11 creative ideas for repurposing video content

Here’s one paradox for you: the key part of every content strategy often gets deprioritized or even completely ignored. It’s mainly because companies lack the skills and knowledge to come up with a plan and successfully execute it. I’m talking about content distribution and content repurposing.

I’ve also noticed that companies tend to struggle with:

• Proving their content is worth people’s time (hello, attention economy)
• Efficiently using their existing resources (only one content marketer in your team, eh?)
• Diversifying content formats and repurposing video content 

In this article, I’ll be focusing on repurposing video content in particular since that’s the area I have the most experience in. Plus, I’ve seen so many brands underutilize it. The truth is, content repurposing can help you repeat your key marketing messages in many different ways, amplify your brand visibility, and reach more relevant audiences.

First things first: let’s settle on what repurposing video content means

Repurposing video content = creating an initial video and converting that into multiple different content formats

If I were to explain what content repurposing is in layman’s terms, I would say it’s telling the same story in different formats (e.g. video, visual content, specific types of native content such as LinkedIn articles, blog posts). The type of information you’ll choose depends on both the format and the source content.

This way, you are not only making sure your content is well distributed, but you’re also engaging various types of content consumers that make up your audience. For example, I personally love watching videos, it’s my favorite format. But my best friend likes reading long-form articles and that’s his preferred way of consuming information.

The idea is to satisfy as many learning styles as you can. And the best thing of all? You don’t need a content machinery.

But content repurposing isn’t always turning video into other formats, it can also be video > video. This is easily done through creative production automation which can save up to 85% of your time. 

The idea here is to create multiple video formats for different placements. Some will go to Facebook, some to TikTok, some to your website etc. By creating templates for each individual placement, you’re making sure to always post optimal content into those places. You can easily automate this process by creating templates, marking dynamic elements (text, images, videos, sound, color) and then automatically render unlimited video variations using video automation software.

Repurposing video content can be very easy is you have a process in place

Remember when I said you don’t need a content machinery? Well, I meant it. All you need is a system that will allow you to scale repurposing video content.

Below you can see a visual summary of five different ways you can use information from your video to create different content formats. Additionally, using the right tool you can create infinite number of video variations automatically.

I will now cover some of the examples above and include new ones too. My goal is to offer you pro tips and shortcuts so that you can squeeze the maximum out of your content efforts.

1. Repurposing video content into a blog post

If your video is not a short one, but actually has “meat”, you can turn it into a blog post. This is a common go-to for repurposing video content. There are two main ways you can do this:

• By transcribing the content and publishing it in its entirety, as it is
• By creating an article that’s based on information you share in the video

The first one is a common use case for republishing interviews or podcasts episodes, or short webinars. This way, brands ensure that new site visitors discover other types of content they invest into. It’s about making the most of your website as your marketing real estate.

You can also kill two birds with one stone and publish a video at the beginning of the blog post, and then write an article beneath it. The benefit of this approach is that you are addressing different types of content consumers, but you also have the opportunity to optimize your content and increase your chances of ranking for relevant keywords.

2. Repurposing video content into a newsletter

Building a newsletter is always a good idea if you have the resources. The bar to enter is low, there are decent tools with free plans such as Mailchimp or MailerLite, and it doesn’t necessarily require too much of your efforts. Again, there are two main ways to repurpose video into a newsletter:

• Use the information you share in the video and create a short summary you’ll share
• Directly share your video in the newsletter and add complementary content to it

However, there’s a technicality here worth mentioning. Email clients like Gmail and Outlook do not support the technical requirements needed to play the video inside the email. So, you have an option of displaying the video as a static image or a GIF.

BTW, you can easily add a thumbnail in a user-friendly design tool such as Canva and then add a link to the video. This will help you attract clicks.

3. Repurposing video content into social media posts

This one is a no-brainer. Video content performs incredibly well on social media. It’s engaging, requires no significant cognitive strain, and it hooks the attention of people scrolling through the newsfeed.

You can easily repurpose your video for different social media platforms by cutting it and resizing it. It’s a lot less complicated than you probably think, especially if you rely on some of the automatic video editors.

This type of tools allow you to automate a part of your workflow and eliminate boring tasks. Think resizing videos, removing background noise, automatically deleting pauses, swapping your layers and assets. Huge time savers.

4. Repurposing video content into LinkedIn native articles

LinkedIn articles are an underestimated type of content. Those who do publish them typically share professional experiences, industry insights, advice for peers, or thought-provoking content.

Here’s an example. Devin Reed, who is currently the Head of Content at Clari but was previously responsible for content at Gong, does an amazing job of repurposing video content from his Content Strategy Course for LinkedIn – into LinkedIn articles, and then into his newsletter.

