If you ever cut up your old jeans to turn into shorts when you were in high school – or just last week – you’ll know how repurposing something old into something new can feel like magic.
Like your favorite pair of denim jorts, your video content can be turned into something fresh, eye-catching – and attention-grabbing.
From social media posts to mini courses, blog posts, and more, there are so many ways to repurpose video content into new formats to use across your different marketing channels and add value for your audience.
Here’s exactly how to repurpose video content – including top tips, ideas and examples you can use right away.
Follow along or skip ahead:
- What does repurpose video content mean?
- Why repurpose video content?
- How to repurpose video content in 6 simple steps
- How to repurpose video content with AI
- How to repurpose video content with ChatGPT
- 20+ ways to repurpose video content
- 3 top tips for repurposing video content
What does repurpose video content actually mean?
Before we launch into how to repurpose video content – what does ‘repurpose video content’ actually mean?
When you repurpose video content, you re-use your existing content and present it in a new format, helping to share your content and ideas with a wider audience and increase the value of every video you make.
You can use the content from one video in a variety of different ways to share across multiple marketing channels. For example, creating short clips to post on social media, using the highlights as email content, and expanding on the topic in a blog post.
Think about it like zero waste – but for your content.
Do away with ‘single-use’ videos and reuse and recycle your way to engaging content across multiple channels to make every video go further and provide more value to your audience.
What’s the difference between repurposing, reposting and cross-posting video content?
Let’s quickly do an overview on the difference between repurposing, reposting, and cross-posting video content.
Hint: they all involve reusing your video content in different ways.
- Reposting video content: Publishing the same piece of content on the same platform at a different date – for example, resharing a viral post on LinkedIn that previously got a lot of engagement.
- Cross-posting video content: Sharing a piece of content across other channels without changing the content format – such as posting your TikTok videos as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.
- Repurposing video content: Adapting a piece of content to share across different channels, while keeping the essential elements and highlights from the original content – for example, adapting a YouTube video into mini clips for Instagram.
Why repurpose video content?
If you’re considering how to repurpose video content for your brand, rest assured that it’s worth the extra effort. In fact, you could end up saving time, energy, and money by repurposing your existing video content to use across multiple channels.
Here are 5 top benefits to repurposing your video content – and why it should be a key part of your content strategy:
Reach a wider audience
When you repurpose video content, you have the chance to reach a far wider audience across all your marketing channels. The combined clout of your social media, website traffic, email list, and more ensures that every video you create has maximum impact – and delivers more ROI.
Boost your SEO
When you repurpose video content, you give your SEO an extra boost. By creating multiple pieces of content on the same topic, you’ll automatically target similar keywords and create topic clusters on your site. If you have old videos, you have the chance to repurpose the content to target newer, more relevant keywords while reinforcing your existing keywords and improving the crawl frequency of your long-forgotten content.
Save time
When you learn how to repurpose video content, you learn how to create content more efficiently. Slash the time it takes you to produce content for your brand by reusing and refreshing your existing videos – and free up more time for other essential marketing and income-generating activities.
Reduce your workload
As well as saving you time, you also reduce your workload and avoid using up all your creative energy on coming up with new content ideas. Focus on quality over quantity with your video content to provide more value to your audience – and only devote time to producing genuinely useful, engaging, and relevant content for your brand.
Showcase your brand
Repurposing video content gives you the chance to create a cohesive message across all your marketing channels to help showcase your brand and your core values. And if you’ve got a video that’s performing especially well on one channel, you can give the rest of your channels a boost and keep the good vibes – and good engagement – going for longer.
How to repurpose video content in 6 simple steps
Looking for the exact steps to how to repurpose your video content? Here’s the pro-level repurpose process you need for success in your content strategy.
The secret to figuring out how to repurpose video content for your brand is to build the process into your entire content strategy.
If you plan how you’ll repurpose your content in advance, you can cut down on the time it takes to edit and adjust your content for different channels.
For example, by picking out the key points from your video script, you can plan what clips you’ll use for social media and what content you’ll flesh out into a long-form blog post and downloadable guides.
Identify your goals
As part of your planning process, take time to define the specific goals you want to achieve too.
Are you trying to attract more followers on social media? Increase engagement? Improve your SEO?
Be clear on why you’re repurposing your video content and your goals for your content strategy to give your efforts more focus and provide a measurable target to work towards.
Let’s be honest – not every video in your content vault needs to be repurposed.
Choose the videos you’ll repurpose carefully to avoid wasting time and energy on videos that are no longer relevant to your target audience.
