How to Repurpose Your Paid Content for Social Media

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You already know that social media marketing is critical for the growth of your video business.

But:

When your business is built on creating video content, the thought of creating even more unique content to market your platform can be pretty overwhelming!

If that sounds like you, I’ve got good news:

There is a way to promote your business on social media using the content you’ve already created! It’s simple to get started, and is proven to help you generate new leads. 

In this article, I’m going to show you how you can repurpose your paid premium content into free social media content.

Let’s go…

Lead Generation: The Power Of “Free Samples”

To generate leads for your video business you need to provide people with “free samples”. Something to show them what you can do and get them interested.

Think of it like this:

When you walk around a big store, like Costco, you’ll see they have these little stands with free samples of products you can try.

Let’s say one of the stalls lets you try a nice chunk of cheese. Better still, you like that cheese! Here’s what’s going to happen:

1. You’re going to want to learn more about that cheese.
2. You might potentially want to buy that cheese.
3. You’ll want to buy that cheese over any of the other cheeses in the store!

For Costco, this is a win-win situation.

It creates a fun way to move through the store and give customers a chance to learn about new products you may have otherwise overlooked! (I mean, who can resist a Costco freebie, right?)

That’s similar to how lead generation works online. You need to give people the opportunity to see, try, or experience what you offer!

One of the best ways to do this is by creating value-driven social media posts. In fact, research shows:

• 57% of consumers follow brands on social media to learn about products.
• 89% of consumers will buy from the brand after following them.

That means social media is a powerful tool you need to be promoting your video business on at least one popular platform.

Now:

If you’ve never created a social media strategy before, it can seem like a huge undertaking. But, there’s good news.

You can create an entire social media strategy by repurposing content you’ve already created for your video on demand platform!

In this next section, with the help of our Social Media Wizard, Madison, you’re going to learn how…

How To Repurpose Your Premium Content For Social Media In 6 Easy Steps

1. Perform A Competitor Analysis 

The first step is to perform a simple competitor analysis.

You’re going to go away and look at 3-5 different companies in your niche and see how they’re promoting themselves on social media.

I recommend you use a tool like SparkToro to find out who is getting a lot of attention on social, so you can see what they’re doing well. 

With a free account, you can get 10 searches a month you can use to find interesting competitors using different keywords, topics of conversation, or specific URLs.

For example, if I say my audience frequently talks about “yoga courses”:

It will generate a list of social accounts and websites worth investigating:

Once you’ve identified 3-5 other sites in your niche, go and take a look at their feeds and the different kinds of content they’re creating, and answer these 5 questions:

1. What types of content are they sharing?
2. What platforms perform best for them?
3. How often are they sharing it?
4. How much engagement does it get?
5. What do you like or dislike about what they’re doing?

The more specific you can be with your answers, the better. You’re going to use this information to inform your own strategy!

By dissecting what your competitors are doing – or are not doing – you can get major insights into what’s going to be expected (and possible) on your social media feeds.

Better still…

You can use their data to understand what type of content users do and don’t want to interact with. Letting you learn from their trial and error! 

Madison’s Pro Tip

Pay close attention to the times your competitors most often post and the engagement rate. This will give you a good indication of when your audience is most likely to be active and the type of content they want to interact with! 

2. Identify The Core Ideas You Want To Share

Based on what you’ve seen from your competitors, it’s time to ask the question: 

What does my audience want to see?

This will help you to decide on the “samples” you want to create.

For example, let’s say you run an eLearning business that teaches people guitar. You’ll want to share content that aligns with (or improves upon) what your competitors are doing. 

It should also:

• Illustrate how competent you are
• Give your potential customers the chance to get some quick wins

So, you need to look through your content catalog and see what you’ve already created where you can “steal” snippets of content. 

For a guitar school, that might be sections of videos that show:

• Chord shapes
• Strumming patterns
• Scales to practice
• Popular songs to learn

These are enough for your audience to get a taste of what you do, without you giving away everything you do for free.

The type of content you share will vary from niche to niche. (Yoga teachers and model railway enthusiasts have different needs!) But the core principle is the same: it needs to add value.

For this step, I recommend you list…

1. 3-5 types of core content you can share
2. As many videos as possible containing those ideas you can use to make snippets

…before moving onto the next step.