And as you can see, he’s been doing it for a while, both for his personal brand and for Gong.

It’s somewhat of a flywheel where you cannot really figure out if it all began with a recorded video or a written text. It doesn’t even matter, to be honest. The variety of content formats amplifies his message, allowing him to draw more people in and from different places.

5. Repurposing video content into static visual content

There’re tons of ways you can repurpose your video into static visual content. Here are some examples:

• Infographics that visualize the key takeaways or statistics you mention in your video
• PDFs that can be uploaded as presentations to Slideshare or on LinkedIn
• Nicely designed eye-catching images that display quotes or insights
• Screenshots of particular video scenes (just like Devin Reed did above to create a cover image for his article) 

It’s also possible to repurpose your video into a gif that will be more dynamic. This is useful for social media and newsletters as well, but you can also insert them in blog posts as CMS solutions support displaying gifs. It will improve the readability of your content and trigger curiosity of site visitors, which will make them scroll more and explore your other content as well.

In general, something that content marketers advise is to have one visual break after two full scrolls. It improves both dwell time and engagement.

6. Repurposing video content into audio

Podcasts are very popular today, but the marketing industry has started misusing the term really. Podcasts refer to audio content while today, most brands create DIY video shows/interviews and call them podcasts. If you create video content, you can easily convert it into an audio-only file. There are many different free tools online that will allow you to do that.

So, why would you repurpose video into audio? Well, I think it’s worth a try because you can start building a podcast without investing extra effort. You can publish it on many podcast platforms such as Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, or Stitcher.

People love podcasts because they allow for multitasking and you can even consume them passively while working, running, or doing whatever. The advantage of creating a video first reflects in the fact you can repurpose it into more content formats than if you were to start with recording a podcast. You can turn a video into an audio file, but you cannot turn audio file into a video one.

7. Repurposing video content into ads

Of course, the amount of repurposing options you’ll have depends on the type of video you’re starting with. If it’s an explainer video for a SaaS solution for example, but it also underlines business benefits of the tool, you can carefully consider if you can cut certain pieces, make it shorter, and turn it into a video ad.

Sometimes it’s enough to resize it and cherry pick the information you’d like to display, maybe alter the intro or outro, and add a CTA. It’s certainly a lot easier and more cost-efficient than creating a video from scratch.

8. Repurposing video content automatically

Last but not least, you can repurpose video content automatically and there are dozen of use cases for this. That’s exactly what Plainly allows you to do in just a few clicks. I’ll give you a practical example. It’s quite simple actually.

1. Create a few branded After Effects templates for different places on the internet where you’ll post the repurposed video. Each placement has it’s native format and a bunch of branded elements which will add value to the source video.
2. Upload those After Effects projects to Plainly and make them dynamic. Simply select the dynamic elements that are going to change every time. (these can be text, images, audio, or colors)
3. Create automation using Zapier or Integromat. This automation will take any new video content, and repurpose it by inserting that into the templates you created in step 1 using Plainly.

8.1. Repurposing video content into branded customer testimonials

Now let’s say that you have a bunch of user-generated videos. They could be video testimonials of your customers, for example. These are mostly selfie videos, and if we’re being honest they don’t look very nice. Instead of using these videos, you can add them in a nice, branded template that will keep their rawness which customers love, but again add a level of quality that’s going to allow them to stand out on social media.

8.2. Repurposing video content for different markets

If you have a business that operates in different markets, you would need to repurpose your video content for specific cultures and languages. Because it’s so easy to mark which dynamic elements you want to swap, you can generate dozens of locally relevant videos from a single video template. This is important both for your marketing materials (e.g. acquiring new customers using video ads) and for your educational materials (e.g. educational videos for your existing customers that help you improve your retention rates).

8.3. Repurposing video content for onboarding new customers

Video is underused when it comes to onboarding new customers with a personal touch. Many SaaS companies have low-touch onboarding in place, which can feel a bit impersonal and make your customers feel like they are on their own. However, you can easily create a single video template that you can repurpose for as many times as you like, for every new customer. Simply mark which dynamic elements you’d like to change (e.g. customer name is an obvious choice), and provide a more personal experience for them. I guarantee that their impression of your brand will be far more positive.

8.4. Repurposing video content to scale personalization

Scaling personalization might seem like a paradox, but it’s completely doable with the right tools. A common use case here include greeting new customers via emails, doing different social media campaigns, online competitions, and more. The point again is to repurpose a single video template into many different ones, and make your audience feel special.

Want to start repurposing video content ASAP?

I hear you. Well, you might as well do a portion of it automatically. Book a 15-minute demo for Plainly and let me walk you through the main ways you can achieve more with your video content.