3 Ideas for Making the Most of Valuable Content

What you choose to publish, forward, and link to reflects who you are. The content you publish becomes synonymous with your brand. And relevant, valuable content will keep potential customers and referral partners coming back for more.

Just say no to one and done

Whether you’re creating it yourself or you’re part of a larger organization, time, effort, and money go into creating quality content. Considering that investment, it’s surprising how much content is only published once. Great content can, and should be repurposed. This doesn’t mean simply reposting a piece, although within the right context (see below) it’s not out of the question. But, getting creative with your content distribution is a good way to maximize its full value.

Get the basics right first

One beauty of our multi-channel, multi-device world is that you have a variety of places to post content — and your audience has a variety of ways to view it. Rather than creating different content for different platforms, work from your primary source. This could be your website, a standalone blog, or one of several social media platforms.

Choose your central point of distribution and stick to it. This is especially important with longer pieces. From that central point, distribute, either as a full article or a partial post with a link, through the remaining channels. Be sure content is properly formatted for each platform. For example, if you don’t have an app for tablets and phones, make sure your site has a responsive web design that will format text properly.

Leverage content by creating campaigns

If you’re not already dividing your content into specific subjects, you should be. As your content library grows, these categories make for better browsing. Categories might include: Real Estate Market Conditions, First-Time Homebuyers, Do-It-Yourself, Budget Advice, etc.

One way to repurpose your library is through email marketing campaigns. For example: If you’re building a drip campaign for post-close customers, you can reuse your DIY posts by providing a link to each in a series of emails. The same is true with your first-time homebuyer content. First-time buyers would also like to hear about market conditions, budgeting for down payment, etc. Following a brief introduction, include the first few sentences of the post. Be sure anyone who clicks the link can sign up to receive content from one or more of topics.

Bundle content

In this scenario, you can republish pieces you’ve posted previously by linking to your topics rather than specific posts. This device is well-suited for social media. For example, embed a link in a post for a new listing to your first-time homebuyer content or promote the best of your DIY posts on Facebook. You can also create other “exclusive” bundles by combining certain topics into courses — i.e. budgeting and financing before you buy, or a DIY series of home projects. To make these bundles exclusive they would have their own landing page. This would give you the opportunity to collect additional customer information by having them complete a brief survey.

While you always need to refresh your content offering, you want to be sure to make the most of the great content you already have.