How to Make the Most Out of Your Content

With the proliferation of social networks, websites, and blogs, communicators often need to manage a multitude of communication channels. Juggling multiple versions of content for different channels can seem like an extra workload. But if you manage your content right, it is a big opportunity to get a higher return on the same amount of work. The trick? Adapt and reuse your content.

External communication often results in a larger piece of content, such as a website, a blog post, or a report. It’s this piece of content you should dice into different versions and adapt to more specific channels. The many hours you have put into refining your end product can easily be adapted and reused across multiple other channels.

Destination and Distribution. There are several reasons to adapt your content. First of all, different channels serve different purposes. You can broadly think of two purposes for content channels: destination and distribution. Destination content is the primary website, blog post, or report that you want people to read. Distribution content attracts readers to your destination.

It is not hard to extract distribution content from destination content. Smaller excerpts, quotes, or graphics from your destination content can help pique interest with your target audience, thus serving as distribution content. Social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook, are generally meant for distributing your content and bringing readers to your destination site.

Broaden your scope. You can do much more with your content than merely adapting it for distribution. Also consider if your destination content can be repurposed into a presentation, a video, or maybe an e-book. These other forms of content are particularly useful for catering to different learning styles and consumption preferences of your target audience. Some people are more visual than others, or prefer to engage with content on their mobile devices.

For example, reports are better for desktop whereas videos or images are the easiest to consume on mobile devices. Try to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and imagine the various ways they would prefer to consume your destination content.

Spread the word. When you put a lot of effort into a report, a website, or another product, you’ll surely want to share your knowledge and insights with as many people as possible. The best way to get the most bang for your buck is by repurposing and adapting what you have already have created.

Adnan Mahmud is part of the GovLoop Featured Blogger program, where we feature blog posts by government voices from all across the country (and world!). To see more Featured Blogger posts, click here.