Madison’s Pro Tip

If you’re getting a creative block try to look at things from your potential customer’s point of view. Ask: if I were a customer would I find this valuable, practical, or shareable?

3. Pick Your Social Media Platform

You’re going to start implementing this strategy on just one social media platform to begin with. This will make it easier and more manageable!

I recommend you start with either Instagram or Facebook, unless your competitor analysis has shown you absolutely need to be active on a different platform.

This is for 4 reasons:

1. They’re easy to get started on.
2. They have large potential audiences.
3. They are becoming more and more video content focused.
4. You can easily scale up and start running paid ads.

Plus surveys suggest users on Instagram and Facebook are actively looking for brands to connect with. Meaning they want to find brands like yours on there! 

Madison’s Pro Tip

Every brand needs to have that human element to them, it’s what makes you stand out from your competitors and makes you unique. Nothing screams personality more than hopping onto the latest trends, and one of those is Instagram Reels. From trendy dances to hilarious pranks, it’s the perfect way to show your audience that you’re more than just a business! 

4. Create Your Snippets 

The next step is to create snippets from paid videos in your content catalog.

Because this is your premium content, you already know it’s high quality and ready to share. The edits you’ll need to make to get it social media ready are minimal.

For example, you might want to:

• Add a branded intro or outro.
• Add text with your website URL.
• Chop it up so you can use it in “stories” or “reels”.

Once you’ve created your snippets, you’re going to look at how you can turn this one snippet into lots of different pieces of content.

Madison’s Pro Tip

My favorite tool for creating snippets has got to be Wave.video! They make it so easy to repurpose your premium videos and add social media-focused elements like text overlays. Better still, you can get 60% off at checkout using our promo code: WXX_Uscreen60.

5. Look For More Repurposing Opportunities

Think of the snippets you just created as a piece of “core” content; they contain a clear idea or takeaway that adds value to your audience.

Now, you’re going to look at different ways you can present that same idea. When you looked at your competitors’ feeds you probably saw them use a mix of…

1. text-based posts
2. images with captions
3. infographics
4. videos
5. blog posts

…with some crossover between the topics. Like these posts from SarahBethYoga’s Instagram feed:

You’re going to make use of the same concept. Specifically, you’re going to repurpose that core idea into a handful of different social media post variations.

Let’s take our guitar example from earlier. If you have a video snippet that shows how to perform a simple strumming pattern, you could repurpose that to create:

• An image that shows the strumming pattern.
• An infographic of popular songs that use that pattern.
• A long-form caption about the strumming pattern’s use.
• A ‘checklist’ of common mistakes.

You’re able to use the same information but create a varied set of posts for your audience to sample what your video business does. Clever, right?

Take a look at the snippets you’ve created and see what other types of content you could turn them into. Can you create:

• An image?
• An infographic?
• A story-based caption?
• A checklist?
• A short-form blog post?
• Something else that’s just as valuable to your audience?

By doing this you can easily turn those 3-5 snippets you created earlier into 15-20 pieces of valuable social media content!

Madison’s Pro Tip

Industry experts or brands are a great source of content. If you find a blog post that offers detailed insights, it’s a good idea to share it on your feed and tag them! By doing this, you’re opening a door to possible collaborations, increased reach and the potential of other brands tagging your page, which will only magnify your brand awareness. 

6. Usher People Towards Your Free Trial

The goal of all this free content is to bring people back to your premium platform. You’re generating leads that will (hopefully) convert into customers!

The most effective way to do this is by funneling those leads towards a free trial on your video website. In fact, our internal research shows free trials convert 52% of sign ups into customers!

That’s an insane conversion rate! 

If you’re not already using a free trial on your video website, I recommend you jump over to the post below to learn more about how to set it up:

If you are using one, you should consider adding a strong call to action to the end of your snippets, or in the captions of your posts, like Outlaw Yoga does here:

These calls to action can generate interest and get people to visit your website, where your premium content can do the rest of the leg work! 

Madison’s Pro Tip

Another great way to entice your audience to visit your platform is by constantly name dropping what else customers can expect if they sign up. Offer incentives for signing up to your free trial, or mention special content they can have access to with just a free trial. The goal is to make them want more.

Wrapping This Up…

I hope by now you have a good idea of why you need to be using social media to generate leads, and how to repurpose your premium content to create a value-driven strategy!

If you have any questions we’d love to hear from you! Share them with us over on Twitter or Instagram!