Key takeaways
• Repurposing the source material can create more value than repeatedly adapting one finished piece of content.
• A good subject matter expert interview often contains more useful information than one article, video, or social post can accommodate, creating opportunities for different channels.
• Different channels need different angles, depth, and treatment – not simply different formats.
• When people encounter your content on the same topic in several places, each should give them something new, rather than repeat what they already know.
• Planning those different uses at the outset can make subject matter expert input and approval more efficient.
“We’ve already written something. Can’t we just reuse that?”
It’s an understandable approach when marketing teams are stretched. If a customer interview has already produced a good magazine article, why spend more time writing a press release? If a press release already exists, why not simply publish it on the website as a blog?
On the surface, repurposing a finished piece of content looks like an obvious efficiency win, but in our experience it doesn’t necessarily help that much.
Because one of the most valuable things you have after an interview isn’t the article you’ve written, it’s the insight and expertise contained in the conversation.
Once you turn that material into a finished article for one particular channel, you’ve already made a series of editorial decisions about what to include, what to leave out, and what to emphasise. And using that finished article as the starting point for everything else means inheriting those decisions, even when they were made for a different purpose.
One conversation can contain more than one story
A good subject matter expert interview often generates far more useful material than you could sensibly put into one piece of content and requires you to divide the information accordingly to where it will add most value. A customer magazine might need to showcase the customer experience and practical lessons. The trade press needs the newsworthy development and its wider industry significance. Social media needs the most interesting observation or a point of view that invites discussion. The website can provide the technical explanation or deeper context that none of the shorter formats has room for.
The information might all come from the same conversation, but that doesn’t mean it belongs in the same piece of content.
Different channels need more than different formats
It’s easy to think of channel adaptation as a formatting exercise: shorten the article for LinkedIn, change the headline for the website, turn the press release into a magazine article. But the differences should go deeper than that.
A customer magazine may be an opportunity to strengthen relationships with existing customers and share useful experiences. Trade media has to earn editorial attention by offering something relevant to a wider industry audience. Social content has to give people a reason to stop and engage. Website content may need to answer the questions a prospective customer is asking before they are ready to talk to you.
Those aren’t simply containers for the same information. They are different editorial jobs. That’s why instead of thinking about how to adapt content for other channels, you’ll get better results if you reflect on what each channel needs from the source material you have.
Your audience may see the content more than once
There is another reason this matters: audiences may encounter your content across multiple channels. An existing customer might read your company magazine, see a LinkedIn post, and later come across the same project in a trade publication. If every version contains essentially the same facts and insights, the second or third encounter has little to add. You’ve created several pieces of content, but not necessarily several opportunities to deepen understanding. However, if each one takes a different angle and insights, the story becomes richer each time it appears.
That doesn’t mean that every channel has to say something completely different – some audiences may only ever encounter a story once. The key is to make each version worth consuming in its own right.
Start with the source material, not the finished article
This is why the timing of editorial thinking is so critical. If you decide six months after an interview that the story you produced for your customer magazine should also go to the trade press, the finished magazine article becomes the starting point. You have to work backwards to figure out what you need to change, cut, or add to make it appeal to a journalist.
By contrast, if you consider the possible uses when the interview is fresh, that work is much more productive. You can immediately assess: what did we learn? Which parts belong in the magazine? Is there a strong news angle for the trade press? Is there an insight worth developing on social media? What information would be useful to someone researching the subject on the company website? You can then decide what information to use where, rather than trying to make one finished asset do every job.
This also makes more efficient use of the subject matter expert’s time. Instead of returning to the same conversation months later and asking them to review another version of essentially the same information, the relevant content can be developed and reviewed together.
The real efficiency is in the thinking
This may sound like more work than simply repurposing one article, and sometimes it is. But if the extra editorial effort gives you a stronger press story, a more useful customer article, and social content that adds another dimension rather than repeating the same message, it has created more value. The production itself may not even take significantly longer as trying to retrofit finished content is often a more complicated process.
So even if you feel stretched, don’t automatically decide to repurpose finished content. Instead, go back to the source material and repurpose the information. The first merely gives you more opportunities to repeat yourself. The second, however, gives you more opportunities to communicate.
Hannah Kitchener
Associate Director
About the author
Hannah is an associate director in the UK, leading strategic campaigns for industrial clients across the EMEA region. A professionally qualified journalist (NCTJ), she combines specialist sectoral knowledge in construction, energy, and materials handling with a strong network of trade media contacts to secure valuable coverage. Her expertise in inter-cultural communication, honed by degrees in modern languages and translation, is key to executing campaigns that succeed across diverse European markets.