To help you evaluate which videos to repurpose, keep these questions in mind:
- Does this topic speak to our current target audience’s interests?
- Is this topic still relevant or timely?
- Does it offer something new or surprising?
- Does it align with our current brand values?
Top tip: Some older videos might be suitable for repurposing into different types of content after a quick refresh. For example, an old video could be the perfect foundation for a new blog post with the addition of updated statistics, new expert quotes or extra context to bring it up to date.
Every video has a key message and top highlights. To repurpose your video content, you need to pick out the most important parts of your videos.
The easiest way to do this is in the planning stage – as you’re outlining your video content, identify the points that you’ll repurpose for other content down the line.
For example, look out for:
- Key concepts or ideas
- Important statistics and data
- Examples and case studies
- Expert or thought leadership quotes
Break your video down into bite-sized chunks – each of those chunks can be a separate social post, a subheading for a blog, or a chapter in your downloadable guide.
If you’re repurposing old video content, you’ll need to go through your finished video and pick out the most valuable and relevant points instead. Your aim is to pull the best nuggets of information, the juiciest quotes, and the key summary to re-use in new ways. It helps to have the video transcript handy to help you identify the most important sections.
Top tip: Utilize AI to do this step for you and reduce your workload. AI-driven tools like ChatGPT can pick out the key points from your video transcript in minutes – then all you need to do is review it with a human eye.
When you know the specific content you want to pull from your videos, you can then transform those gems into brand new content to use across multiple channels.
Here are some examples of exactly how to repurpose your video content for different marketing channels:
- Audio content: Isolate the audio from your video content to give your audience another way to listen to your content. Use a tool like Podcastle or RiversideFM to help.
- Blog posts: Write up your meatier video content and turn it into blog posts, pulling out the key points and best quotes to make your expertise available in text-form – and boost the SEO for your site too.
- Landing page videos: Cut your video content and post the highlights on your landing page to create a more dynamic user experience for visitors.
Find more examples of how to repurpose video content below ⬇️
A part of learning how to repurpose video content is also learning how to edit it – and being ruthless about what to share and what to trash.
When you’re finalizing your repurposed content before you hit publish, go through this checklist:
- Is this content educational or entertaining?
- Is the voice right for my brand?
- Is the design right for my brand?
- Is it too long or too short?
- Does it include the right keywords and/or hashtags?
- Is the spelling and grammar correct?
This is especially important if you’re using AI-powered tools to help you repurpose video content (more on that below). Double check that any clips and written content you’ve produced is right for your audience and in keeping with your brand – and doesn’t feel robotic.
When you’re happy with your new content, it’s time to publish it across your different channels.
The best strategy for posting is to use your repurposed content to support and promote your most important offering.
For example, let’s say you’re selling a new video course as a digital product and you’ve repurposed some of the video content to help you market it. In that case, you might choose to post snippets of your repurposed content across your top social media channels. You’d also publish a clip on your course landing page as a teaser and include it in your email marketing campaign too.
All your repurposed content should point towards the course you’re selling – with a relevant call-to-action (CTA) that encourages your audience to sign up for your course or your email list to find out more.
How to repurpose video content with AI
Thanks to a full suite of new AI tools on the market, it’s now easier than ever to repurpose video content – with minimal technical skills needed.
Here are 3 AI-driven tools you can use to transform your videos into fresh new formats:
Opus Clip
Opus Clip is an AI-driven video tool that’s designed to help you repurpose video content into short clips in just a few clicks.
Powered by ChatGPT, the tool takes long-form videos and automatically selects the top highlights to turn into 10 social media-ready shorts, removing filler words, adding caption animations, and translating captions too.
Repurpose.io
With Repurpose.io the name says it all. Repurpose.io is made to help repurposing video content quick and easy. The AI-powered platform lets you create and distribute social media content across multiple platforms by automatically repurposing your video content into short snippets.
Where this tool stands out is in its extra features – including automatically transferring hashtags across channels and instant watermark removal, so you can share your TikTok videos across other platforms without the tell-tale watermark giving you away.
Piktochart
AI-led infographic maker Piktochart helps creators and marketers create infographics in seconds. Simply input your idea or keywords into the AI-generator and get a ready-made infographic in return – ideal for repurposing key concepts from your videos into shareable graphics.
Choose from Piktochart’s template library and customize your infographic design to your brand, so it looks and feels like you. Piktochart also has a built-in tool to help you repurpose video content, as well as a customizable report generator and presentations tools.
