Recycle More than Just Cans, Recycle Content

March 15, 2014

Recycle Content to Maximize Your Blogging Efforts

Composing blog posts takes time, it can be the most time consuming part of running an online marketing campaign. Those that do blog know it’s worth the investment and pays off in the long run. Business bloggers who just blog are missing some very important pieces of the online marketing puzzle. They are doing all the heavy lifting without reaping the benefits of the content recycler.

What is a content recycler?

A content recycler is a blogger who writes blog articles then posts them to social media and sends out emails linking to them. The content recycler pulls all their fabulous blog content together into an e-book or guide to share as a downloadable offering in exchange for the downloader’s contact information. Some content recyclers develop relationships with local print or online publications to further distribute their content.

Content Recycling Recipe

Write 8 to 12 Blog Posts

Brainstorm on a topic of your expertise that your target audience is interested in learning about. Consider the topic from many angles, write about each angle in a blog post.

• Each blog post in the series should be at least 200 words long and speak to the same target audience at the same stage of the buying cycle.
• Schedule the blog posts to publish over the next 4 to 8 weeks.
• Include a call-to-action inviting visitors to download your e-book about the topic at the bottom of each blog post and where appropriate in the text of each article.
• Link back and forth from one post to another to improve readership of all posts.

Compile the Blog Posts into an E-book

Put all the posts together with lovely graphics and make them into an e-book.

• Add supplementary material if needed to fill in knowledge gaps and add interest.
• E-books can often be created in Microsoft Power Point or Word and exported as a PDF.
• Create a landing page on your website to allow visitors to get an overview of the e-book.
• Place an email form on the landing page gathering at the very least the visitor’s name, email and a check box allowing them to subscribe to your blog/email list.
• Deliver the e-book to the visitor with a link to download in the form success message or via email.

Post About Your Blog Articles on Social Media

As your blog posts release link to them from your social media outlets.

• In Facebook you can schedule your posts to publish in the future.
• Using certain publishing aps such as HubSpot or HootSuite you can schedule tweets and LinkedIn status updates to publish in advance as well.
• Feel free to post about your blog article a few times in each social media outlet, varying the message each time to learn how to most effectively present the information and keep the conversation fresh.

Email Your List About Your Blog Posts and E-book

If you have an email list tell them about all the great work you’ve been doing for them. If you don’t have an email list get started gathering names and email addresses right away!

• Experiment with email formatting. Try an email promoting multiple posts with excerpts and another only promoting one blog article. Each audience reacts differently, only testing will truly tell which format will be most effective for yours.
• Each email should include a brief summary of the article with link back to the blog post on your website.
• Don’t include the ENTIRE article in the email, you want to drive traffic to your website to read the whole post so you can share the e-book with them and encourage them to visit your other pages.
• Consider personalizing each email with the recipient’s name to improve readership.
• The email promoting the e-book should link back to the e-book landing page on your website, not the e-book itself.

Comment on Similar Articles to Your Topic on Well Trafficked Blogs Read by Your Target Market

For example if your target market reads business blogs and one happens to discuss your topic of choice write a genuine comment and add a link back to your blog post.

• READ the article, don’t just start commenting, a non-genuine comment with a link is rude and considered spam, the article author can blacklist you from commenting on any article in the site again.
• Include what you like about the article in your comment.
• Nicely segue from your comment explaining you’ve done a bit of research on the topic yourself and if someone wants to read it they can go to the following link.

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