Last week Amy Sherman of Cooking With Amy and I did a session at TechMunch San Francisco on “How to Recycle, Repurpose and Aggregate Existing Content.” Amy is a longtime colleague and friend who started her food blog in 2003.
When I tweeted about the session, Shauna James Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl replied, “I’d love to see your write-up of this afterward!” So I knew I had to write a post. Thanks, Shauna! And thanks to TechMunch founder Babette Pepaj for coming up with the session idea.
That’s me on the left and Amy on the right as we discuss our tips. Photo courtesy of Christine Leong of Vermillion Roots.
Here are 8 ways on how to recycle, repurpose and aggregate content from your blog, book or freelance writing:
- Jump in and choose a post to start. Maybe there’s one that didn’t get enough love, says Amy. Or you’ll find one that will help you reach a new audience. Or maybe there’s an old subject that’s in the news or newly trendy.
- Create round-ups of older posts. Choose a theme, such as the holidays or National “Something” Day. Base the round-up on ingredients, technique, destination…anything that fits, such as all avocado recipes or all posts about eating in New York.
- Write a guest post based on a prior post. No need to reinvent the wheel. Change your previous post to support the tone and angle of the blog where you’re posting.
- Create an e-book with previous content. I did so when I created an incentive to sign up for my newsletter. I took material from a few posts, paid an intern to assemble and edit it, and had a designer create a good-looking little brochure.
- Start a newsletter and recycle material there. List your recent posts there, in case readers missed them.
- Use up extra material. If you freelance articles or wrote a book, there will be extra material that didn’t go in. Flesh it out and use it up.
- Use your blog copy to write for other outlets. Amy suggested these resources to find a good fit or see what’s trending: beyondyourblog.com, click on submissions; theinternationalfreelancer.com, click on finding the work; and a post on The International Freelancer, These 70+ Publications Pay $1 a Word (And They’re Looking for Writers).
- Write freelance stories based on your blog posts. Amy suggests you check Quora, Reddit, and AnswerThePublic for topics similar to yours, to see what people are talking about.
You might also like these other posts from Amy on my blog:
- Get 3 Assignments to Make Travel Writing Worthwhile, Says Amy Sherman
- How a Food Writer Loses Weight
- I Earn a Living Because of My Blog, Not From It
We sure squeezed a lot in 25 minutes! Thanks Dianne as always, and Babette for inviting us. It was a lot of fun and hopefully readers will find some useful nuggets in our ideas.
I didn’t think it was possible to say much in 25 minutes, as I have never done a session that short. It forced us to stay on topic and not tell stories. But it was fun and you packed in lots of good info.
would there be a video link to this session? Would love to watch!
Great strategies! I’ve been doing roundups for some time, based on either a seasonal ingredient or theme. I’ve been recycling my annual holiday baking roundup, adding in new recipes and taking fresh approaches (readers’ top 10 or my favourite collection). Not only do these get eyes on older content, but they give me a break from constant recipe development!
Yes that is a good point — to have a break! I once wrote a post on what to post about besides recipes. It is exhausting otherwise! These are great ideas for roundups, Marlene.
Hey Dianne, could you please share a link to this when you have a moment?
I’m not aware of any video link to this session, Nandita.
Great nuggets, indeed. I especially like the idea of re- purposing posts that may not have gotten enough love. What a great way to reconsider content from my earliest years when my reach was smaller. I’ll get right to it!
That’s a good point, that older posts had a smaller reach. Sometimes you can fix up older posts too by taking a new photo or adding a little new content. I’ve heard that Google likes that and rewards you in the rankings.
Thanks for these great ideas! If you use previous content to create an e-book, do you then delete the posts you pulled content from?
I haven’t done so. Most of my readers come for whatever I’ve written most recently, so I’m not going to worry about it. If you still have lots of readers going to that same content, enjoy it! They’re not necessarily the ones who read your e-book.
Funny – I was just considering how to recycle some of my older content the other day! Great tips,thanks.
Oh good, you must have been on my wavelength, Amanda.
And the link to that article would be…?
Which one?
Great suggestions and practical tips. Thank you. (And you two really did pack a ton of information into those 25 minutes last week!)
Thank you. And as Amy reminded me after this post came out, I repurposed content in it! LOL.
Great tips…. thank you for sharing!
On behalf of myself and Amy, you are most welcome, Nina.
Helpful post Dianne. This is what I am doing right now, repurposing older posts, refreshing recipes, and this list is helpful. More ideas. My photography has improved so time to reshoot some of the older posts.
Thank you, Sally. Yes, I didn’t mention the idea of refreshing older posts by reshooting them, but that’s a good one. Apparently Google likes that idea quite a lot.
As soon as I run out of present-day thoughts (few & far between though they may be, lol), this is a great idea between “lulls”, Dianne. Dare I call it food for thought?! Thank you.
You’re probably never going to run out of present-day thoughts. Maybe you can squish this idea in somewhere, Kim.
Thanks for these tips. I send a monthly roundup of recipes around a theme for my suscribers at the end of the month, also, as I am doing better with photography, I am making new photos for old recipes.
Can you please share the link to the post you mentioned about what to post about besides recipes?
Thank you very much, I love all your articles!
What helpful tips. These gave me great ideas and I’ll get to them right away. Thanks, Amy and Dianne. You always inspire.