How to repurpose video content with ChatGPT
If you’re looking for help with how to repurpose video content, ChatGPT is an ideal tool to generate ideas, create outlines, and dramatically reduce the time it takes to get your content ready to publish.
You can use ChatGPT to help you repurpose your content in a range of different ways, including:
- Summarizing your video transcripts
- Outlining blogs
- Writing social media posts
Figuring out how to repurpose video content with ChatGPT is all a matter of knowing the right prompts and experimenting to find what works – and then customizing the outputs to make them sound like you and your brand.
Here’s a 5-part ChatGPT prompt formula to help you get started:
- AI persona
- Audience type
- Task
- Extra information, resources or context
- Formatting details
And here’s an example of the formula in action:
You are an expert at [social media marketing]
Your audience is [target audience]
Today your task is to [create 20 social media captions based on the following video transcript]
[paste video transcript you want to repurpose]
Here’s how I’d like to format it [Opening line | Body | 3-5 suggested hashtags]
Download our library of ready-made Chatgpt Prompt Templates – Generate Detailed Prompts to Improve AI Responses here.
20+ ways to repurpose video content – ideas, tricks and tips
If you’re looking for inspiration for how to repurpose video content for your brand – here are 20+ ideas with tips and tricks to help you get started.
One of the fastest and easiest ways to repurpose video content is to create an audio file or podcast from your video. Audio content gives your audience a different way to engage with your content that’s ideal for listening to on-the-go, while still delivering the most essential information from your video and showing off your expertise.
Use video or podcast editing software to isolate the audio from your videos and repost the audio clip with a fresh title, description, and cover image. You might also want to enhance your audio content with a dedicated introduction or round-up so your audience know what to expect from their download.
Related: How to Start a Successful Podcast (Step-by-Step Guide)
If you’re looking to grow your audience on TikTok, repurposing your existing video content is a good place to start.
The vibe of TikTok is very different to other social media platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn. TikTok is all about authenticity so tends to be less polished, less perfect, and more fun.
Part of knowing how to repurpose video content for TikTok is knowing who your target audience is on the platform. As TikTok is a popular app for Gen Z users, you might find that your audience skews younger than your other channels.
Make sure your video clips are punchy, fast-paced, and attention-grabbing. If your original content isn’t suitable, consider re-filming your content in a TikTok-friendly format that highlights the key points and crux of the video but has a more immediate and off-the-cuff feel than your original content. All you need is a mobile device to get started.
Don’t be afraid to jump on viral trends too. Give your old video content a new lease of life by using a trending audio or format to get more views.
Looking for inspiration? Check out how ‘Miss Excel’ launched a six figure online course business on TikTok.
Instagram Reels are another top channel for posting your repurposed video content and reaching a wider audience with your ideas and expertise.
As Instagram Reels are limited to just 90 seconds long, you’ll need to chop up your original content into shorter clips. That means one high-quality long-form video can generate 10+ Reels – just remember to add text overlays or captions so users can draw value from your videos even if they’re watching on mute.
As well as posting to Instagram and TikTok, your repurposed video content is ideal for posting as YouTube Shorts too. Unlike other social media sites, YouTube makes it super simple to turn your existing YouTube videos into Shorts – and you can do all the editing right in the mobile app.
How to repurpose video content into Shorts
- Log in to YouTube via the mobile app
- Choose the uploaded video you want to turn into a Short
- Tap the ‘Remix’ button located underneath the video title
- Select ‘Edit into a Short’
- In the Shorts creation page, edit your video content to choose which section you want to be your Short – max 60 seconds long.
- Add extra features like text and filters to your video on the Preview page
- Click Next to add a title to your Short and write your caption
- Tap the blue Upload Short Button to post your Short straight to YouTube
When you’re repurposing your video for Shorts, focus on the highlights of your video or the best quote. Consider your audience on YouTube and tailor the clips to them.
If you’ve posted your video on your website or on another channel, it’s really easy to repurpose your content for YouTube.
To make your video YouTube-ready, there are a few things you need to do:
- Choose your keywords: Use a keyword research tool to find high volume, low competition keywords that will help your video get found by your target audience
- Write an attention-grabbing title: Draft a title for your YouTube video that includes your keywords so your video shows up in search results
- Make a thumbnail: Design a thumbnail for your video that will make viewers want to click on it
- Write a punchy video description: Add a description for your video that includes your keywords while still sounding natural – and add your keywords to your video file too
- Add video tags: Tag your video with keywords that are relevant to your topic to boost your ranking
If you already have existing video content, it’s so easy to repurpose it for YouTube and upload to the platform to get your content found by more people. All it takes is a few tweaks.
