3 Tips for Content Repurposing with Dominique Dunlop
Branding with Friends | Episode 36
Stuck on that never-ending content creation train? Hop off and grow your practice with content repurposing expert, Dominique Dunlop, on this episode of "Branding with Friends."
Meet Dominique Dunlop, content repurposing expert & Pinterest strategist.
Annie: Hi there, welcome to a new episode of Branding with Friends, the show where branding meets key business topics. Here you're going to learn tips straight from the experts on everything from hosting VIP days to inclusivity to delegating the details. We focus on what you can do right now to use these topics plus the power of branding to attract your ideal clients. I'm your host branding expert Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative, I help service business owners tell their story and show their value through clear messaging and consistent branding. I'm also a former Disney storyteller, a professional speaker and the author of two best selling books, “Establish Yourself” and “Permission to Try”. And today I'm really excited to introduce you to one of my new friends in the business world. If you have been creating content or curious about creating content and you want to make the most of what you've got, you're gonna love today's guests and today's episode. My guest today is the incredible Dominique Dunlop. Dominique is a former teacher turned digital marketing obsessed Canadian mom of two. Through her Done for You content repurposing services, Dominique helps you develop a low effort, but high traffic marketing strategy that will allow you to be everywhere your clients are without leading to content burnout. Oh, who doesn't want that? Thank you for being here. Dominique.
Dominique: I'm so excited to chat with you today.
Annie: Yes, and we're here on Branding with Friends, we're going to be talking about content repurposing, how that intersects with branding. And I love this topic, because I know I have been on the content creation train for years. And I think the art of not going nuts or going, not burning out, is being smart with your content. So I was so excited to learn that this is a zone of genius for you around content repurposing. Before we get into, you know, Dominique is gonna share her three tips, we're going to have one tip at the end. So make sure you stay to the end to hear how you can connect with Dominique as well. But before we get to those sort of action tips, could you just tell me a little bit, like how did you get into this world of content repurposing?
Dominique: Um, through a series of online rabbit holes I fell down. As you mentioned, I'm a former teacher. And when I left the classroom, I turned to the digital online space to try to figure out my next steps. And I've gone through kind of a series that's led me here. I am also a Pinterest strategist. And really what I was finding with my Pinterest clients was that a lot of them, even though they wanted to be using Pinterest, and their audience was there waiting for them, and they really could be leveraging the Pinterest platform so effectively, they didn't have the content side sorted out. And if you don't have that, you don't have a Pinterest presence. So that, kind of one thing led to another, I started doing some content repurposing and blogging for some of my Pinterest clients. And now I've kind of got the two sides of my business. And some of my clients are just content repurposing. Some of them are just Pinterest, and some of them I do, yeah, the whole deal for them. Yeah.
Annie: So so, just so we all are using the same language because some people may be new to this world. How do you define content repurposing, taking the content that you've already created?
Dominique: So for a lot of my clients, that's a podcast that they're focusing as their core content, and then slicing, dicing, chopping, squeezing all of the goodness out of that. Until you just aren't creating content for all those other platforms, you can focus in on your zone of genius, and get all that content that you need to be omnipresent and market your business across multiple platforms without just spending your life creating content. Yeah.
Annie: I think there's a lot of pressure that marketing gurus kind of put on all of us, especially the coaches and consultants of the world, where we feel like we've always got to be churning out things, but so many of us don't realize that if we sent it out once almost nobody saw it. Right, and that even things like this, I think Branding with Friends is a great example, that episodes, average episode’s about 20-25 minutes, that we say nuggets here that could easily between both of our work be chopped up and shared on Instagram, LinkedIn, written up. Like I'm sure there's lots of things you'll share with us today, but thank you for kind of downloading us on what we mean by content repurposing, what is that. And so you know, I know you brought along our tips today. If you’re a coach, consultant, or service business owner, what is the first step to getting started with content repurposing?
#1 Action TIP
Create a content bank or library of evergreen content
Dominique: Don't repurpose everything. I see so many people that they go all in, we're going to start repurposing so they're pulling everything that they've ever created repurposing. If you're not focusing on creating, or sorry, if you're not focusing on repurposing your best content, I like to tell my clients it’s really no different than putting lipstick on a pig. If it wasn't good content to begin with, it's not going to be good content necessarily in a different format. So really honing in on what content is really speaking to your ideal audience, what content has your really strong core messaging that you want to be sharing? Because the reality is, you really don't need more than a dozen, maybe two dozen pieces of good solid core content to repurpose like crazy and keep up on all the platforms, you don't need to repurpose everything.
