I’ll be completely honest with you, Single-Use Content is a trap I have personally fallen into MANY times.
Single-Use Content is content that you create and distribute or promote only ONCE and without transforming the content into multiple other forms or placing it on a designated promotion schedule.
This is why some content creators seem endlessly productive and others don’t. Productive people not only know how to distribute their time but also how to work on projects that can be presented in various content formats and for a long time forward.
Transforming your content may only be one piece of the puzzle to getting rid of single-use content, we’ll talk about the other one in a second, but the reason that transforming content helps is because it saves the creator time when researching topics, case studies, materials, and more.
A blog topic that can transform into a video, then a podcast, then images with captions, and more will inevitably save TONS of the content creators time. This, therefore, makes it easier to focus on PROMOTING your content and avoiding “single-use content.”
The other piece of this puzzle is having a proper promotional strategy.
Inexperienced content creators may find that they post the content on a few social media channels and then never touch them again (I did this when I first started) and it is wholly inefficient.
Content is something that a brand can use for a LONG time (as long as it’s not based on pop-references or the news) and making the best use of what we call “evergreen” content is something a brand should employ to keep a consistent content marketing presence.
Evergreen content is written with topics that won’t soon become irrelevant. Things like this article for example!
Whereas, an example of NOT-evergreen content would be something like “Choosing a Political Position in 2020” because as soon as 2020 is over, this content becomes irrelevant.
The more evergreen content you post, the more you can promote that content continuously and avoid the debilitating and tiring trap of “single use content.”
Ok, now that we understand the two main problems that instigate “single use content” let’s discuss the solutions that I have personally found very helpful!
Here’s a quick recap of the problems that contribute to Single-Use Content:
1. Content That Won’t Transform.
2. The Lack of a Content Promotion Schedule.
Solution 1: Transforming Content
Solving the “content that won’t transform” issue is actually quite simple.
All you have to do is find a linear progression between the content you produce and ANOTHER piece of content you can produce.
Sounds easy enough, right? but a LOT of people become overwhelmed when trying to find these connections.
Put simply, you are trying to convert different formats (blogs, videos, podcasts, etc.) into others.
Here’s the simple plan that I use that seems to work well for me!
Step 1: Write a well-researched and informative/valuable blog article.
Step 2: Use that blog article as a pre-maid script for a video.
Step 3: Separate the Audio from that same Video and you now have a podcast!
Step 4: Use Still images from the b-roll or the presentation of the video and add captions for social media posts and other promotions.
Continue these steps for long enough and then you can do this:
– Convert Blogs into white-pages, lead generators, checklists, ebooks, and more to further monetize your content.
– Take videos/podcasts and put them into a course regarding your subject of expertise or industry, further monetizing your knowledge and content.
It sounds too easy, but by doing these things you can take ALL the content you produce and make it work for you over time, and avoid posting a single piece of content and forgetting about the future income it can bring to you!
Solution 2: Dedicated Promotion Strategies
As you can imagine, all the content in the world won’t do you any good if you lack an effective promotion strategy.
Promotion strategies are put in place to specifically avoid the trap of single-use content. All in all, a good promotion strategy helps people organize the distribution of their content over various platforms and at various times also.
This ensures that you don’t fumble around with promoting your content and avoid the overwhelm of having to keep track of all of the content and promotion channels as well.
Here’s the simple plan I use to promote my content!
1: Promote my original content immediately as links to the original website (on social media)! This means that I would add a short blurb of copy to my content with a link back to my owned-media website to make my offer known.
Pro Tip: The length of the content is what will dictate how many times you post on social media. Images and tweets can be shared multiple times a day, but sharing a long-form article or white page of value is going to get old more quickly to the audience.
2: Paid Promotion to various niche social media audiences. I define my target audience by social media platform (Facebook is different than Instagram, etc.) and then I create specific ads that target my audiences to get them to my website and/or opt-in with the lead-generators I made!
3: I reach out to influencers to see if they would like to feature me based on recent work, further benefitting my exposure.
4: Round 1 of Conversion begins! Transform blog topics into videos.
5: Repeat Steps 1-3.
6: Round 2 of conversion! Turn Video into Podcast (this one is easy!).
7: Repeat Steps 1-3.
8: Continue converting and performing steps 1-3 as needed!
This will help you gather an audience and continue to gather consumers or clients around your brands message!
I hope this helps you avoid single-use content!
Thanks for reading!
Work With Austin
-Austin Denison is a management consultant and coach from Southern California and founder/CEO of Denison Success Systems LLC. He is the author of The Essential Change Management Guidebook: Master The Art of Organizational Change as well as The Potential Dichotomy: The Philosophy of a Fulfilling Life, and, coming soon: KICK*SS Content Marketing, How to Boost Your Brand and Gather a Following.
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