If you’re looking for inspiration for what to post to your Instagram Stories – start using your video content!
Pick out the highlights from your latest videos and share them on your Stories with a link to the full-length video or another CTA. This is a quick way to add value to your Stories content and encourage your audience to take action and find out more.
Pinterest is a hugely underutilized channel for sharing video content and reaching a wider audience in the process. To post your videos on Pinterest, simply add your videos as Pins and optimize them to show up in searches.
Here are some tips to help you repurpose your video content for Pinterest:
- Add a hook: Include a clear hook in the first few seconds of your video so viewers stop scrolling and keep watching.
- Use captions: Include captions and text overlay to improve the accessibility of your videos and help viewers watching on mute.
- Select a strong cover image: Choose a striking cover image that will stand out in a sea of images and tell your audience what the video is about.
- Optimize your descriptions: Use your video title, descriptions and tags to boost your search potential by including your keywords and relevant information about your video.
Remember: Pinterest is a highly visual platform so make sure your video content is arresting and imaginative to win more views.
Infographics are ideal for giving your audience all the essential information in your video at a glance. They can also display data, statistics, and concepts in new and appealing ways that are tailor-made to get the Likes rolling in.
Use a graphic design tool like Canva to create infographics from your video content and customize them to your brand. And when you’ve created your infographic, share it with your audience via social media, email marketing, and your community site.
Use your video content as the foundation for blog posts to boost your SEO and win more website traffic.
Chances are, your video content contains tons of valuable information, facts, and quotes that are too good to waste. Rather than limiting your audience to your YouTube followers or viewers, repurpose your video content into blogs to reach more people.
Learning how to repurpose video content into blogs is crucial to improve your SEO and getting your site found by your target audience. By creating multiple types of content targeting similar keywords, you can improve your authority and rank higher in searches.
The best part? It’s really easy to do. Use your video transcript as the foundation for your blog post and pull out the key points to turn into headings and subheadings. Then fill in the rest of the content and add extra value with graphics, tables, templates, and more.
As well as repurposing video content into blogs, you can go one step further and create written guides. Downloadable written guides can provide your audience with a more detailed and in-depth look at a particular topic or concept covered in your video, while also promoting your paid products or services.
Use written guides as lead magnets to grow your email list and get closer to your target audience – while establishing your authority in your niche.
See more ultra-effective lead magnet ideas here.
If you have video content that’s packed with valuable information, consider turning it into a webinar for your audience.
The process of repurposing video content into live and recorded webinars is pretty simple. Chop up the best bits of your videos and add them to a presentation or pitch deck, then customize with images, write a script, practice your presentation, and you’re ready to go.
Choose to pre-record your webinar content and post it online or deliver your presentation as a live webinar event to connect with your audience face-to-face.
Top tip: Add value for your viewers by including extra resources as part of your webinar, such as an exclusive downloadable template or workbook.
Another way to utilize presentations is to repurpose your video content into a SlideShare. SlideShares are extra shareable content that are usually bite-sized, visually interesting, and packed full of information.
As SlideShare is an authoritative site, you have more chances of your content ranking higher and winning against your competitors – increasing the likelihood that your content will be seen by your target audience and generating leads for your business.
The simplest way to repurpose your video content is to create a transcript and post this on your blog or website.
Video transcripts give your audience a different way to engage with your video content, making it easier to find specific information or skim through the topic. Transcripts also make your videos more searchable, adding more of your target keywords to your content and helping to boost your SEO in the process.
If you’re posting your content on YouTube, try adding a link to your transcript in your video description to drive more traffic to your website.
If you have information-heavy videos, you could convert your video content into a list of FAQs to post on your website as part of a blog post or in your Knowledge Base.
FAQs are a quick and easy way for your audience to find the information they’re looking for – without having to watch a full length video. Oh and they can help your site SEO too!
Keep a look out for videos you can use for customer testimonials too – if you have video content featuring customers, you can repurpose them to use as customer testimonials across your social media, website, and email marketing.
For example, if a happy customer has tagged you in their review of your product, you can repurpose that video content to use across your other social media channels. Just make sure you get the creators’ permission first.
And if you have enough customer interviews or user-generated videos, you can compile them into a full-length video to post on your product pages. This type of content is perfect to build social proof for your brand – and add more dynamic and fun content to your website.
To add another feather to your content marketing bow, use your video content as part of your email marketing strategy to give you more content ideas and add more value for your subscribers.