Annie: Like that's a really good thought, especially those of us who have a lot of content or years of content, that it's not about chopping up absolutely everything you can. And this is where I think there's those intersections with branding. It’s, branding at its heart is a lot of making decisions about what you want to be known for. And so it sounds like a big tip for you is going through all of your content and looking at it with a strategic eye of, well, if somebody found this, like, does this attract the right person? Right? It was what I really, maybe it was what I wanted to do in the past, but is it what I want to do now? Because content for content sake, it's not about, a lot of what I'm hearing for you is like it's quality over quantity.
Dominique: Absolutely. And you can turn the quality into quantity by doubling down. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Annie: So so that was our first tip that you shared with us, which is to repurpose our best content. What is the second thing that we should keep in mind?
#2 ACTION TIP
Focus on your best content for repurposing.
Dominique: Don't repurpose everything. I see so many people that they go all in, we're going to start repurposing so they're pulling everything that they've ever created repurposing. If you're not focusing on creating, or sorry, if you're not focusing on repurposing your best content, I like to tell my clients it’s really no different than putting lipstick on a pig. If it wasn't good content to begin with, it's not going to be good content necessarily in a different format. So really honing in on what content is really speaking to your ideal audience, what content has your really strong core messaging that you want to be sharing? Because the reality is, you really don't need more than a dozen, maybe two dozen pieces of good solid core content to repurpose like crazy and keep up on all the platforms, you don't need to repurpose everything.
Annie: Like that's a really good thought, especially those of us who have a lot of content or years of content, that it's not about chopping up absolutely everything you can. And this is where I think there's those intersections with branding. It’s, branding at its heart is a lot of making decisions about what you want to be known for. And so it sounds like a big tip for you is going through all of your content and looking at it with a strategic eye of, well, if somebody found this, like, does this attract the right person? Right? It was what I really, maybe it was what I wanted to do in the past, but is it what I want to do now? Because content for content sake, it's not about, a lot of what I'm hearing for you is like it's quality over quantity.
Dominique: Absolutely. And you can turn the quality into quantity by doubling down. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Annie: So so that was our first tip that you shared with us, which is to repurpose our best content. What is the second thing that we should keep in mind?
Dominique: One of the biggest things that I do with my clients, well, when we're finding that best content, first, we start with a content audit. And that's where we're really digging in, what content do you already have? Or what ideas do you even have that maybe we should be digging deeper into? Once we've got that content audit, and we've decided what content makes sense to focus on the repurposing, then we take it and as that content’s repurposed, turn it into an evergreen content bank. Because if I have that evergreen content bank sitting there always ready, it's never going to matter if my kids wake up sick, or I want to go on vacation, or I'm just so burnt out from whatever my current launch is that I couldn't think of coming up with a new idea, even if I tried. I've got that evergreen content bank sitting there. So I can always pull from it. Some of that content may have already been published, some of that content might have been created. And its sole intention is to sit there in my content bank for those days that I just need to post something. Maybe my kids, you know, when summer vacation rolls around, if I've got that good solid content bank, I might be able to sit down in the spring, plan out my entire summer of content without ever actually turning my phone on, recording anything new.
Annie: I'm sure that's like music to people's ears, right. I love, and I love the the strategy. Like I'm big on strategy. A lot of people are big on tactics. I'm big on strategy, what is the point of all this right? So I love that you've done it in this order, which is if you have a lot of content, focusing in on your best content, the second step being take that content and turn it into an evergreen content bank, so that you are not on this constant churn machine. And it sounds like there's some permission in here to be able to repeat yourself. How do you feel about that?
Dominique: Yeah, why not? If you think of TV commercials, how many times have you ever seen the same TV commercial? They want you to, quicker picker upper, jingles...
Annie: Yeah. Great.
Dominique: And I think back to our childhood, which my kids aren't going to experience this because they're Netflix kids, but I think that I do all the jingles to the Christmas toys that were coming out and the cleaning supplies, like I know them. Why? Because that was the whole point.
Annie: Yep, they got played and played and played and played.
