out he went surfing most of the time). The stress, too, had affected the sales guy’s marriage, which was already in bad shape. At the end of that year, the divorce was finalized and basically broke him down spiritually. The worst part? The divorce lawyer and the ex-wife took most of what he had. (In state of California, the husband has to pay for the wife’s lawyers… so imagine if you have 2 lawyers charging you $400/hr EACH.. that’s $800 per HOUR. If you’re in that situation, you’ll wonder if “till death do us apart” includes possible ex-spouse murder.) At least the engineer guy took a salary and is in his mid 20′s. The sales guy was in his late 40′s and drew nothing.. only to be left with nothing. To make the matter worse, investors took legal action on him (he was the older guy with some assets left so they went after him) to try and get some money back. I don’t know what happened next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he skipped town … or even the country to save his ass from all these financial obligations. Now, believe it or not, this is not an extreme case example. This is by far one of the most common startup stories you’ll hear. 1) Control over fear When things go bad.. or when you’re not getting the steady paychecks that you were used to, the fear inside your head will knock harder and louder. At first, it may be a little kick…with a little banging…but that fear will only get bigger and bigger. If you are not able to control your fears, this fear will eat you alive. When I got started, there were nights that I would wake up in a cold sweat, worrying about when and where my next paycheck was gonna come from. (If you’re having trouble focusing, a huge part of that comes from fear, believe it or not. Try meditating. Works wonders.) 2) Control over self “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” -Marianne Williamson. I’ve seen this over and over again. Affiliate marketers who find the riches promoting shady offers that are insanely and unbelievably easy to convert, doing 5-6 digit revenues per day….or entrepreneurs who hit the golden jackpot of virality and their revenue skyrockets. The money goes WAY over their head and they start spending like crazy. With the fast life comes fast cars and fast women.. endless flow of party, alcohol, and drugs. Then their business DIES because they dropped the balls. Then bam.. their business goes kaput. Because they lacked the control to master their inner self, their outer self takes over. 3) Belief in self Imagine there are 20 other companies doing what YOU do. And you tell people that you’re going to revolutionize the world with your new & improved version of that thing you make… that EVERYONE makes. What would people say? “You’re wasting time”…. “it’s been done”… bla bla. So what do you do? Do you listen to them and quit? Or do yourself to make a plan and dream a reality and keep going? Most would quit. Remember Google? That was their story. That was Facebook’s story. That was DropBox’s story. That was WalMart’s story. That was Virgin Airlines’ story. Do you believe in yourself to make your plan and dream a reality? Better yet, when you’re down.. can you keep yourself motivated long enough to get out of the valley, and back up to the peak?   Happiness If you ARE an entrepreneur, why do you do what you do? Ever think about that? What’s funny is that I know an immigrant family that lives not too far from where I live, that are probably in the top 20 of all the people that I’ve ever met in my life. Yet their family’s combined income is less than what I used to make in one month during my boom affiliate days. Yes, life isn’t about “stacking” cash. It’s not about being covered on Forbes. It’s not about being the next Bill Gates. It’s not about going IPO. Because at the end of the day, you have your OWN life. You come home to your OWN family. You sleep next to YOUR wife. It doesn’t matter what kind of icon you compare yourself, because ultimately it’s your own skin that you have to comfortable in. While I like challenging myself to see how far in life I can take myself, I now know that this path isn’t for everyone. Because some people genuinely get unhappy from taking risks. And that’s ok. Why? Because we ALL wanna be happy. I’ll end this post with this awesome story I read, that really gave me a great perspective:   A businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The businessman then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor.” The businessman scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise.” The Mexican fisherman asked, “But señor, how long will this all take?” To which the businessman replied, “15-20 years.” “But what then, señor?” The businessman laughed and said, “That’s the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.” “Millions, señor? Then what?” The businessman said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.” The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, “Isn’t that what I’m doing right now?” Looking for an SEO service that won’t get you banned?

You are subscribed to email updates from ShoeMoney To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610