You think you know how to repurpose content for social, right? You would be surprised how many content marketers and social media strategists get this wrong – a lot. Mostly, they grab headlines or just repost content already posted on the web. Well, that doesn’t always pull through the most important message(s). The most important message for social may be buried within your content.
For example, if you announced a new partnership. The most compelling words that describe that deal may not all be in your headline. They may be in the lead of the release or in a quote from one of your executives. Keep in mind that you’re writing for a *social* audience.
Your press release, blog, white paper, etc. are not meant to be socialized “as is.” You need to punch up the copy to be conversational and engaging so that your audience gets activated to respond to your posts on social.
Here’s some tips on how to repurpose your content for social media.
Your headline may not be the most important message for social.
Sacre bleu! What should you post? Think about the audience, first. Then focus on how to distill your message down to speak with that audience, including which popular hashtags to use. It’s best if you genuinely know your community, the words they use, and most used hashtags. If you don’t, do your research. Twitter has a massive search engine.
Look for other examples within your community.
If you’re about to make an announcement with a new partner, explore how other companies – and that partner – have talked about each other on social. Don’t plagiarize. Use a similar style. That will help with approval processes on both sides and stay within a consistent guideline of how those kinds of partnerships are mentioned in your community. If you are more relevant to your community, then your posts will attract more influencers (and employees) to share your content.
Talk with the employees who gave you the content.
I know I’m not stating the obvious on this one. Most social media managers whom I’ve worked with get content and post. They don’t talk with the producers of the content to help understand why it matters. It’s always better to form a relationship with that specialist within your organization and learn more about the context of the content, the “why,” and “how” best to position the content to your target audience.
That’s three! What else do you look for when repurposing content for social? Share your ideas and experience in the comments of this post.