Why (and how) you should repurpose your school’s social media content
As a school marketer, it can sometimes feel like you’re caught in a chronic content creation cycle (how’s that for alliteration?!), churning out endless social media posts and wondering if they’ll be seen, noticed, or valued before they’re lost in a sea of other posts. Consistently coming up with new, unique, and original ideas can become a challenge (enter ‘content block’!) and your content can even begin to feel unremarkable and routine.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In the same way that we have all made a conscious effort to reuse physical items more in recent years, turning to recycled products where we can and eliminating single-use items, we should also approach our social media content with a similar approach. That’s where content repurposing comes in!
Why should you repurpose content?
Repurposing your content not only saves you time and effort but it also helps keep both your current and prospective families engaged. Your social content should be like an eco-system, with each channel feeding into and working with the others, rather than operating in isolation. If a prospective parent sees an interesting post on your Instagram feed, for example, which includes a call to action to visit the link in your bio so they can find out more on your website, you’ve captured their attention. The more time they spend in your content eco-system, the stronger the digital relationship you’re developing.
Another reason for repurposing is it helps you to “work smarter, not harder”. In other words, using content that has performed well in the past or repurposing one piece of content across several channels, will give you more ‘bang for your buck’. Less work for you and a consistent message on all your social platforms? Talk about a win-win!
From a search engine optimisation (SEO) point of view, repurposing content is also beneficial to both your socials and your website. Including consistent key words across your platforms, linking to and from your other channels, and having regular, valuable content are all characteristics that both Google’s and Meta’s algorithms love.
How to repurpose your content
We suggest starting with your content 'brick' or 'hero' piece. This is your piece of long-form content (such as a blog on your website, a thought-leadership article from your Head, or a school podcast). Think a high-value, informative or educational piece packed with insights or learnings curated for your target audience.
If your hero piece is a blog, don't be afraid to make it lengthier than you might expect (from an SEO perspective, 1,500—2,500 words is the blog post/ article wordcount range to aim for and, according to Wix, the perfect length for blog posts in 2024 is 2,450 words. At this length, you can delve fully into your topic to a degree that is informative and helpful, whilst also keeping the attention of your audience. When it comes to podcasts, around 25 minutes is currently popular, and for good reason; it's a good length to accompany a lunchtime walk or a morning workout without having to switch between podcasts.
Creating such a substantial piece of content might be more time-consuming initially, but your payoff is a substantial, premium piece of content that you can disseminate and repurpose in a variety of ways, such as:
Take snippets (e.g. quotes from your blog or podcast) and turn these into a series of social media posts. Don't forget all-important calls to action (CTAs)! Keeping that social media eco-system concept in mind, CTAs could be ‘read the full blog/ listen to the whole podcast on…’.
Take a slightly longer extract for your school newsletter or annual school magazine (this will save you from writing the whole thing from scratch, which as we know is a HUGE job. Who knew that when you took your school marketing role, you would also be a magazine editor-in-chief?!)
Even better, if you have enthusiastic Sixth-Formers, harness the power of student-led marketing and entice them to write a blog. Think post ideas such as ‘What’s it like to be a boarder?’ – you can guide the direction of the content by giving them a list of questions as a springboard (e.g. what they like most, what advice would they give others thinking about boarding, etc.).
Pull out headlines from your hero piece to include in your email newsletter, and include the link back to the original piece of long-form content.
Bonus tip: Remember that you don't need to do this for every piece of content. Go back to your strategy and content pillars and ask yourself what highlights are worthy of more time and attention, versus topics suited to more disposable, one-off pieces of content. Not every topic is hero piece-worthy, and that’s OK!
Content repurposing doesn’t always have to start with a blog post however! It can also include repurposing of social posts. Use your insights to look back at what posts / reels / stories have performed well in the past and repurpose them into another piece of content! You could for example repurpose a top performing carousel into a blog post, your top playing reel into a carousel or your most viewed story into a post. This not only helps you to overcome the dreaded “content block” by giving you ideas but also helps maintain engagement levels. If a piece of content has performed well in one format, it likely will perform well when repurposed into another format.
Inspired? We hope so. Content repurposing is a game-changer in terms of engagement, time-saving and consistent messaging, and well worth implementing as part of your overall digital marketing strategy. If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, though, that’s completely understandable too – the world of digital marketing is every-changing and fast-paced. If you’d like to learn more about how to leverage social media to increase your enrolments, why not check out our courses?
