At Lemonlight, we know content is king! But we also know the process for creating good, thorough, and engaging content can be a little rough around the edges.
Whether you run your own business and are trying to garner more leads and sales, or you’re on the marketing team of a major company and are trying to optimize your marketing efforts, spending hours on a piece of written content that doesn’t deliver results just doesn’t cut it.
The funny thing is, written content is probably the easiest to create. The content itself requires hours of research, drafting, and editing, but anyone with access to your blog site can contribute and publish, and from there, the process is pretty straightforward. But what can you do to make sure this content, which you spend so much time creating, is actually paying off?
If you manage the company blog, you’ve probably dealt with one of the following scenarios.
- You write a really long, in-depth blog post and see it pick up a lot of traction, bringing in more unique visits than any other piece of content on your website.
- You dedicate tons of time creating in-depth blog content, but aren’t seeing your blogs pick up any traction. You might feel like you’re wasting time and resources on your blog.
- You’ve stopped creating written blog content because you’ve noticed a trend: your visual content — photos, infographics, and videos — is bringing in the majority of your web visits and engagement.
These are all unique problems, but there’s one tactic that could go a long way in solving these issues and helping you get more engagement in the long run: repurposing your written content into video content.
Why would I repurpose my written content?
We get it. The best written content takes a lot of work to create and the idea of turning that into a video sounds exhausting. But trust us, turning your blog content into a short, engaging, and SEO-boosting video is actually a lot easier than you think!
First, let’s take a look at a few of the benefits of repurposing your content into video.
Higher Engagement – Video is interactive and gets more engagement than written content. A third of all time spent online is dedicated to watching videos and the average user spends 88 percent more time on a website with video than without. It’s no question, video is one of the fastest growing forms of marketing.
Higher Conversions – Sixty-four percent of people are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it. More than words, video has the ability to help viewers envision themselves using a product and engages their senses.
Search Engine Optimization – Because video is evidence of quality content, just embedding video on your website can help raise your page rank. It tells search engines that the content of your page not only satisfies search queries, but does so using rich media — media that is more engaging and more likely to hold the user’s attention.
Inexpensive to Create – Video can be expensive, but creating a repurposed blog video is surprisingly not. Because you’ve already written the content, the only production required is highlighting the important text, overlaying it on relevant images, and (depending on your resources,) adding voiceover or music. You can make it as simple or as complicated as you’d like, but a basic video is incredibly affordable.
Multi-Functional – The best part? A repurposed video doesn’t have to just live on your blog. You can use it on your website homepage, email marketing, social media, paid ads, and more. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, bringing you more brand awareness and sales than a typical blog post alone.
The opportunities to get more out of your written blog content are endless. Publish it almost anywhere and start spreading excitement about your content and your brand.
Where should I publish my repurposed video?
The short answer: everywhere!
That’s the great thing about video, it’s a medium that lends itself to distribution almost anywhere; Where you publish it ultimately depends on your goals.
Youtube or Vimeo
This is where you’ll host your video. Both are free to use and allow you to naturally embed your video anywhere you want to.
Website
Post your video anywhere it makes sense on your website: your homepage, landing pages, FAQ pages, or product/ecommerce pages. If the video is more informative and less salesy (as most blog content tends to be), keep your video on your blog and homepage. Make sure the content of the video and where you publish it matches the user’s intention. If they’re wondering how to use your product or service, consider posting your video on your FAQ or how-to pages. If the user just wants more general industry information, keep your video on your blog pages or resources page.
Social Media
Social platforms are a great distribution platform for video. Promote your video across all platforms where you’re active. Just remember to keep length in mind! No one on social media is ready to commit more than two minutes on any single video, and viewership drops dramatically after the first minute.
Videos on Facebook should stay within the 30 second to one-minute range. Platforms that skew younger, like Snapchat and Instagram, have an even lower attention span. Keep these video to 15 seconds or less.
Don’t forget less traditional social platforms, like Quora, Reddit, and industry forums.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is the best way to garner the most views. If your repurposed video covers content that’s widely sought, keyword or search engine ads may be the way to go. This is great if you performed keyword research when writing your blog article and know that search intent about your content topic is high.
On the other hand, if you know exactly the kind of audience your content was created for, social ads may be the way to go. With social, you have much better, more in-depth audience targeting tools and can specify relevancy up to the most granular detail.
Or, maybe you just know a ton about the original blog topic, and not necessarily who should be watching your video. If that’s the case, your video may benefit from native advertising, which matches ads based on content relevancy. Tools like Outbrain or Taboola can place your video within other, relevant content and make it look like a natural part of the user experience.
What’s next?
Now, track performance! Link your video to the original piece of written content (and embed your video into the original content, as well) to build higher authority and keep an eye on your unique impressions and view-through rate. Once you see just how your repurposed content performs, you can decide whether to keep repurposing more of your written content.
“And remember: There are tons of other ways to repurpose content! Turn them into infographics, quizzes, slideshows, you name it”.
Don’t allow your written content to live in a vacuum. Do everything you can to optimize its performance, engage your audience, and keep people coming back for more.
So, want to repurpose written content into a video? Let us help! We’ve created thousands of videos for clients and can help you figure out what content you can repurpose and how. Schedule a free creative call today