Q&A Call

This is a transcript of the video, with minimal editing.

All right, and we'll get started. So today is the question and answer time for the content repurposing course, if you have not signed up, the name of that course is Content Repurposing for the Real World.

A lot of us here talk about content creation and content repurposing. And then you look at what it takes to do it? And you go, I don't have time for that. Or how do I manage it? Or how do I get all that done? Content creation may not be your number one business; it's not the main thing you do. So, if it's not the main thing you do, why are you spending all your time doing it? Well, because it keeps the sales funnel filled, or it keeps the donations coming. Or it keeps me connected to my audience, that sort of thing.

What I want to do in this Content Repurposing for the Real World course, is to say:

• What does your real world look like?
• What are you already doing?
• How can we figure out ways to use those things that you're already creating in new ways, so that you don't have to feel like you're on a hamster wheel all the time, always creating new things or coming up with new things.

Yes, you are going to have to create new content, but it won't be as much.

You can create these nice workflows, and I'll show you exactly how to do it. There are always questions as we get started with this. And so, I wanted to talk to you today about some of the questions that I get around content repurposing, and we'll go into much more detail inside the course. I'll show you ways to do some of the things I'll talk about today in the course.

What qualifies as content?

When a lot of people think about content marketing, they're thinking social media, or they’re thinking blogs. At one time blogs were the main thing. They were the number one source of longer content online. Now, it's kind of like anything goes, isn't it? I just got off a call with a client where we talked about her YouTube channel. I asked her, “Have you been on any podcasts?”

She said, “I hate podcasts!” But then she's creating YouTube videos, and she's getting clients through YouTube videos. So how can she get more mileage out of those YouTube videos? That's what content repurposing is.

What qualifies as content?

• Videos
• Blog posts
• Articles (print or online)
• Letters to clients
• White papers
• Case studies
• Training materials for your own staff
• Podcast episodes

Maybe you wrote a really nice blog post, or you were on a podcast, and you have this nice interview where you explain what you do. And you said it really well. Get that recording. Let's get the transcript, and let's figure out ways to reuse what you said. You said it, and that's your content. So, all kinds of other things, also:

• Infographics
• Images/diagrams
• Slides that you created for a presentation
• PDF handouts
• Anything else you can create and share!

Content is anything you can think of that you've created that communicates something for the audience that you're trying to reach. That's your content. It can be in lots of different formats, who knows what new formats are going to come around the corner? So, it's just content. It’s things that you create.

How often should I post fresh content on my site?

A lot of that depends on your audience. How often do they expect things? Who else in your world is producing things? What are they doing? In general, though, you want to do something–some wisdom says twice a week, some says weekly. I would say no less than twice a month (that’s if you’re getting started, where eth most important thing is consistency. Just take on what you can do). I know some of you are missionaries, or maybe you don't have a lot of news, but you can still share something about your world. You can share something about your experience.

If you are a business and you're trying to move people through a process, remember, the people that were on your site last week are not the same people who are going to be on your site in the next week. So, you're creating for new folks, you're laying out the welcome mat for them. And you are showing them your expertise. Part of why you need to put fresh content out there is because Google likes fresh content. They can tell when you edited that page. They know if your content is up to date or not.

So, if I go to your site, and you say, “I wrote a blog post about that in 1998, and the information really hasn't changed.” Go to that website, and go to that article, then update the article. Just freshen it up a bit. Freshen the language up; talk about how the world has changed, but this core content hasn't. Add a paragraph that  explains how this information still remains good information, and tell them why. Then update your headline, and maybe put the year 2022 in it, or whatever year it is, and just let them know it's been updated. Just by doing that, okay, it took five minutes, but that can boost that article a little bit. So, it's a matter of keeping your content fresh. If you are in an industry where things don't change a lot, just go refresh things. That's repurposing. Or refreshing, okay, well, I'm going to use those terms interchangeably. That's low hanging fruit, where you can refresh content and get a little boost updating your site.

Where should I post?

Post on your website, post on YouTube. YouTube is a giant search engine. And yes, you need to make videos. Video is where things are going. Now, I am not thrilled about being on video, honestly. But I do it. Because it's–and I'll be doing it more, because it's the way things are going. YouTube. Again, big search engine, that's where people are going to find out their information, especially how to, and also for why and for explanations. They don't have time to read something, or maybe they're doing something else while they're learning. And again, podcasts–podcasts are the same kind of thing.

So, it used to be that if you wanted to reach a new audience, you would find out where the popular blogs were on your topic. And then you would post a guest post, and that would introduce you to that more popular person's audience. And so, you do the thing, same thing. Now, not as many people are reading blogs, but they're listening to podcasts. It’s the same type of thought. Where do I find podcasts in my industry, or podcasts that are reaching my audience? And what do I have to offer that person's audience that maybe they haven't covered? Or maybe I have a new angle on it? Don't just pitch yourself blindly to places and say, I'm your person, I'm your person have me on. As a podcast host, I do get emails on a regular basis from people who have not listened to my show, they have no idea what my show is about, and they want to be a guest expert on my show, talking about something that we don't ever talk about on my show. I don't do that. I just mark that as spam and move along. They're not getting on my show. So don't do that to people. Okay, then that should just be common sense. But a lot of people do it. So just don't take that blanket approach. Take some time in the evening, on your walk, or you know, when you're walking the dog, whatever, listen to the podcast to see if it is a good match. Okay, then write a nice email to the right person, a really good way to get them is to get on their email list and then respond to their emails and get a conversation going. Anyway, we could do a whole class just on that.