When it comes to email marketing, there are a wide range of different options for how to use your repurposed video content. Here are a few ideas:
- Embed as clips: Add shortened clips of your original video to an email to send to your subscribers.
- Create a GIF: Turn a video highlight into a GIF to add to your email – and include a link to the full-length video to drive more traffic to your content.
- Convert into text: Transform your video content into informative and interesting email content – ideal for explainer videos and current or trending topics.
A full page of text can be overwhelming for many email recipients – try mixing it up with different types of content to increase the open rates of your emails.
Want to add some punch to your landing pages? Repurpose your video content for your landing pages to help share your message with minimal effort for visitors. Instead of asking your potential customers to read your content, simply add a video that explains everything they need to know in a user-friendly format.
Videos can help to boost the user experience on your site by giving visitors more content to engage with – and an easier scrolling experience.
There are a wide range of video types that work well for landing pages, including:
- Product demos
- Customer testimonials
- How-to guides
- Thought leadership content
To repurpose your existing videos, trim and edit your content to make sure it only includes the most important and relevant points. You can also add different text overlays, a new CTA, and extra footage or information to adapt your content to your landing page.
If you have a library of educational content, consider repurposing your video content into mini courses by splitting up long-form videos into bite-sized chunks. Microlearning is an ultra popular way to learn – and creating your own mini course can help establish your reputation as an expert in your field.
Repackage your longer video content into a snackable mini course to sell as an additional digital product or share with your audience via social media or email.
Related: How to Create a Mini Course (Step-By-Step Guide + Examples)
If you’re already creating video content for your brand, why not repurpose your existing content into a sellable online course? Create a video course that your customers pay to access with the addition of bonus content, downloadable resources, quizzes and assessments, and more.
It’s easier than ever to create your own online learning program by building on your existing content and converting your videos into a step-by-step course, while monetizing your expertise. Use an all-in-one course builder platform like Thinkific to get up and running in no time – and get your content working harder for you.
Curious to learn more? Check out our ultimate guide to Creating A Wildly Successful Online Course.
Use your video content to create powerful video ads – and save your team time and money! Choose the best parts of your video and cut it down to create a punchy ad that’s tailored to your brand. Add an intro, audio, and extra graphics as needed to get your message across in a fraction of the time of the original video, without needing to reshoot.
Related: 25+ Digital Product Ideas
3 top tips for repurposing video content
Here are 3 bonus tips to help you learn how to repurpose video content in the most efficient – and least stressful – way possible!
Don’t try to repurpose video content for every channel
One of the biggest mistakes creators make is thinking they need to have a presence on every channel. When you’re repurposing your video content, be strategic about which channels you want to reuse your content for – and which to ignore.
If your target audience isn’t on LinkedIn, there’s not much point in you repurposing your video content into LinkedIn posts. Instead, focus your time and energy on targeting the channels where you know your target audience spent the most time online – and where you already have an existing following.
You don’t need to be posting on every possible channel. Instead, use your time wisely to give your content maximum impact and reach the people who are actually interested in your content.
Create a routine for repurposing
To help you repurpose video content more efficiently, make it a part of your regular routine. That means setting aside time to do the specific tasks and activities needed for creating the content, so they don’t come as a surprise at the end of the week.
Here’s a brief overview of how to create a routine for repurposing your video content:
- Plan the types of content you want to create
- Write out the list of tasks you need to do for each content type
- Assign tasks to team members or schedule them into your calendar
- Review the task list regularly
For many Creator Educators, it can be tough to find time to do all the things on your task list. By creating a set routine and putting content repurposing tasks into your schedule, you can make sure that they get done.
Batch create your content
When you’re repurposing video content, it can be really helpful to create new content in bulk. Group each content type together and set aside time to do each one. This is especially helpful for social media posts where you need to be posting regularly and on time, every single day.
Here are 5 examples of how to create content for social media in bulk:
- Draft all your social post content for the month ahead
- Design all the infographics and source images
- Generate all the carousels
- Edit all the video clips
- Schedule all social posts with a content calendar
Try batch creating your content to be more efficient and productive – and make content production a breeze.
Get ready to repurpose your video content today!
It’s easy to repurpose your video content to make every video go further – and reach more people with your best work.
If you’re ready to start repurposing your content into video courses, guides, and digital products, Thinkific has everything you need to get set up and get going in less than a day. Use the drag-and-drop course builder to create your own video courses and digital products and start earning from your expertise.
Try Thinkific for free today.
