Creating a Smart Content Repurposing Strategy Through Marketing Analytics and Social Listening

Did you see the hilarious CeraVe 2024 Super Bowl ad? If you haven’t already, you should check it out.

In it, Michael Cera proudly proclaims, “The truth has been hiding in plain sight: I am CeraVe.”

Usually a matter-of-fact skincare brand, this whimsical ad garnered positive attention for CeraVe, with a 20% spike in online searches and almost 4 million views on YouTube.

But how did CeraVe create such a successful campaign? Did the idea simply fall out of thin air?

Uh… no.

CeraVe’s team made an informed decision to reuse an existing idea: a joke on social media that Michael Cera was secretly running CeraVe. They did this based on marketing analytics and social listening, which showed the joke resonated with their audience. And you can implement this kind of strategy too!

This article will explore creating campaign ideas and how to repurpose content using marketing analytics and social listening. Could you be the next CeraVe?

What is content repurposing? (+ Example!)

Content repurposing involves using a single piece of content multiple times and/or over multiple channels to increase output and maximise the results you see from each piece.

For example, you could turn a blog post into a series of social media posts, chop up a YouTube video into a series of TikToks or transcribe a podcast episode to create email copy. Or, as CeraVe shows, turn social media comments from your customers into user-informed campaigns.

You’ve likely found Alex Hormozi’s face ubiquitous on the internet right now. That’s because the millionaire entrepreneur and investor uses content repurposing to the max, taking one idea and spreading it elsewhere as much as possible.

He’s transparent about his strategy and even released a YouTube video describing it in detail, including the results it gleans:

• Twitter followers: 10,000 to 100,000
• Instagram followers: 70,000 to 350,000
• YouTube Subscribers: 70,000 to 300,000
• Web traffic: 0 to 90,000 net clicks per month
• Podcast: 20,000 to 400,000 monthly downloads.
• Totalling an audience of over 1 million in just six months

Why is a content repurposing strategy important?

At this point, you’re probably getting an inkling as to why content repurposing is important. You may not have the budget of CeraVe or Hormozi, but you can nonetheless take inspiration from their marketing successes to see great results. Here are some of the benefits of doing so.

Understand your audience

By using analytics and social listening tools, you can better understand audience preferences and sentiments. This allows you to create content that resonates deeply, fostering strong brand-consumer relationships.

Save time

According to Asana’s Anatomy of Work Index, 60% of marketers spend the majority of their time looking for content ideas. A huge chunk of this time could be saved by incorporating a smart content repurposing and social listening strategy.

You’ll also spend less time creating content. Using assets already available to you — whether that’s existing imagery, article wording or videos — means less time spent executing new creative from scratch.

Maximise on successes

Using analytics shows you what content is most successful. Once you’ve identified those pieces, it’s only logical to reuse them to fully leverage those juicy results. As Hormozi says, if you 10x the input, you’ll 10x the output. Find the content that’s worth the input, and watch the output (followers, traffic, engagement, leads, sales, etc.) soar.

Post consistently

Reusing the same ideas means you’ll never run out of things to post. And search and social algorithms will reward you for maintaining a regular posting schedule.

Stick in your customers’ minds

Repetition is important: customers need to hear the same message multiple times for it to sink in. By repurposing content, you’ll send strong and consistent messaging which resonates with your customers and sticks in their minds.

Explore new marketing channels

Reusing content you’ve already made allows you to easily explore new channels and markets. For example, let’s say you’ve got a catalogue of TikTok content that’s performing well and now you want to explore LinkedIn. You can easily reuse your TikTok content to create some LinkedIn posts.

Experiment

One idea can have multiple angles, and in marketing, experimentation is key. Repurposing one idea into multiple pieces helps you test and discover hooks and concepts that work well.

Meet customers along the marketing funnel

You can repurpose content to meet buyers at different stages of their journey. For example, one piece of content or idea can be used as a top-of-the-funnel Instagram reel, all the way down to an in-depth buying guide for those making a purchasing decision.

Content repurposing workflow: how to repurpose content

Step 1) Use analytics tools to identify content for repurposing

If you haven’t noticed already, there’s a key ingredient to content repurposing: analytics. Without accurate marketing analytics, you won’t know what direction to go in. You need to understand what content resonates with your audience to then leverage it through your content and campaigns. With that in mind, here are our recommendations for using analytics to identify content repurposing opportunities.

What is the best social listening and analytics tool to repurpose content?

Social media platforms have native tools to help identify audience preferences, providing data on KPIs such as follower count, views, shares, likes and comments. You can read guides to social media tracking for different platforms below:

• Facebook analytics guide
• Instagram analytics guide
• TikTok analytics guide
• LinkedIn analytics guide

That being said, native app analytics are limited, especially when it comes to effective social listening. Using third-party tools can provide you with broader insights, including popular audience comments and sentiments, broader social media trends and competitor successes you can take inspiration from.

Here are some of the best social listening and analytics tools for you to make informed content repurposing campaigns:

• Hootsuite: Allows you to monitor keywords, brand mentions, conversations, reviews, sentiment and hashtags across multiple social media platforms. You can set up alerts to ensure you don’t miss a trick and can even monitor sentiment around competitor campaigns to really gain the upper hand!
• Brandwatch: Includes sentiment analysis, trend tracking, customised reports, social media analytics and more. You can monitor multiple sources to get a broad view of what people are talking about, and easy-to-read data visualisations make understanding analytics intuitive.
• Brand24: This AI-powered social listening tool covers all the major social networks, as well as blogs, news websites, review sites, podcasts, newsletters and forums.