Get your content out there into the places where your audience is consuming content. So, if you just ask me, do I need to be on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest, all the places… do I need to be all the places? I can't give you a yes or no, or a blanket answer to that. Because it really depends on where your audience is.

• Who is your audience?
• Where do they hang out?
• Where do they get the information that they're looking for when they're looking for your topic?

They might hang out on Facebook to do family stuff. Maybe they don't do business on Facebook. On the other hand, I know people, the only reason they're on Facebook is for business. So, know your people is really the answer to where should I post? Okay? If your people are on Instagram, you need to be on Instagram. So, but again, what are they doing? On those channels if they're on TikTok to relax, and they're not there to buy? Okay, they might buy, but what type of, you know, is your product? So? Are you selling? Something? That's a really easy? Yes, maybe a low barrier to entry, you know, entry level purchase? Or are you selling some like really expensive, you know, consulting or things like that. Think about where they are. Think about  asking your existing customers. Where are you? What do you listen to? Where do you go for this information? Who else do you listen to? Who else do you read? And then see what they're doing. Where are they at? So, where should I post? Depends.

Is short or long form content better?

I'm going to give you a similar answer to the next question, which is, is short form or long form content better? Okay. So, there's a lot of debate about that. There are studies, there are people that this is what they do. They study how different types of content perform. Okay? So, some studies seem to suggest that short and sweet is the best type of content. Consumers just want to skim over things, get the main points, get the message, and move along or make a decision. Others say that long in-depth posts, really detailed articles are really best at converting. Okay, again, the answer is, what does your audience prefer? And there are ways to test this. And again, we'll go through a some of this. It's not a course on A/B testing and how to go through all your data. But there are some basic things you need to know. And I will have a module in January, that is showing you how to do those things. Just look at your existing content. See what is performing well, and how you can test. If you make a long version and a short version, and test which one does better. That's the answer to that is which performs better? Do a test; get the information. And then don't just say that's forever the answer because people change, right? situations change.

One thing we found as podcasters, when the world went into lockdown, you'd think we have all this time on our hands. Now, you know, I can do these two-hour interviews with these interesting guests. And I can do all this–nope, nope. People started listening to shorts, like the length of podcasts that people were listening to got shorter and shorter and shorter. I was talking to podcasters. And a lot of them (not everybody). There are some long form podcasts that did really well. But a lot of my fellow podcasters, were saying, my shorter episodes are really taking off. But I'm finding that people aren't listening all the way through on longer episodes. So, what do I do? The answer was, let's make shorter podcast episodes.

I'm going much shorter in 2022 in my podcasts, and part of that is because that's what listeners seem to like. And the other part is, it's a lot easier for me to produce. It saves me time as well. So, as we get into the content repurposing course, I'll show you how to even repurpose, if you have longer articles, how you can spin off some shorter material from that, even on the same platform. And also, if you have short form content, how to maybe combine some things to create longer form content, so you can give your people choices and then see what they go for.

Is there a penalty for duplicating content?

Now, some folks, as I talked about, are taking an article and breaking it into smaller pieces, for example, or publishing in more than one place. There's this thing that we have heard about with Google called the duplicate content penalty, but says basically, if I produce a blog post, say on my blog, and then I copy and paste that into Medium or I republish that in some other channel, then do I get penalized for that? So, for a while, the thought was that Google would say, Hey, you're copying that. You already published that over here. Why are you publishing it over here too , so maybe you’re spam? And so, there was a lot of fear that if you did that, you would get penalized, and then everything you did would get hit by Google. Okay? It looks like that's not the case. Even if they were penalizing people, you can make enough changes in articles to, to where I think you can avoid those things. But there really isn't a duplicate content penalty these days. So don't worry about it. Google's goal is to connect people with the information that they're looking for. That's what the search engine does, it does that really well. And so, if you provide content that Google can see is very useful. And we can get into schemas and all those things as well.

You can become the authority in your topic. And you have to create a lot of content to do that, but not just a lot of content, you really have to serve your audience, and answer their questions. And so again, those are all things we're going to address in the course. The name of the course is Content Repurposing for the Real World. And if you have not signed up, I'm recording this on December 17, 2021, we are in the pre enrollment stage of this course. It is the cheapest price that you're ever going to see this course at, you can get it today, and use the code, SAVE21 right, because it's 2021. When 2021 is over, the discount is over. It's going to save you $30 with that code, off the registration price. So, if you go to lifeandmission.com, you'll see the banner there with a link to go to Content Repurposing for the Real World. And you can sign up today, we will start the course in January.

One of the things that I'm really looking forward to doing with this is to let you look over my shoulders while I repurpose content.

I have a client that created a lot–over 100 Facebook Lives. And those things, they're lost forever if we don't do something with them. It was a really wonderful series that they did, and great content, things that can really help people. And we're going to see how many different ways we can repurpose that content. We're also going to talk about specific business scenarios, and also nonprofit scenarios and missionary type scenarios. So, if you're producing content to talk to your donors, to your customers, or to your supporters, then we're going to address those things as specific topics. I'll have specific lessons for you if you're in one of those specialized markets. And we're just going to really make a nice beefy little course for you. But right now in 2021 is the best price to get this course, pre enroll today at lifeandmission.com and we will see you in the course.

Have a great day!