Do you find it easy to keep up with all the content you need for Instagram and all your other platforms? Nope? Well, you’re in the right place.
This week on the Whin Big Podcast, Katie shares one of our favourite hacks for spinning lots of different pieces of content out of one. Also known as repurposing your content, this brilliant activity goes a long way to help you feel relaxed and inspired by your content instead of stressed out and frustrated! Let’s get to work!
Today's episode is sponsored by the Instagram MOT. This 20-point checklist and free training are freshly updated, so get stuck in to find out if your profile is fit for purpose or needs some attention! Click on the big yellow button below to get started right away.
Helping you prepare for Instagram’s big updates
Over the past few weeks, Katie’s been sharing lots of content around the changes Instagram is rolling out around the shifts in the algorithm and how people and businesses can use the platform.
We’ve linked to a few of her ideas to help you prepare for the upcoming changes in the resources section below if you haven’t had a chance to read the emails or follow her stories.
“It totally knocked me off my feet because I hadn’t thought through – or planned ahead – for any potential impact from the changes.”
Building a robust Instagram strategy
In the last solo episode of the Whin Big Podcast, Katie walked us through building the Stories function into our Instagram marketing strategy because Stories will play a huge part in helping you connect with your current audience on a deeper level.
As well as using Stories, you’ll want to add in some or all of the following content touchpoints means you’ll stand a greater chance of bringing in more of the right followers into your community:
- Reels
- Instagram feed posts
- IGTVs
- Email newsletters – or a community away from Instagram
Freaking out about all the content you need to create? By our reckoning – a robust content strategy needs at least five different kinds of content, so freaking out is a perfectly natural approach. But it won’t get you very far – and there’s no way we’d let you struggle without getting some valuable support and guidance from Katie. What do you take us for?!
Katie’s solution for making sure content lands in all the right places – consistently and in a valuable way – is to repurpose. It’s a brilliant way to do the work once, but keep up with the oiling of the content machine.
As with most creative marketing activities – there’s a helpful way to do this and an unhelpful way. Thankfully, Katie shares her exact (helpful) approach to creating ALL the content in an easy and manageable way.
Step 1: Choose an overarching theme
Katie recommends choosing overarching themes for up to 2 – 3 months ahead so that content ideas can all link together.
Let’s look at how Katie’s doing this with her content right now.
Main theme: Katie’s refreshing and updating content she’s shared before about Instagram strategies to match the platform’s current trends and future direction.
Pulling together a series of ‘topics’ related to the central theme, Katie created content – and shared it with our Instagram and email communities:
Topic 1: Instagram’s upcoming changes. Using the recent announcement video from Adam Mosseri (head of Instagram), this topic was about sharing the changes and what they mean for us. She re-shared the video and highlighted specific areas of change that will be relevant to and impact the Whin’s audience.
Topic 2: Instagram Stories. One of the significant changes most relevant to our audience is Instagram’s big push on using Stories. Katie picked this topic because it’s an essential way for business owners to connect with their current followers.
Topic 3: Recommended content. This was another important point from Adam Mosseri’s video, and Katie shared ideas about getting recommended in many ways on Instagram and in our Whin Wednesday’s email.
Topic 4: Repurposing content. This will tie the Stories content already posted to the topic Katie will work on next (Reels).
Topic 5: Instagram Reels. For this topic, Katie plans to share new ideas for creating Reels and re-sharing previous Reels content to fit with this theme.
“Choose an overarching theme but don’t stress too hard on the exact topics you’ll cover each week. When you adapt and repurpose content on one idea, you’ll come up with new ideas for topics that tie together.”
Step 2: Set a routine for your content types
This is all about identifying the different moving parts for creating your content and taking in some important factors for working out where to begin. Things like:
- Length of content. Some things just take longer to create or think through.
- Conversational. Some content creates better, quicker conversations than others.
- Dates and schedules. Podcasts and emails are usually scheduled for a particular day, whilst other content can be more flexible.
Are you a content planner or a free-wheeler?
Katie covers specific ideas and instructions to help you build out your schedule in the podcast episode depending on whether you like to plan, or keep it pretty flexible, so don’t forget to listen to the full episode to get more detail.
“Video is king at the moment on Instagram, so make sure you’ve recorded – and saved. You want to gather as much raw material as possible to reuse and repurpose.”
Step 3: See how others repurpose their content
One of the best ways to figure out how to repurpose your content is to see how other successful accounts do it. Katie shares some of her favourite Instagrammers who share content in many different ways (and gives examples of their specific strategy).
How Shaun Galanos @TheLoveDrive does it:
Shaun is a love coach and uses his content to help people with their love and relationship challenges and questions.
- Once every few weeks, Sean posts a question box in his IG stories.
- He answers some of the questions in short video clips.
- The short videos are then put together into a Reel.
- He uses the Reel to Tweet the key message
- Reshares the Tweet as an Instagram post
- At other times he’ll share a blog post on Medium, which ties in with course promotion.
How Gabrielle Blair @DesignMom does it:
Gabrielle’s a designer living in France and shares content around her refurbishment projects and other lifestyle themes.
- Several times a week, she posts Stories videos on her refurbishment project
- Her followers then send her comments via DM, which she shares to Stories
- All of this goes to her ‘highlights’ area
- Photos and videos, as well as before and after pics, go on the feed
- At the end of the project, she writes a detailed blog post with lots of information on the project
How Chelsea Dickenson @CheapHolidayExp does it
Chelsea is all about helping people travel on a budget. Right now, she’s sharing lots of easy to understand, entertaining content around the ever-changing rules and regulations on travelling – post-Brexit, mid-pandemic.
- Posts travel rules update on Stories – with a Q&A box
- She’ll put the same into a feed story
- In Stories, she’ll answer questions
- And finish it with a blog post (which she repurposes into Stories and the feed post)
- She’ll use some of the content and creating a new Reels post
- The whole idea will spark off a funny video to keep sharing the information
Want a shout out on our Stories?
If you repurpose your content or want to show off your newly repurposed content and would LOVE some extra love on The Whin’s Instagram Stories – then don’t forget to tag Katie @whinco over on Instagram.
Resources in The Whin Big Podcast 88
Sign up to our weekly email all about marketing strategy and inspiration for small businesses
Adam Mosseri’s video about Instagram updates
Repurposed content relating to IG stories:
The complete guide to Instagram Stories post 1 (Feed post with podcast graphic)
The complete guide to Instagram Stories post 2 (Reel with video from podcast recording)
Check out all of Katie’s Stories about creating Stories in the highlights section.
Creating a green screen Instagram Stories post (Video repurposed from Stories into a Reel)
Whin Big Podcast episode 86 The complete guide to Instagram Stories.
Other referenced content:
Will your content be recommended? (Text copied from Stories into a Carousel post.
Whin Big Podcast episode 78: 3 strategies for marketing success with Canva
Whin Big Podcast episode 55: Getting the most out of Canva (even the free version!)
