Postmortem Wisdom from a Repurposing Business Blogger…

How hard could it be for an experienced business blogger to schedule a “blogcation” and repurpose archived blog posts? I don’t think it takes a village, but it does takes more than the results of my disorganized efforts.

The plan fermented in the cloud (also known as my brain) for a few weeks, but the execution wasn’t even quaffable (scroll down to #3). What I didn’t plan for, what I didn’t take into account as carefully as I should have, was the need for an actual, um, strategy.

I could make excuses. A monstrously large project’s deadline was looming. My son’s spring break was looming. Oh heck, even a few silkworms were looming.

April 7th arrived, and I experienced the sweet relief of not scurrying to plaster a new blog post across the digital universe, but something was missing. I now know it’s best to create some sort of plan before repurposing archived content.

What did I learn? What didn’t I learn, dear readers…

Create a Promotional Plan for Archived Content BEFORE You Share It: If you intend to promote existing content purposefully, you must have a plan.

But the time to conceive that plan isn’t the week of your blogcation. This should be done the week before you operate without a safety net. Select the posts you’ll repurpose within your normal/typical week of promotion.

Use your URL shortener’s archives for faster scrolling through your blog’s “memory lane.” I use bit.ly and finally discovered all the useful data stored in my account (Bundles, Your Network, and, in particular, Stats). Who knew?

Also, be sure to weed out any seasonal or holiday blog posts, no matter how much online affection they earned when first launched, unless the timing is SPOT ON!

Generate a Series of Snappy Teasers for Your Tweets, Facebook Posts, Etc.: I brainstorm a slew of one-liners for each new blog post. These teasers are meant to compel you into taking the plunge by clicking the link to my post.

I usually do this the morning the blog post hits. But if you’re going to share posts from your vault, you don’t want to wait last minute, like I did, to figure out how to promote them (as they swim upstream in your various feeds).

Either the week or weekend before you circulate your repurposed content, generate several one-liners for re-introduction of your selected blog post(s). I don’t care where you store these titillating teasers–as long as you generate them AHEAD OF TIME.

Rethink Your Visual Strategy Ahead of Time Too (D’oh!): Whether you use one or multiple photos in your posts, think about using a fresh image (or a series of new images) when dredging archived content back to the surface. (I tend to go heavy with my photo rotation on Twitter…)

I didn’t match up appropriate photos to archived posts before my recent repurposing experiment. The result was: I wasted time giving this task more attention than I wanted (or needed) to in real time. I can do better, and so can you.

When resharing archived content on social media, proactively scan your proprietary photo library (or other resources) for images that complement your repurposed stuff.

(Random thought: Don’t even ask me about Snapchat. The concept of my teasers and blog posts disappearing after a few minutes horrifies me!)

Don’t Leave Your Hashtags at the Mercy of the Digital Gods and Goddesses: Here’s another task I bobbled like a third-rate circus juggler. I gave no thought to the hashtags I would use on Twitter and Google+ for my (randomly! haphazardly! in a scatterbrained way!) selected blog posts.

This is sad, considering there are plenty of tools available for sourcing the appropriate hashtags. Even sadder: I’ve blogged about doing due diligence regarding hashtags in previous posts.

You must ensure you’re using hashtags that make sense RIGHT NOW for your slightly seasoned content. Start your initial search within Twitter or Google+ (or whichever platform[s] you’re using). For deeper hashtag digging, give one of these resources a try:

• Hashtagify.me
• Hashtags.org
• Hashtag Scout
• HashAtIt.com
• Rite Tag
• Tagboard (A tagboard is a collection of social-media posts organized by a shared hashtag…)
• TagDef (This site is more of a hashtag decoder but still worthwhile as a bookmark.)

Once You Have a Plan, It Makes Sense to Pre-Schedule Your Updates: Guilty admission: I talk a good talk, but I have yet to use any of the online tools available for pre-scheduling release of archived posts. It’s not that I fear them or lack confidence in my capabilities to use them. It’s just that I prefer tweeting and posting “in the moment.”

“Live posting” provides me with those mental breaks I need from my writing and editing projects. Real-time sharing further allows me to instantaneously engage and interact with online peeps who do nice things for me (e.g., RTs on Twitter, shares on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, etc.).

I do realize these scheduling tools are supposed to save me time during the work week. I think I will test drive one of these sites sometime soon, preferably before taking another blogcation. Then I can assess how best to incorporate pre-scheduled posts into my M.O. (You know what Yoda would tell me…)

The usual scheduling suspects include:

Hootsuite (Check out the “Pro” 30-day free trial…)

Buffer (The basic version is free, but there are various subscription options for businesses of all sizes…)

SocialOomph (A Twitter-centric platform–there’s a free version and a SocialOomph-Professional version…)

Sprout Social (Much more than a scheduling/publishing platform–a 30-day free trial is available…)

Bundle Post (This site offers scheduling and content-curation tools–a 30-day free trial is available…)

CrowdBooster (Much more than a scheduling tool, but it’s just for Facebook and Twitter–a 30-day free trial is available…)

Within Your Plan, Identify How Often You’ll Re-Share Your Posts: Another tactical error I committed was deciding in real time how often to repeat/re-share the handful of archived blog posts I selected for my blogcation.

My typical promotional schedule for a “fresh” blog post runs from Tuesday (new post is released) to the following Monday. I wrap it up with an almost-always boost in traffic from #MondayBlogs on Twitter.

Because I haphazardly excavated my archived nuggets, I was equally inept at deciding which posts to re-share WHEN and HOW OFTEN (i.e., within a 24-hour time span AND for the entire week).

Here’s what I learned: When creating a schedule for your selected posts, do it grid/table style (Monday – Friday, or Monday – Sunday, or Tuesday – Monday, etc.). Possible rows or columns for your consideration (in random order):

• Days (of the Week)
• Archived Post(s) to Re-Share
• Social-Media Platforms
• How Often to Share?
• When/Time(s) to Post
• Best Hashtags
• Teasers/Promotional Lead-Ins
• Promotional photo(s)/images(s)

Ask for Honest Feedback Regarding Your Repurposing Efforts: Here’s another task I neglected to carry out. In a perfect world, a few trusted souls (in my social-media circles) would offer me constructive criticism without my having to solicit it from them. But I live in the real world (as often as I can). I now have some peeps in mind (for feedback purposes) the next time I PLAN to repurpose my content.

With hindsight, I might have been better off not bothering with my “I’m going to throw these randomly selected blog posts against the online wall and see what sticks” effort. Because I had no plan, each time I frantically penned a teaser, came up with a hashtag or two and shared an archived blog post, I felt tense. Feeling tense seems counterproductive to taking an online vacation…

I now see that perhaps I should think on a larger scale regarding repurposed content. Maybe I should cobble together an e-book or printed book of my three-year journey easing on down the blogging road. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

What say you, treasured readers? How do you repurpose your blog posts or articles? Did a previous effort to promote archived content make your brain as weary as mine recently felt? What would you do differently the next time you attempt the repurposing thing?

Maybe, just maybe, my next blogcation will involve nothing more than a series of click-friendly photos with this simple teaser: “Wish you were here!”

Lori Shapiro is the owner of By All Writes LLC, a business-to-business (B2B) writing, editing, and research company in Marlton, New Jersey. She revels in shielding her clients from the pain of writing their own print or web marketing and educational copy. Please call Lori Shapiro at 856-810-9764 or email By All Writes LLC at lori@byallwrites.biz  for a no-obligation project quote today!