This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What if you could do something once and then benefit from it many times over? When it comes to writing something to be shared online or otherwise creating something to be shared online, could be multimedia, the idea is to write it or create it once and then use it many times. This is the method known as repurposing content. Work smarter, not harder, always good advice. But it's not just a matter of copying and pasting, at least not most of the time.
There is an art to the process, a method to the madness, or at least a few tweaks you need to make. That's what we're gonna talk about in this episode. Welcome to "Side Hustle School." My name is Chris Guillebeau. It's all about finding ways to make your life better through a money-making project. I try to make this show for busy people who don't have a lot of time but want to invest in themselves.
That's why these episodes are short. And hey, this episode might help too, because again, if you could do something once and then benefit from it many times over, well, that's gonna save you a lot of time and reap rewards. All right, the listener question and my answer. Coming up after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Lisa.
And I've been listening to your show and reading your blog for several years. My question is, are there any rules against using your blog posts in more than one location? It seems like a lot of trouble to write for a blog, create social updates, and enter the world of multimedia. My ideal situation would be just to create the content in general and then repurpose it in different mediums. But what's the best way to do that?
It seems there are different formats and best practices for each one. So I'm not sure how much editing will be required. And is this something I should do on my own or get some outsourced help with? Looking forward to your response. [Music]
Hey Lisa, thank you so much for the question.
So first thing is first, the first part of your question, are there any rules against it? Not at all, no rules against it. In fact, you should do it. It's a good thing to find a way to work once and then use that work multiple times, at least as long as you can do it in a way that makes sense. At least as long as you haven't promised exclusive content to some particular platform or network.
But generally speaking, yes, you can absolutely do this. Now as a disclosure, I don't think I do this very well. I was thinking about this, like looking at Gretchen Rubin, longtime friend and mentor to me, she is incredibly prolific and yet somehow also does a good job of multipurposing content in a natural way. Like I see a lot of her work in lots of different places and it's similar. You can see some things are excerpted and you can see, okay, she posted this here and maybe a longer version of it here or something.
But it all works, it all works really well. John Akoff, another friend, he's also good at this. Lots of other people too. I just mentioned those two because I am not an expert, but I do understand the concept. In fact, I was talking with John recently, he said he's been trying a service called Monday.com, which is not a sponsor, no affiliation.
He just mentioned them because he said it's been helping him out with scheduling posts to various networks, which solves a lot of time, solves a lot of coordination with his virtual assistant. There are other platforms like that as well, buffer.com, later.com, do some similar things. Now that doesn't solve the editing issue, right? For that, you need to find the right format for all the platforms you plan to publish to. So if you've got that blog post and you want to put it on LinkedIn, you might have to shorten it because they have a length limit.
If you want to turn it into audio or video or something, then that's obviously gonna require further work. So there is a reformatting process that needs to take place. Then you move it into a scheduling tool like one of those that I mentioned or another one. And if all that sounds complicated, well, that's why I'm not great at it, but the core part of it is pretty simple, okay? So let's use an example.
Let's say that Lisa has a blog post about, I don't know, investing in index funds or plant-based breakfast foods or knitting Norwegian sweaters. Take your pick, three options there. And this could also be a podcast or a YouTube video. And Lisa wants to create an excerpt of this post for Facebook and Twitter. So then she does that.
She also wants to publish a clip or a screenshot to Instagram. Could be a clip, an audio clip, or it could just be like a web clip of the content. But don't stop there. Like those are some obvious uses, but could it also become part of an evergreen email series? Something that Lisa includes in a course, an ebook, or a paid product.
Maybe there's some other platforms that I haven't even mentioned. The trick is to make all of this as easy as possible for you while also making it as authentic as possible for anyone who encounters it. That's why you need to be familiar with the format of each particular platform or location or medium, okay? Now, another tip is to think about it from the front end as well. Like when you create content, when you set out to write that blog post or record the podcast or whatever it is, even if you're just thinking ahead, if you're thinking about your next idea, consider how you will create for multiple formats and platforms.
And that might be easier than working backwards after you've already found a particular flow. So I offer that advice to you and perhaps to myself as well 'cause I should get better at it. So thank you, Lisa, for the inspiration. And thank you, listeners. So glad you're out there.
Thank you for being part of Side Hustle School. You are amazing. If you have a question of your own, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're gonna continue to feature them throughout the year along with updates from other listeners. So be sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From The Onward Project.
