Repurposing Content

When you have content so nice, use it twice

Case Study | September 2011

In July, 2010, I wrote a pretty popular blog post about how to write a fun bio. I wrote the post because I was updating my own bio and wanted to give it more of my personality. Often, as a speaker, someone takes my online bio and uses it to introduce me. Well, snore. I realized that was about the most boring introduction a person could have and decided to change it to something a bit more entertaining. My goal with the fun bio was to gives you insight of the real Raquel; what I’m like, what I like to do, how I spend my time… these are things people actually want to know.

Going strong more than a year later, the post was our most popular and bringing all sorts of people to our website and new followers on Twitter. I decided it was time to take this little content gem and see what else it could do. I decided my next step was to turn it into a guide. I used Power Point to create a little more fancy of a presentation that looked like a guide. Next, I posted the guide on SlideShare to maximize the tool it gives you to present the guide, embed in your website, others to embed and share in their sites and most of all, attract their users to Silver Square. Below is a review of all the nice things that happened next.

First, here is the guide as it was posted originally:

I posted this at 11ish p.m. To my surprise, in the morning, I had made the featured list on SlideShare’s homepage, and I was “hot” on Facebook and LinkedIn, so it was featured in those places as well. It held on all day in all three places, then the next two days remained on the Facebook and LinkedIn pages. It was a nice run the entire week.

So what did all of this actually do for us at Silver Square? Here are a few notable numbers:

• The guide was viewed just under 4,500 times
• My Twitter followers jumped by about 40
• Our Facebook likes went up by about 15
• I received three leads via LinkedIn (these did not turn out as of yet)
• I received about 40 new connection requests on LinkedIn – for me personally, I don’t link if I don’t know you, so this wasn’t for me, but some people need new connections and will accept requests from anyone
• A handful of new newsletter and blog subscribers
• Good connections in the Indianapolis area now following and sharing our info
• Received lots of attention from current contacts saying the bio was well done and that we have inspired them to adjust their bios
• Proof that repurposing your content works and can be a great way to maximize your writing investment - Raquel Richardson