The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Repurposing

What is Content Repurposing?

How do you make the most of your existing and newly created content as a content creator?

The old way: After publishing your podcast or video content, you can share the links to every distribution channel your audience spends time on. Fingers closed, your target audience will click the link to listen to or watch your content.

The new way; Embrace content repurposing.

Repurposing content is also known as content recycling. It’s reusing new or existing content to create different formats for better content distribution and audience reach.

Content repurposing is everything aimed at taking the extra mile to reach your audience in their preferred content format and distribution channel.

Content repurposing vs. Content distribution

Content repurposing is an integral part of your content distribution strategy.

Hubspot defines content distribution as the process of sharing, publishing, and promoting your content. It allows your audience to consume your content on their preferred channels.

As you will learn from this content piece, repurposing content happens before content distribution.

Content Repurposing	Content Distribution
Break down content or combine content pieces	Share broken content pieces to your audience’s preferred channels
Format the content into channels-specific distribution requirements using tools	‘Copy & Paste ‘ into distribution channels formats when sharing
Publish the content with audience consumption insights in mind	Promote the content by sharing redirecting links without channels specific value addition

Content repurposing vs. Content distribution

Why is content repurposing important?

Producing a podcast is a time-consuming process. For instance, to produce a podcast episode, you may need to;

Research a podcast episode topic
Reach out to guests for some episodes
Plan and schedule the podcast interview or recording session
Write a script beforehand on what you will cover in the episode
Record the episode
Edit and transcribe to create show notes
Distribute your podcast content

It’s not enough to publish your podcast episodes on podcast platforms and share clickable links on social media channels. By repurposing your podcast, you can make sure that it reaches a broader audience and get maximum ROI.

Content repurposing best practices

Content format is important

Social media platforms are continuously evolving. The latest is Instagram pivoting to a video platform to take on Tiktok. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri predicts that ‘more and more Instagram will become video over time. ‘ These changes call for an effective repurposing strategy that adheres to the distribution platform’s updated content format.

For example, Creating YouTube Shorts requires 1080 pixels x 1080 pixels or 1920 x 1080 pixels for vertical content. And since the same aspect ratio for vertical video applies to Reels and TikTok videos, you can distribute the repurposed content to these platforms.

Repurpose evergreen content

As of April 2021, over 48 million podcast episodes were produced, according to Podcast Insights. This number is high for an average podcast listener. Content creators can expand their reach for existing podcast episodes by repurposing timeless recorded pods.

There are several ways to repurpose existing podcast content;

Convert show notes into Twitter Threads
Create infographics from episode resource sections
Create thought leadership SEO content from podcast expert interviews
Clip video podcasts and customize them for social media.
Create Instagram and LinkedIn slideshows from expert quotes in the episode transcripts.

Edit content using repurposing tools

Repurposing content is not only about audio or video content. Using repurposing tools like Visme, or Designrr, you can convert any content piece into different formats.

While Recast. Studio’s repurposing tool allows you to add subtitles to content, Visme allows you to repurpose blog posts into a Slideshare presentation that can be used as a webinar.

Re-distribute repurposed content

Create once publish everywhere – a technique used to publish a message across different communication channels; social media posts, newsletters, Ebooks, and SEO blog posts.

Podcasters can take a repurposed video clip for YouTube Shorts and re-distribute it as;

Instagram Reel
TikTok video clip
Video tweet
LinkedIn video post

A similar concept applies to audio podcasts, adding customized captions that are platform-specific, including hashtags and catchy-hook headlines.

Podcast Content Repurposing Workflow

What is your repurposing strategy?

There is no one shoe fits all content repurposing workflow. Also, the tools a content creator decides to use in their repurposing strategy dictate the steps they will use to repurpose each content piece.

Before breaking down the workflow, here are content pieces worth repurposing.

