Creating NEW Digital Content Using What You Already Have
When it comes to staying top of mind in today’s digital landscape, businesses have a lot on their plate. You manage your website, several social media platforms, likely an email newsletter, and maybe even have a podcast or YouTube channel. Some days, it might feel impossible to keep up with it all, especially when you have to constantly create new content to share.
Luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel! In fact, even with all the marketing resources we have here at Sutherland Weston, we use some of these tips and tricks ourselves to keep a steady stream of content on hand.
Not sure what qualifies as digital content? Some of the more common types include:
- Blog posts and articles
- Video, including how-to, live streams, stories, commercials, and vlogs
- Email newsletters
- Photos, infographics, and similar visual elements
- Audio, including podcasts and commercials
As you take inventory of the following items to repurpose, keep in mind you can turn each into many variations for use on several platforms.
Recycle Your Print Materials
When you created your marketing materials, chances are the brochures and pamphlets you designed and printed were full of information about your company (philosophy, history, mission), products, services, and additional facts you wanted your prospects and customers to know.
Take a hint from these print materials and don’t hesitate to reuse some of the same photos and blurbs on social media. Talk about your products and history. Let your audience know about your company culture. You might find every page of your brochure can be reused as snippets of digital content.
Try It: Have a page in your brochure or pitch book that talks about the team at your company? Why not turn each key member into their own social post! Share their photo and a blurb about them on your social media channels so your customers can put a face to the name. Schedule one every week or so in order to not oversaturate your followers.
Work Your Website
Much like your vault of print materials, your website also contains a lot of content you can transform into shareable nuggets. Take a look at any testimonials and reviews you might have added to your site; these make great social shares. Have videos on your product/service pages that describe what customers can expect or what makes you different? Share them on your channels. The same goes for any special offers you may be running. When you schedule these, make sure to keep them spread out and balanced with non-sales focused posts. Community, company culture, and industry news added in between will ensure you are giving your audience value and not just hard selling, leading to more overall engagement.
Try It: Do you have a Frequently Asked Questions section on your website? If so, you’ve hit content gold! Take some of the more common questions and turn them into short videos (similar to our Video Pro-Tips) or into social media posts via text and images (here’s how we did it on Instagram).
Invite Others To Your Common Conversations
Do you find yourself having deja vu moments talking about certain aspects of your business with potential and existing clients over and over again? These conversations are great topics to turn into digital content. Whether you record a video of your usual explanation to embed on your site or borrow paragraphs from the email response you’ve written many times and turn them into a blog post, you’ll have content that feels easy to create while resonating with your audience.
Try It: When award season came around we found ourselves congratulating quite a few of our clients on a variety of achievements. Many of them wanted to know what steps they should take next. Naturally, Cary and Elizabeth hopped on camera and created a video. To repurpose the video into a blog post, we used a service called Rev.com to translate the video to text. And of course, we shared it via our social channels and our email newsletter. One video based on conversations with clients turned into many pieces of content. What conversations are you having more often these days?
Bonus Tip: Don’t Have Time to Curate? Document!
Depending on your type of industry, if you find it difficult to create new content, consider documenting as you go about your day. Are you an engineer working on a job site? Take some photos and share them to social. Are you a retailer getting in new product? Hop on Instagram or Facebook Stories and show off your new inventory! With certain social platforms becoming more casual, you don’t have to worry about your video or photos being perfect as long as you are authentic and stay true to your brand.
If creating content (new or repurposed) feels overwhelming, the team at Sutherland Weston can help! From developing your content plan to executing it across your digital platforms, we are here to teach you the steps or can take the task off your hands. Let’s talk!