What is Content Repurposing?
Content repurposing is the practice of taking one core piece of content and transforming its format to serve a different purpose or reach a different audience on another platform.
At its heart, content repurposing is the strategy of “work smarter, not harder.” Instead of constantly creating brand new content from scratch, you take a substantial, high-value asset—often called a “pillar post,” like a detailed blog article, webinar, or case study—and break it down or reformat it into multiple smaller pieces for different channels. For example, one blog post can be repurposed into a series of tweets, a LinkedIn article, an email newsletter, a short video script, or a set of key takeaways for an Instagram carousel.
With the rise of generative AI, this strategy has become exponentially more powerful and efficient. You can now use AI writing tools to do the heavy lifting of the transformation. By feeding an AI your original article and providing a specific prompt, you can generate drafts for all these different formats in minutes. This allows you to maximize the reach and impact of your best ideas without multiplying your workload.
Think of it this way…
Think of content repurposing like cooking a large turkey for a holiday dinner. The turkey itself is your “pillar content.” The first night, you have the main roast. But you don’t throw out the leftovers. The next day, you use the meat to make sandwiches (social media posts), you boil the bones to make a rich soup (an email newsletter), and you use other bits for a casserole (a LinkedIn article). From that one big cooking effort, you create meals for a whole week. AI is your chef’s assistant, helping you slice, dice, and repackage that turkey in creative ways.
Why It Matters for You
As a Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) leader, your team invests significant time creating a beautiful “Top 10 Things to Do This Summer” guide for your website. Content repurposing is how you ensure that valuable asset gets seen by everyone, not just website visitors. With AI, you can instantly turn that guide into a Twitter thread, a script for a TikTok video, a visually engaging Instagram story, and an email blast to your subscriber list. This maximizes the return on your initial content investment, reaching different demographics on the platforms they prefer, and driving more traffic back to your core website.
Example: The “Weak vs. Strong” Promotion
Here’s how to promote a new, in-depth blog post about a featured local business.
Weak Approach (One and Done):
You publish the blog post and share the link once on your Facebook page with the caption, “Check out our new blog post!”
(You’ve put hours into the story, but it will be buried in the newsfeed by tomorrow.)
Strong Approach (AI-Powered Repurposing):
Pillar Content: A 1,000-word blog post about a local artisan.
- Prompt for Twitter: “Create a 5-tweet thread from this article, highlighting the founder’s journey. Include a call to action to read the full story.”
- Prompt for LinkedIn: “Write a professional 200-word LinkedIn post based on this article, focusing on the business’s economic impact and innovation.”
- Prompt for Email: “Draft a short, engaging email newsletter introducing this artisan’s story, using the most compelling quote from the article as a hook.”
- Prompt for Video: “Create a 60-second video script from this article, outlining 3 visual shots and a voiceover.”
(From one asset, you’ve created a week’s worth of multi-platform promotional content in under 15 minutes.)
Key Takeaways
- Content repurposing is about creating multiple content pieces from one “pillar” asset.
- This strategy maximizes the reach and ROI of your best content.
- Generative AI makes content repurposing fast and highly efficient.
- Tailor the repurposed content to the specific format and audience of each platform.
- It allows you to maintain a consistent presence on multiple channels without burning out.
Go Deeper
- See the Strategy in Action: Tactic #3 in our guide, Promoting Member Spotlights with AI, is a perfect example of content repurposing.
- Fuel Your Content Engine: A steady stream of repurposed content starts with great stories. Learn how to find them with AI for Storytelling.