Evergreen content

A thought leadership interview episode can be an evergreen content piece. This means the episode is relevant over months and even years. You don’t re-share the content in its raw form over a while but repurpose it into different formats and channels for audience consumption.

The best way to repurpose evergreen content is to update it with new materials and consider going for different distribution channels. For example, take a podcast interview, transcribe it, add new research and convert it into an Ebook for lead generation.

Outdated content

Old podcast episodes don’t have to gather dust in the archives. You can give them life by adding them into newer content for quality content repurposing. For instance, if you recorded an episode on ‘the state of podcasting in 2020, ‘you can do an update for 2022, including aspects that stood true during the period.

You can include additional resources from the old content and its updating date in the repurposed content pieces to improve its quality.

3- Step process to content repurposing workflow

Step-1: Breakdown

Content arbitrage is likened to buying low and selling high. Podcast production takes time, as I mentioned earlier. However, getting the ROI for your effort can go beyond audio/ video podcast distribution channels into social media and SEO.

Here is how you do it;

Curate – Find fragmented information across your distribution channels and curate them into a new and consumable one for your audience. It can be a collection of podcast episodes detailing a specific topic, including yours.
Summarize – Great ideas and insights can get lost in long-form podcast interviews. The best way to amplify the message is to summarize the content in different formats. Transcripts are a great way to retrieve insights, but they can also clip audiograms, add captions and share them on social platforms.
Translate – Industry jargon can sometimes shadow insights revealed by experts. You can bring these ideas to light by translating them into simple language that even ‘outsiders ‘can understand.

Step-2: Format

The easiest way to combat content formatting is to blend creation with repurposing. When recording a podcast episode;

Film a video for YouTube
Transcribe the content for an article draft
Add timestamps to create content clips for social media

For example, the Shopify Masters podcast films videos interviews of merchants succeeding in the e-commerce space. They share the audio on platforms like Spotify and Apple podcasts, while the video is on YouTube.

Step-3: Distribute

The format dictates the distribution channel. However, as distribution evolves, content creators must embrace new formats to expand their reach in and out of existing channels.

In recent years, Spotify has plunged into video podcasts, with the latest update being its expansion into six more countries which include;

Italy
Germany
Spain
Mexico
Brazil
France

In a statement, Spotify said;

“Video-native podcasters will now have access to Spotify’s audience around the world, while audio-native podcasters will be able to start experimenting with video and deliver content that their listeners can engage with more deeply,”

This means content creators can now automatically create video podcasts and repurpose them directly from Spotify to other video-focused distribution platforms, like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Benefits of Repurposing Podcasts

The Rule of 7′ was developed in the 1930s by the movie industry, which states that a prospective customer needs to ‘hear or see ‘an advertiser’s message seven times before they will take action to buy a product or service.

With everyone launching a podcast, repurposing podcast content is a differentiation strategy for content creators that want to stand out. Some of the benefits of repurposing podcasts include;

Expand podcast reach

Being a guest in a complimentary industry podcast is a great way to expand your reach. The host can add your podcast link in the episode show notes.

Repurposing your podcasts beyond audio and video is a better way to reach an untapped audience. For instance, creating Infographics from episode transcripts.

This eye-catching visual content is shareable and can help you expand your reach within the distribution channel.

Build brand awareness

Marty Neumeier, legendary brand expert and author of several branding books, including; The Brand Gap, defines a brand as;

‘It’s not what you say; it’s what they say.’

By ‘they, ‘Marty means the audience or customers. Repurposing your podcasts makes your brand visible to the masses. You can build podcast brand awareness by formatting episodes into channel-specific requirements and distributing the content using the rule of seven.

Generate qualified leads

The ultimate podcast goal is to generate qualified leads for your business or brand. Podcasters that create podcast series can convert them into;

An Ebook for lead generation
A monthly newsletter summary
A course module for knowledge base

Also, podcast content repurposed for social media can generate leads by including lead magnet links for the target audience to take action.