You’ve heard of upcycling old towels into dish rags, t-shirts into bookbags, and palettes into bedframes. But what about blog posts into videos, or videos into reels? In upcycle culture, anything can be made into something even better. When you look at the content with the same thought process, you not only save your company time and money, you also create new opportunities for wins in a new revenue channel.
There are over 500 million Instagram users that peruse Instagram content every. Single. Day. On the flip side, there are over 25 million companies on Instagram. That’s a lot of potential eyes, and a lot of companies are trying to get in front of them.
The best way to do that is to create consistent, frequent, and most importantly, engaging content. Instagram’s algorithm is fairly easy to navigate when you work on its terms:
- Post on the same schedule consistently, and avoid moments of overly-high or overly-low engagement.
- Don’t go through spells of zero engagement, and stick to a posting schedule of at least 2 times a week.
- Engage with like-minded accounts and react to those that react to your account.
- Most importantly, create high-quality, engaging, entertaining, and informative content.
But in a world of limited time, resources, and manpower, having each post be a brand–new idea can be a lofty (if not impossible) goal. So, let’s go over nine helpful ways to repurpose your past content successes to be winners all over again on Instagram.
Repurpose video content on Instagram
Resize YouTube and website videos for IGTV
It’s no secret that video will out-perform static images 9 times out of 10, and many people have already been investing in video for a long time. Those who have may already have videos that are proven wins among their audiences. Chances are videos that performed well on YouTube could also perform well on IGTV.
But to really knock it out of the park. It will be important to resize your videos to fit the ideal dimensions of IGTV if possible. Of course, a full-screen 9:16 video is ideal. But even taking standard 16:9 video dimensions to 1:1 square video dimension can greatly improve viewer experience and improve your chances of gaining traction with your content on Instagram.
Recreate or re-share popular video content on IG Reels
IG Reels is the most recent baby of Instagram’s functionalities is booming among younger generations and those who frequent the ever-time-consuming Instagram Explore. With its longer list of video functionality, IG Reels is the perfect place to test out recreating past video content topics that performed well.
If you have any listicle-style or fast-fact video content, those are great contenders for your most outspoken team members to recreate these informational videos with simple design, easy test overlay, and yes – probably a little bit of dancing.
Repurpose Blog content on Instagram
Create image carousels of blog posts
There’s something beautiful and poetic about being able to copy/paste past thoughtful words to quickly and easily create a whole new version of quality content. Creating carousel posts of historically high-performing blog posts are a great way to create skimmable, informative content.
Create an IG Reel or Reel series of popular blog topics
Just as with past video content, you can create engaging and creative IG Reels from past blog post content. It may take a bit more to adapt to video, but professionals have been creating highly-valuable and informative videos for tons of topics that seem not reel-worthy off the bat – like physical therapy, insurance, or investing. Any topic is reel-worthy if you put enough pizazz behind it!
Leverage Instagram Guides to curate and share information
Instagram is just now rolling out a new update that will be a game-changer for those who want to offer complex and detailed information in a simple, consolidated, organized way.
In Instagram’s words:
We want Instagram to be a place where you can easily find reliable information and inspiration from your favorite accounts. That’s why we are introducing Guides, a way to more easily discover recommendations, tips and other content from your favorite creators, public figures, organizations and publishers on Instagram.
You’ll be able to consolidate, categorize, and compartmentalize your content to elevate its overall value and build in-depth guides.
Repurpose Social content on Instagram
Screenshot your popular tweets
This is a practice that has vastly increased the reach of your or your followers’ catchiest one-liners. It’s an easy way to post short, impactful blurbs that performed well on Twitter, and it’s a practice that is so common, it no longer looks lazy. And throwing it on a branded background? Beautiful.
Screenshot engaging Reddit threads about your content
If you have a presence on Reddit, you’ll find this opportunity with Reddit as well. Redditers are famous (or infamous) for creating engaging, hilarious, thought-provoking (or just provoking) comment threads – if you find any that are in line with your business and content goals, it just may catch the eye of your viewers.
Repurpose website content on Instagram
Share graphics of reviews
The most powerful voice you can share is your most loyal customers.
If you receive an especially thought-provoking or well-written rave review, sharing on your Instagram is a great way to build mass trust, share the experience of your happiest customers, promote quality user-generated content, and stimulate more great reviews.
Share topics brought up through contact forms
The most underrated pocket of your website is your contact form submissions. You can learn the good, bad, and ugly of what your audience thinks of your brand, user experience, and product. Users can bring up some interesting topics of praise, concern, or future functionalities that you’re team may not have thought of.
Bringing up these topics on IG stories for polls, quizzes, and discussions will not only create engaging interactive content, but creates a space for clarity, honesty, and transparency that your audience will respect.
You are never done with a piece of content, and that is a great thing. Instagram is a great way to leverage and benefit from older content. If you need help learning how to repurpose old content, reach out to our team!
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