Coming up with a new piece of content every time could prove to be a daunting task. It requires a great amount of effort, starting from coming up with a brilliant idea and researching on the same to content writing and promotion. You have written n number of articles, and it’s quite natural to feel at times that we are short of ideas. You have already invested a lot of thought, research, development and other resources including copywriters, designers, social media experts, SEO specialists and more. Whew! We all know that content marketing is quite an investment. Luckily, there are ways to relive a great piece of content in various avatars. Thus, it’s time to revisit the content that we have already written and posted and see how we could leverage more out of it. Let’s say its old wine served in a new bottle with added preservatives to make it last long.

Let’s see how this anti-ageing formula works…

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In simple terms, reliving the content is the alteration of a piece of content to make it fresh by presenting a whole new angle to an existing topic or switching the format of the same content. Integrating this aspect into a content marketing strategy could lower cost, expand the audience reach, make for an advanced production, and provide a plethora of benefits to the audience and also the promoters.

• Several pieces of content with the same idea: For instance, a popular blog post could be transformed into a video or a slideshow. This makes it quite clear that reliving the old content allows influence over the other new articles in various forms. The amount of time and other resources spent on research could help in upcoming content projects.

• Reduces the time spent on content creation: The various elements put in the creation of the content, namely images, text or some famous quotes that could have been collected earlier but not used, could be applied to the new creation.

• Cross-Promotion: Through appropriate efforts of reliving the content, the great content could be cross-promoted on a number of relevant channels. For instance, a blog could be linked to through a YouTube video, or even a slideshow or via any other form. This aspect of attracting targeted traffic helps in penetrating the brand and enhancing the conversion rate.

• Extends the life of your old content:  It may happen many times that your targeted audience may have skipped having a look at your content earlier. However, by reliving the same content it may get the audience through a different form on different channels. Working on the old content helps in expanding the life cycle even further, as it develops the ability to remain relevant for years.

• Serving multiple users: Users choice is vulnerable. Some prefer reading text, while some people only understand with the help of visuals. Again, there are some who love to get in-depth information and also those who quickly glide blog posts to gain information. Different content forms for an old content is one of the main benefits of reliving the content. For instance, the script of a viral video post could be used as the foundation of a text. In the same manner, all the facts and figures, statistics that have been presented in presentations or text could be now illustrated through data visualization.

• Allows focusing on relevant aspects: Every field has its own news and updates that come turning up with each passing day. Though the topic is quite relevant to the current trends, there could be something that has evolved and should be updated in your post. Let’s say, you have written a guide on SEO 3 years back. There have been a lot of ups and downs in the industry since then that needs to be updated. If done appropriately, it could help in fetching far more views and readers than it is currently doing.

The Process of Reliving Content

Start with your core idea: Identify the main topic and the purpose why it was written. Is it meant to provide tips on some complicated process or the top social media websites in 2013? Even at an early stage, it could be determined what format could be applied to the new content. During the initial brainstorming process of the first content, think of the multiple pieces it could be broken into to form a whole new fresh content based on a point mentioned in the content.

Alter according to various content types: Once the general topic has been determined think how to apply it across the various content types to appeal a wide range of audience. For instance, if the business is sports shoes, a few instances of the content that could be created would be:

• Blog posts on which sport shoes are the best for certain activities
• Infographics illustrating the difference between walking and jogging shoes
• An interview video giving insights into the trends in sports shoes in 2014
• A slideshow showing the images of the various styles of sports shoes with their purposes
• A how-to-guide on how to make the best use of sports shoes

This is just the start. If you have a wide ranging topic, researching on one single piece of content will lead to the development of multiple content from it. Each and every piece has a different point of view and could be effectively transformed in order to appeal to a specific audience niche, but the basic idea will always be the same.

The various formats

• Blog Posts: Every content idea deserves to be seen as a blog post. Most businesses have a blog associated with their site and it’s a good practice as most businesses have witnessed the generation of more leads with the help of their blogs. This also helps in collecting feedback about your basic idea from the readers. The valuable feedback from the relevant audience will spark additional ideas on carrying forward the main idea to the next level.

• Presentations/Webinars: The utilization of slideshows has reached another level with time. It’s not only about boardroom presentations anymore. It could be utilized as an effective link building tool for SEO purposes. At the same time the slides in the presentation should convey some useful information and this is where the core idea of your old content could come to use as all the main points could be utilized to explain in a slide. Slideshows tend to help the visual learners with interactive material with the help of images and descriptions.

• Free Guides: A resourceful content with some exceptional tips could be leveraged to create an eBook or a free guide. Also, a series of blog posts could be combined to form a helpful how-to-guide with some additional elements that are able to address current scenario and the needs of the audience. eBooks and how-to-guides, although given out for free are often considered a high value content. For instance, an eBook may be offered to those who sign up on your landing page, or when they provide contact information.

• Infographics: An effective infographic is the most wonderful way to project the data in a visual representation and proves to be a great platform for re-using the old content in a whole new different avatar. Compared to other forms of content marketing, infographics tend to explain a complex subject simply with the help of various illustrative renditions.

• Videos: Nowadays, more emphasis is laid on video creation for online marketing purposes. The moving graphics with the help of audio is considered as a more effective means of conveying the information to the target audience. It’s a fast paced age and all the information is expected to be fast with quick understanding of the message. Thus, platforms like YouTube and Vimeo have gained massive popularity around the world. This could be a great means for the change of avatar for your old content.

• Newsletters: Penetrating your content to the subscriber base is inevitable. Whether the link is provided entirely in the newsletter or just a few excerpts with a link to the original content, it is highly recommended to put the content in the email subscriber base to drive traffic to the main content.

Conclusion

I believe this post makes it evident that reliving the content could be very effective if used with the correct anti-ageing formula. This is the best way of leveraging the most out of the content created earlier with all the hard efforts and other resources. This process could save time and the investment for coming up with a completely new idea and research, and help you in spreading the reach of the core idea of the previous content.