I saw it again. This time on LinkedIn. It was another content marketer promising that repurposing content across mediums saved folks more time and energy.
And as I sat in the doctor’s office, waiting for my name to be called from behind the boring beige door, I wondered if repurposing content really did, in fact, save me time.
My answer is no.
I think it’s a false promise to tell busy business owners and creators they can save time by turning a blog post into a podcast, a YouTube video, or into a month’s worth of social media posts. All of that content creation takes a lot of skill and time. I’m tired of marketers proclaiming that a simple blog post used across platforms is how we can all be more efficient with our marketing execution.
It’s just bullshit.
Now listen. I do think repurposing content is helpful — but not because it saves time. Here are some ways that content repurposing does and doesn’t help, and how marketers can use it to their advantage…if they’ve got the time.
Smarter, not harder
Repurposing content is the smarter choice. Not because it saves us time, but because it keeps us consistent across all our platforms. If your blog is about cooking vegetarian meals from scratch, but your podcast is about the best meat to eat on paleo, then you’re not being consistent with your messaging. Yes, you’re talking about food, but people who love you on your meat lovers podcast won’t venture into your blog because it’s not for them.
But turning a blog post about vegetarianism into a podcast isn’t time-saving. It actually requires a lot of work, including scripting, recording, and editing. All things you’d still have to do with a meat-focused podcast.
Get my drift?
A deeper reach
In keeping this meat/veggie analogy, some may consider diversifying content the smarter option, because you’ll reach a broader audience. Both vegetarians AND meat lovers. This is wrong. You’re trying to catch every fish swimming at the top of the lake, instead of realizing it’s actually 30ft deep and filled with more loyal fish, closer to the bottom.
When you stay consistent across your medium then you’ll grow your brand and eventually become (if you’re not already) a subject matter expert. If you stick with the vegetarian content, you’ll reach vegetarians who love to listen to podcasts and ones who love to read, or one’s who love to watch, etc. If they appreciate your content, they’ll share it with their people — it is a deeper reach. It builds trust with your audience because they know they can come to you for their vegetarian homecooked creativity.
And that leads me to my third reason to repurpose content…
You build trust
Charles Feltman, a trust expert and leadership consultant concisely defines trust as choosing to risk something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.
It’s pretty powerful when we unpack that. Trust is letting something we care about be vulnerable to someone else’s behavior. When we think of trust in terms of how customers interact with brands, it’s not about how many types of content you have — it’s about whether they believe you’re the person to help them with something they care about.
If they care about vegetarianism, for the many reasons one would, then building trust with them means inviting them to rely on you to be good stewards of their vegetarian lifestyle. So in many ways — having a separate content medium about meat could negatively impact your trust with the vegetarians.
We just won’t save time
Yes, repurposing content is the smarter choice. Yes, it allows us to connect deeper with our audiences. And yes, it builds trust with them as well. But it does not save time.
Don’t buy into the illusion that repurposing content is easy. That turning a blog post that took 2 hours to write, can take only 30 minutes to record as a podcast. It’s not true — especially when you’re a marketing team of one.
So yes, repurpose your content. But don’t do it because you’re saving time. Do it because you want to connect deeper and build trust with your people.
