How many ways are you leveraging your blog posts? Most people write a post and that’s the end of it. You’re probably syndicating your blog feed to the usual places: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, at the very least. And that’s a good thing.

Yet there are many other ways to get more mileage out of your content. Content syndication is just one part of the equation. To really get the most leverage from your blog, think about how many ways you can repurpose the content (and then syndicate the new formats to all the usual sites).

Repurposing your content means turning your blog posts into different formats like reports, white papers, articles, slide shows, videos, podcasts, teleseminars, ebooks, etc.
But why would you do this?

It may come as a shock, but not every ideal client knows about or reads your blog! There are people in your target audience hanging out on other sites all over the Web. People are looking for information to read, share and learn from, and you want them to find you and your solutions.

When you publish content on your blog, let’s assume you’re usually providing valuable, relevant information that demonstrates how you solve the problems of your ideal clients or customer. While having that content on your blog is a great  place to start, there are many more prospects you can reach by simply repurposing the content in a few ways and distributing that content on other platforms. You get more exposure and more value from the time you’ve initially invested in creating the content. Not to mention that you can drive more traffic back to your home base.

Let’s look at three simple ways to repurpose your blog posts that don’t require a lot of time or technical know-how: articles, pdf documents and audio.

Prep work

There is some preparation required when repurposing and distributing your content on multiple sites. First, you must set up accounts on the sites you want to use for distribution. Always fill out your profile completely, along with adding your picture when you can.

Second, I recommend creating a template you can use to hand this project off to an assistant. For every new post you repurpose, you’ll need to have the following information handy: title, short description and keywords. This should be fairly simple to pull from the original post. Now you’re ready to go.

1. Reformat for article directory sites. This is the simplest and fastest way to repurpose your blog posts. If your posts are about 500-1000 words this is a great way to get in front of millions of additional eyeballs. When you submit your  content, you may want to tweak the title and make sure the content is not overly self-promotional. You also will need to create an Author Resource box with contact info, a call to action and a link back to your blog or landing page.

2. Reformat for document sharing sites. Document sharing sites cater to those who want to share and read documents as pdf, word docs or slides. Scribd for example, has tens of millions of readers every month that read and download  documents from the site. The advantage here is that you can embed links and images in your documents, unlike some of the article sites which don’t accommodate images. Docstoc.com another popular site gives you the tools to sell your professional documents as well as give them away for free. Again, it is super simple distribute your content. Copy your blog post into a word doc, make sure it’s nicely formatted, add your author bio with a call to action and link(s) to your blog, site and/or free reports, then convert to pdf. Upload. A cool feature on some doc sharing sites like Scribd, Docstoc and others, is ability to embed your documents on web pages and blogs. This gives readers an easy way to share your content and again, extend your reach to new audiences.

3. Record an audio version of your post. I’m seeing more and more bloggers do this – create audio versions of their blog posts. Believe me, this is not difficult to do and gives your audience an additional way to consume your wisdom. Not everyone likes to read, so create a podcast and you extend your reach even further. There are dozens of podcast directories and of course the heavy weight is iTunes. About 13% (27 million) of US internet users listen to podcasts so this is an audience you don’t want to overlook. They may never find your blog, but they’re using iTunes to find content.

TIP: when you record your blog post, make sure to add a call to call or invitation to visit your blog along with your name and URL of the blog. Much of this work can be done by a virtual assistant, especially submitting your article/document to the various sites. You write and record the post, provide the info: title, description and keywords, then have your VA do the formatting and submissions.  Articles, pdf docs and audio posts each provide an opportunity for you reach new audiences. Now, you’ve got at least three more paths from high traffic sites leading back to your home base.

How many ways are you leveraging your blog posts?

These are just three examples. What other formats have you found to effectively repurpose and distribute your blog content?

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