With 2025 only a few months away and the holiday season quickly approaching, you may struggle to find the time to develop your final publishing ideas to close 2024 with a bang. If your hair is officially on fire, fret not, friend. This week’s newsletter is about repurposing your existing content to save your sanity, coming up with fresh ideas that always work, and knowing when to slow down when you’re too busy speeding up. Let’s go!
In this week’s issue 📨
- Find value in your existing content
- Top-shelf content ideas
- How to cure creative burnout
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Repurpose, reuse, recycle
If you’re stumped on what to write about next, it’s not a crime to refer back to old posts to help you brainstorm new ideas. Even if you’ve already touched on a subject, that doesn’t mean there’s no value left. Professional publishing sometimes means playing the long game, and stretching your niche to its maximum strength can make the winding and occasionally chaotic road to success way less bumpy.
Let’s examine how content repurposing can help you squeeze the most value out of your passion project.
Content repurposing defined
- Content repurposing is the act of translating the original value of your content into different formats to reach more people in fresh ways. Some everyday examples of this include using used jars as storage containers or transforming warehouses into loft apartments.
- The benefits gained from repurposing your content will be unique to you, but you’ll more than likely reach new audiences, increase your ROI (return on investment), boost your SEO (search engine optimization) rankings, and dive deeper into your niche to further establish your authority.
Types of content repurposing
- Syndicating content is reposting it on different platforms. To reach new audiences, you can repost one of your most popular articles on other sites like Quora, Reddit, or Indie Hackers. Because platforms tend to favor native content, syndicating goes a bit further than just sharing.
- Converting your content from one medium to another is one of the most powerful ways to gain more followers. You can turn written words into infographics, create a video from audio, transcribe visual information into text, or host a live webinar.
- Dividing longer pieces of content into smaller chunks and spreading them across different platforms is another mindful repurposing strategy. Try splitting up a large blog post into multiple shorter articles or tweets, or break apart an hour-long podcast into 2-minute highlight reels.
- Repackaging finished content into a larger, more valuable product can make excellent lead magnets and increase revenue. You can create an ebook from multiple blog posts, develop online courses and educational videos, or design a FAQ page that links to various podcast episodes or articles.
How to start repurposing
- Not every piece of content you make needs to be repurposed. Take time to examine your work and decide if it’s continually relevant, already popular with your existing audience, and currently feeding your business. If all these things are true, the content is ripe for repurposing.
- Take the time to determine how repurposing fits into your current content strategy. Remember that finding your voice, building a following, and making money from your content takes time. Repurposing can help speed up your journey, but it’s not a magic wand! Creating quality content is always key.
Interesting stories & ideas 📚
- Applying the egg theory – Digital Native
- Throwing an event for your readers – Inbox Collective
- Overcome the urge to quit – For The Interested
- How to keep your subscribers happy – One Man & His Blog
- Why you need a signature product – Jay Clouse
The path to satisfaction
Coming up with ideas for new content may come easy to some, but turning those ideas into something great is an entirely different story. If you’re picky about the content you post and strive to top yourself every time, sitting down to brainstorm new content can feel overwhelming. Are there infinite angles out there, or will you eventually hit a dead end?
Tim Stoddart, CEO of Copyblogger, helps us find inner peace by sharing some content ideas that always work.
#1 Identify subscriber pain points by emailing them a feedback survey or asking for their thoughts using social media. The more you know about their problems, the more content you can create around solving them.
#2 Double down on what’s already working by identifying your most popular content. Be mindful of what’s exciting your current audience and what new content may attract potential customers.
#3 Check out your competitors’ top-performing content to better understand what your audience may like. Just be sure to put your personal spin on everything you create if you’ve been inspired by other publishers.
#4 Track trending topics using tools like Google Trends for the latest happenings in the zeitgeist. However, if your content is too trendy, it may not be evergreen enough to rank high in search engines, so find a nice balance.
#5 Ask industry experts for their take to make your content stand out within your niche. Connecting with an expert can generate even more content ideas, and they may even help promote your work if you ask them nicely.
#6 Republish old content for the section of your audience that never saw it the first time around. This tactic is most successful using content that’s already been a hit previously, minimizing your risk of failure.
#7 Share personal experiences to strengthen the connection with your members. Your readers are real people who want your publication to feel just as organic. Content that feels human is highly effective at increasing engagement.
#8 Create less content if you have nothing insightful to share. This may sound a bit backward, but it’s ok to hold off on creating if you need more time to brainstorm something worthwhile. Quality content takes time!
Break the burn
Having your creativity tap run dry is one of the most disheartening and stressful feelings. You sit in front of the computer screen, hands on your keyboard, hoping for some sort of divine intervention, but the cogs in your brain refuse to turn. While it’s normal for your creativity to fluctuate, creative burnout is a different animal altogether, but there is a way out!
Anne-Laure Le Cunff, founder of Ness Labs, breaks down how to successfully break the creative burnout cycle.
‣ Get support instead of hiding your creative struggle from yourself or your team. You’ll find that most of those around you are happy to help in any way they can, both physically and emotionally. Start by clearing space on your content calendar or hand off some projects to others who have less to do.
‣ Take a break to give your brain wheels a rest. We aren’t talking about a 15-minute break or a long lunch; take a few days or even a week off to really escape your dread. Use this time off to do things that have nothing to do with work or do literally nothing. When was the last time you did absolutely nothing?
‣ Self-reflect to discover any hidden roots that may be causing your burnout. This is why doing nothing is essential. While your brain is in silent mode, you may hear solutions slowly creep into your psyche. Your mind has a nice way of healing itself if you just give it time to rest.
‣ Review your past work to regain your confidence. Burnout is often caused by self-doubt, making it easy to forget your previous accomplishments and how much of a rockstar you are. Don’t be shy about revisiting the bad stuff, too. The negative can show how much progress you’ve made.
‣ Go back to basics and start small. If you’re trying to write a massive blog post, start with just one paragraph. If your publication needs a fresh coat of paint, take it one page at a time. Ignore the massive stack of work in front of you and take everything step by step, day by day.
‣ Be kind to yourself. Being burnt out doesn’t mean you’re a failure, lazy, or untalented. In fact, it probably means you care a lot and put too much pressure on yourself. Just remember to breathe and remind yourself that you’re not alone on your creative journey.
Curator’s pick ✍️
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