Since I initially started my business, I’ve made a pretty significant change in how I run my content marketing plan. Having been a blogger going back years and years, I was fairly used to churning out posts on the regular. And I really enjoy writing, so that was fun for me!

But as my business grew, I started to have less and less time to create not only blog posts, but allllll the other content that needs to happen on a consistent basis, including newsletters, social media posts, FB Lives, Instagram stories, YouTube videos…the list seems to go on and on and on.

And I always felt completely overwhelmed by all of this — that is, until I discovered the magic of setting up a system to repurpose content. Suddenly, I no longer felt like I was drowning underneath the weight of what I needed to create to fill up my content marketing plan…but never actually had time to focus on.

And that’s where repurposing your content comes in. It does take some pre-planning and it can feel like you’re non-stop repeating yourself (you’re not) — but in the end it’s SO. FREAKING. WORTH. IT.

Let’s talk about how you can do this, too…

Why Content Repurposing is the Best Thing Ever

 I think I originally learned about content repurposing from Brittany Berger. She’s the queen of automating things and saving time, so it makes sense that she taught me about this!

If you haven’t heard of this phenomenon before, content repurposing is all about taking pieces of content that you’ve already created and reusing them for other “new” pieces of content.

For example, if you recorded a Facebook Live video, got it transcribed, and then turned it into a blog post — that’s content repurposing! You’re basically doubling down on what you’ve created by using it for multiple things, so you’re stretching the mileage that you can get out of it.

Ultimately, this helps you save a ton of time, especially because even just one piece of content can be repurposed so many different ways.

Related: How to Get Amazing Ideas for Your Content Marketing Strategy

How to Make Content Repurposing Work For You

When I first got started on this “journey” of creating an easier, more efficient content marketing plan, it was actually harder than I thought — at least at first! Although I’d heard of content repurposing a million times, I became stuck actually trying to figure out how to make it work for me. Instead of simplifying everything,  it seemingly just caused extra work.

It turns out that the key was to enter into it slowly. There are a lot of different ways that you can repurpose your content — and, now, I pretty much utilize all of them — but it didn’t start out that way.

It wasn’t an instant snap-your-fingers process. I eased myself into it, slowly adding more and more content repurposing into the mix, and now I’m able to get by with creating just a handful of things each month. (And that’s only because I like doing it.) Honestly, I could probably get away with not creating anything new at all…but I enjoy it! So I do a mix of new and old.

That’s really what it’s all about. The best part about this type of content marketing plan is that you can truly make it your own. Figure out what works for your biz and what doesn’t, and set up something that’s going to help make YOUR life easier.

Related: How to Create Content Your Audience Will Go Crazy For

Creating a Monthly Content Marketing Plan

I think it’ll be easier to understand how this all functions as a content marketing plan if I show you exactly how I have this set up in my business.

Each month, there’s a workflow that I follow to create any new pieces of content. And anything new that gets created immediately gets repurposed while it’s still fresh in our minds, and saved for future use.

The main thing that dictates my content marketing plan is my Systematic Marketing School. Every month, we have a theme and a guest expert comes into both my free Grow Like Woah Facebook group and the paid Systematic Marketing School Facebook group to do trainings on that topic.

In conjunction with the theme, I also do one new Facebook Live and one new blog post. The Live becomes “expired” at the end of the month and it’s put into the vault where only Systematic Marketing School students can access it. This is helpful for me because it allows me to take a piece of free content and repurpose it into a piece of paid content.

During the month, I go Live one other time (on a different or semi-related topic), which I repurpose into a blog post and publish as a podcast episode. It also gets posted on YouTube. That piece of content also gets repurposed into 11 different Instagram posts, which also get reposted on my Facebook page. I also create a newsletter from this piece of content as well. Whew!

In addition, I usually publish two guest posts, which each get repurposed into 6 Instagram posts. I also publish two other new blog posts and an income report, which will combined get repurposed into 2 newsletters and 13 Instagram posts. Each blog post also gets shared on Pinterest and Twitter as well.

A Few Pieces of Content Can Be Multiplied Exponentially

So if you count it all up, the new things I create each month are:

• 2 Facebook Lives
• 3 Content-Focused Blog Posts
• 1 Income Report Blog Post

(Again — I could do less if I wanted to, but because I enjoy content creation, I strive to put out as much as possible.)

With just 6 new pieces of content per month (time investment of about 5 hours), I end up with a total of at least 91 things to put in my content marketing plan.

I’d say that’s worth it!

Sample Monthly Content Marketing Plan

If it’s helpful, here’s an example of what my monthly content marketing plan looks like on paper:

How to Get Started with Repurposing + Your Content Marketing Plan

I don’t think that I set this up for myself in any particular order. But looking back, here’s what I would recommend that you do if you are just getting started with content repurposing.

1. Set a Content Routine

Start with figuring out how much content you need to be posting — and where — each month.

Personally, on social, I have chosen to post 1x per day on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and 6x per day on Twitter. I also do 2 newsletters per week and 1-2 blog posts per week. It might be helpful to lay it out in a calendar like I showed you above, or a spreadsheet, or a Google Doc. You may also want to identify whether you will be reposting any content from channel to channel.

For example, I have my Instagram set up to share directly to my Facebook page on autopilot. This isn’t the best way to share content as it doesn’t get a lot of engagement, but because my Facebook page isn’t a crucial lead generator for me, I’m okay with just keeping active on my page and not necessarily striving to drive traffic or build engagement, at least for right now. I do have some posts that go out on Facebook natively, but I share the exact same copy across the board, from Facebook to Instagram to Twitter — simply because it’s easier to just write 1 caption and copy/paste.

People don’t typically stalk you 24/7 on all of your platforms, so it’s totally okay to share the same exact piece of content on multiple platforms. Especially if you create variety by switching up when you post on each platform. For example, you may share a post on Instagram and then share the same thing on Facebook 2 weeks later. People are either (a) not going to remember, or (b) will not have seen both posts on both platforms. Don’t worry about seeming repetitive — it’s really not as big of a deal as it seems!

2. Determine Your Content Priorities

Next, figure out what pieces of content are most important to you, and what type of content you like doing the most.

For me, my favorite content to create is blog posts, so that is what I make a priority! Then, I repurpose from there. But if you prefer to record a podcast or to share off-the-cuff on Instagram —  make it work for you! Make that your “star” content that everything else is based off of.

3. Plan the Frequency of New Content

Then, decide how much new content you want to put out on a consistent basis. Ideally, you’re going to want to put out at least 1 new piece of content per month. But you don’t have to go as crazy as me and try to do 6 (or more).

4. Try it Out

Finally, do a test run. For the next upcoming month, create your star pieces of content. Then see if you can use just those pieces of content to repurpose everything that you need for all of your other channels/platforms. If you come up short, it’s either a sign that you may need to (a) reduce the frequency of content on one or more channels, (b) create additional new content, or (c) keep going, because once you have older content built up from previous months, you can reshare those again and again and “fill in the gaps.” Tools like SmarterQueue make this super easy!

See? Repurposing content to create a super easy and effective content marketing plan does not have to be a struggle! It’s all about finding a balance of new and old content, on whatever platforms you love, that works for you.

Stop making it hard on yourself by creating way too much content or not sharing nearly as much as you want to be. Using a system like this can allow you to dominate your platforms just like the pros do!