Recovering and Recycling Business Blog Content

In addition to being a vehicle for attracting new customers, content created in the form of blogs can be useful in other ways. “While content marketing may be the trend du jour, content isn’t just for marketing,” explains Erin Nelson of contently.com. Last year,Nelson points out, GE used content to educate union employees on an upcoming labor contract vote. Vox uses content as a recruitment tool for designers and engineers.

In fact, “you don’t have to create content day in and day out. You just have to work on getting the content you already have in the hands of more people,” as Kevan Lee of Buffer Social reminds marketers.

“I still remember the days when you had to go to the library or track down the phone number of an expert to get some questions answers.  Now you just ask Google, visit Q&A sites, or tweet the question, and almost instantly get answers,” Dan Steiner of the Content Marketing Institute wryly observes. Blogs, Steiner points out, are instant sources of up-to-date information.

Here are just a few Say It For You ideas for re-purposing blog post content:

1. Groups of blog posts can be re-purposed into e-newsletters, helping you “touch” past customers and prospects, and keep you top-of-mind with them.
2. When your own clients and customers ask you questions, save them the search – simply email them a link to the post in your “blog library” that most directly answers their question or concern.
3. Send an email with a full text of a former post to a selected group of prospects and/or clients, asking them to share their experience with the issue or solution that post covers. You might call it “Does this work?”
4. Post a shortened version of a blog post on Facebook, soliciting comments.
5. Update “old” content to fit in with new laws, new situations, new trends. (In fact, the most important target of a blog post “recycle” might be YOU.  Does that advice you offered three years ago still apply? How has your own thinking changed since then?

Recovering and recycling, even re-using business blog content –  is the smart way to go!