Fact: Content marketers could be doing much more with their content. Way too many of us just publish, promote our content only briefly (if at all), and then move on to the next piece. We don’t republish our content. We don’t repurpose our content. Do you even repost your content on social media? We know that less than half of us do.
34% of us, to be exact. According to research from Scoop.it, only 34% of content marketers repost their content multiple times on social media. Here’s another stat for you, just to back up these assertions: According to Curata’s 2016 Content Marketing Staffing and Tactics Study, only 21% ― about one in five ― content marketers have a specific process in place to optimize their content reuse and repurposing.
Here’s the kicker: Among leading content marketing companies, that figure jumps to 29%.
In other words, successful content marketers are 38% more likely to repost their content than regular ones. Here’s the thing, we all want a better return on investment from our content marketing. But that often feels like an elusive goal. Heck, even tracking ROI from content marketing seems to be an elusive goal, much less getting a positive ROI.
Only 49% of B2B content marketers are measuring return on investment, even at the first stage of their sales funnel, where they generate leads and build an audience. According to our own sources, it may be even worse: We found that 78% of all marketers struggle with content marketing ROI. But don’t despair! There’s hope for us all.
Re-using your content = improved ROI!
Publishing a piece of content and then doing so little with it afterward means you’re missing out on most of the traffic and conversions it could generate. It’s like the content version of buying a piece of clothing and wearing it just once.
Given that we’re getting so little mileage out of the content we publish, is it any wonder so many marketers struggle with getting a positive return on investment from their content marketing ― even if they can measure it?
There’s an upside here, though. It’s a good one, too.
If we can get more mileage out of all the expensive content we create, ROI has to go up. In other words, re-using your content will improve your entire content marketing program’s ROI.
tl;dr: You need to repost your content on social media.
Here’s why this works so well, and why you need to be adding this tactic to your work … immediately.
Reposting your content costs next to nothing
If you’re using a tool like Hiplay or Oktopost, it takes just 3-5 clicks to add a post to a content library that gets reposted randomly and automatically. Many other social media management or marketing automation tools also offer re-sharing features, too.
Don’t say you can’t afford this, either. Hiplay costs $5 a month. Even shoestring budgets can handle that.
It’s not the only re-sharing tool around, though. Buffer (which costs $10 a month) lets you pick posts to repost. Though you do have to pick what to repost manually.
Still, it takes barely five minutes of work to review your social media feed from the last few days, pick about 10-20% of what you’ve posted, and just click a few times to re-queue those shares.
Not only is this getting more exposure for your content, but it’s also saving you time by keeping your social media feeds full.
Which brings us to…
Reposting your content means you have to spend less time filling up your social media queues
Let’s face it: Finding and preparing first-rate content to share with a social media audience takes time. Lots of time.
There are services like Quuu that can find and post some content for you automatically, but it’s really best to view those as a supplemental service ― not your entire social media queue.
And you can and should also repost other people’s content. But re-sharing your own content, as mentioned above, takes away some of that work. It may end up saving you several hours a week.
More of your audience will see your content.
Worried your audience will get bored if they see the same pieces of content more than once?
We have bad news. They probably never saw your content the first time it was posted.
Here’s why: The average lifespan of a tweet is 15 minutes or less. The average Facebook reach is around 6%.
Only a very small portion of our audiences is seeing our content every time we share.
This means you could share the same thing several times ― even many times ― without anyone ever noticing.
Still worried about this? Think some curmudgeon in your following will squawk? Then just create a couple of different formats for each share. Swap images, for example. Change the description a bit. Use different hashtags.
Just don’t feel bad about filling up those queues with “oldie but goodie” content.
We recommend re-sharing your content on social media at least once a week after publication, for up to a year after publication.
Reposting your content on social media is incredibly easy to do
There are plenty of best practices in marketing. Some are easier to do than others.
Reposting has to be one of the easiest best practices to execute.
It takes just a few clicks to add your old posts to a reposting library if you’re using the right tools.
And even if you aren’t using one of the dedicated reposting tools, almost any social media management tool lets you repost old posts with just a click or two.
Getting back to the ROI mindset, this is a fantastic return for barely a few seconds’ worth of work.
Reposting your content on social works
Reposting your content is a free way to increase its ROI, get more traffic, and save time. And it’s practically free.
We marketers need every edge we can get. Especially if those edges can be had for very little work, very little time, and very little money. When you repost your content on social media, it hits all three of those sweet spots. It’s a no-brainer.