What is the best tool to repurpose content from your website, emails, podcasts, etc.?

You’ll also want to consider content trends and performance metrics on other channels, like your website, blog, emails, podcasts and wherever else you’re visible online.

Like with socials, you can look at your own content to see what performs well. Or, investigate what’s trending online or working well for competitors to guide your content angles.

Here are some of the best tools for identifying content performance metrics across different channels:

• Wide Angle Analytics: Easy-to-use and privacy-centric, Wide Angle Analytics gives you a comprehensive view of your website performance. Monitor KPIs like traffic, top-performing blog posts and web pages, bounce rate, visit duration and more to identify the best content to reuse. Click here to try the free interactive demo!
• Brevo: More than just any email marketing tool, Brevo allows you to monitor and manage customer relationships across email, SMS, chat and more, giving you a full view of what resonates across your pipeline.
• CoHost: Access podcast audience insights like engagement and demographics, as well as overarching KPIs like ROI.

Step 2) Repurpose content for different platforms

Analytics is the crux of successful content repurposing and social listening. But once you’ve analysed the data and found the content for repurposing, you’ll want an efficient content repurposing workflow for different channels.

Here are a few tips and examples for repurposing your content for different platforms.

Tips for repurposing content for social media

• Consider different ways to implement assets, such as images, videos, and infographics, as well as copywriting and hooks.
• Use a social media scheduling app to schedule content consistently and across channels.
• Before you write or design anything, consider if you can simply reuse what you already have to save time.
• Consider all the channels the post could be appropriate for.
• Repurpose content for social media in batches to save time. For example, do all the planning in one session, the writing the next, imagery the next, etc.
• Don’t reinvent the wheel. Repurposing content for social media can be as simple as extracting a quote and turning it into a graphic.

CASE STUDY: Buffer

Speaking of social listening, what about your colleagues’ content and comments? The social media pros at Buffer keep an eye on opportunities to share what their teammates have to say, such as in the post below — a tweet from a Buffer employee that was repurposed into a full Instagram carousel:

Tips for repurposing content for emails and newsletters

• Use social media UGC in your email campaigns, highlighting real-user experiences of your products, which adds compelling social proof.
• Use email round-ups to highlight recent content you’ve published, such as blog posts. Or, send an individual email highlighting each piece.
• Consider repurposing long-form content, such as guides or ebooks, into email sequences. For example, you could repurpose an in-depth guide into a sequence with one tip per email.
• Transcribe podcasts and videos into email, and don’t forget to embed or link to the original content.

CASE STUDY: Marketing Brew

As savvy marketers themselves, the Marketing Brew team naturally shout about their articles far and wide, including via email round-ups featuring extracts from their content.

Tips for repurposing content for blogs

• A top-performing social media post could be expanded into a full article if the topic is deep enough. Just because the social media post is short doesn’t mean there isn’t more to say on the subject!
• If you have online courses, extract information from them to turn into a series of blog posts.
• If a previous blog you published (or perhaps one your competitor made!) performs well, think of related blogs around the topic. Or, write a deep dive into one particular section.
• Turn podcast and video transcripts into blogs. Nowadays, there are plenty of clever tools to do this with a simple click. You can also embed the video or podcast into the blog.

CASE STUDY: Out Systems

When you achieve great things for your customers, you’ll want to shout about it far and wide. That’s what code platform Out Systems does by repurposing case studies into long-form blog content.

Here’s an example — a blog post about their work with US Acute Care Solutions showcasing how Out Systems built apps which saved the company millions.

Tips for repurposing content for video and podcasts

• For video, a recommended approach is filming a long interview session on a topic — ideally, one that’s already proven to perform well on your blog or socials. Then, you can upload the full session to YouTube, publish the audio as a podcast and also break it down into engaging bite-sized snippets for Instagram reels, social media posts and TikTok.
• For in-depth topics, create a whole series of videos, then follow the above process to fully harness the content.
• If you’re using video, feel free to add visual aids like imagery from your socials and infographics.

CASE STUDY: Heights

AI-powered online course creation software Heights has a successful podcast, The Creator’s Adventure. To get the most out of each episode, they film the show so that it can not only be listened to across podcasting platforms but also found as a full video on YouTube.

Content repurposing made easy with the right marketing tools

Creating content doesn’t have to be a gruelling process of constantly coming up with new content ideas, creating assets from scratch and not knowing what will resonate — and what won’t.

Using the right marketing analytics and social listening tools will take you far, giving you valuable insights into how to connect with your customers and pinpointing content you can use again and again.

Start by building a comprehensive content repurposing tool stack. Consider the channels you use and source the best tools for each to provide insights across all bases. For example, you could use Wide Angle Analytics for your website and blog, Hootsuite for your social media and Brevo for your emails.

For more information and next steps to create your ideal MarTech stack, read the full article here.

FAQs

What is the first strategy for repurposing content?

Generally speaking, the first content repurposing strategy companies use is recycling long-form content as more long-form content. For example, an e-book or research report may be repurposed into a long-form blog post.

How do you repurpose other people's content?

As long as you don’t plagiarise other people’s content, i.e. copy it word-for-word or use their imagery, videos or media, it’s fine to take inspiration from them and use that to guide the content you create.

Alternatively, you can ask for permission to reshare their content or extract their images or wording. If they agree, be sure to give them proper credit.

Sources & method

Michael CeraVe YouTube views data is based on CeraVe’s short-form and long-form video stats combined.