Dominique: Yeah. And I find in the online space, all of a sudden people start panicking for some reason, think they're boring their audience when they're saying the same thing repeatedly. Yeah. Well, we were talking briefly before we got on today about clear messaging. And if you're not saying the same thing repeatedly, your audience really doesn't know what you're offering. If you change gears every week, I don't know what you offer. Exactly, exactly. It has to be so clear, and it has to be repeated. And that's the beauty of content repurposing is it's not a copy and paste, spray and pray kind of mess. We're taking it strategically. And we're turning it into different formats, getting it in front of different audiences, first of all, because as far as boring your audience, nobody cares about your marketing nearly as much as you do. Yeah, truth. Nobody even knows that you posted that reel six months ago. And you know, what if they do, so what? It was 15 seconds of their life, like, right, yeah, but I think, I think we carry sort of some assumptions or positions, things that that were from the analog world into our online lives, you know, the things that we owe, you know, we people get tired if we repeat the same things.
Annie: But I love that use, the analogy of the commercials. Uh, Draya Jones, who's one of our friends here on Branding with Friends, has come on and talked a lot about how you should be bored by your message. Yeah, and I'm a big believer in that because, you know, like, say, like a jingle, one of the things I talked about in my new book, “Establish Yourself”, is this idea of playing your hit song. So that's like, that's what branding is, is like deciding on what your hit song is going to be. So having it professionally produced, getting it out, and getting on the road and playing the song, enough that people learn the lyrics and sing it back to you. And then they want the album, right, and then they want the t-shirt, and then they're gonna tell their friends. But that never happens if you are constantly changing the lyrics and the melody, like no one gets to learn your song to sing it back to you. And that's, that, to me is like, the I think this is so well aligned to the world of how to repurpose content. And I think this is just a message that people really need to hear. So I'm really glad that it's not coming just from me, as I always try to share it because it's like, and I have to tell myself that too, because I think for years, I just looked at all these marketing gurus and went, oh, they're always creating new things every day, this is so hard. But if I looked at it as a simple equation of, I think you said something like 12 to 20 really great pieces of like, what is it you teach, what is it you believe? I'm constantly working with clients, coaches, and consultants who aren't really not clear on like, what they teach, what they're selling, because they think a business is just selling a skill set. And it's not, it's having a perspective and a point of view. So what is it that you believe? And how are you talking about that? I think, you know, if it comes out in a podcast, great, if it comes out in a blog post, but what Dominique is here to say is that those things can be then chopped up and put in front of new people to experience and you don't have to constantly come up with new frameworks and concepts and ideas, you just need to make sure that people are hearing them consistently like a hit song.
Dominique: I love that analogy. That's such a perfect analogy. And to tag on to that, when you have a song artist, yeah, they're going to put up albums, not every song on that album is going to be a hit and climb to the top. But when you fall in love with that artist, then you're going to buy their album and find those other songs and those other gems. And that's kind of what all of that extra content that you have is, that's those gems that are going to lead the audience that really has fallen in love with you. Yeah, you're gonna pull them even further. But those hits, that's where we want our marketing to be. Yeah, that's how people discover you.
Annie: Like, that's the thing of that, like, that magic. And I think there's just so much in this angle of things like there's so many people talk about content creation, and not enough talk about what to do with the content you have created. So I'm just so glad that you are on that bandwagon and preaching that because I think it is really important. And I love that you were talking about these sort of cut down pieces of content or content repurposed as those are the B-sides and the, you know, my favorite song on the album is one people don't know, but it's like my thing, and the the fan building, right, that this creates and the world that it creates without you having to do a lot of work. I think you said it in your biography, low effort, high traffic, I'm big on that like low effort, high impact, low cost, high impact, like, let it double, triple, quadruple work for you. So I love that you've shared that. So, so far, you've told us we should repurpose our best content, really double down on the kind of work we want, what we want to be known for, then we should take that content and really wisely put it into a bank. So we are not constantly on this wheel of sharing new things. So we kind of take the time, I call it batching, and other people call it batching. You know, sitting down for a couple of days again to get it straight. And then you're good to go for a year or more, who does that? Yeah. So I know you've got one more tip for us. But I also want to make, want to make sure that people can connect with you after today. And I know that you've brought along something fun for Branding with Friends listeners. So what is it that you had brought along that would help us on our content repurposing journeys?
Don’t miss this special opportunity for “Branding with Friends” fans…
Grab Dominique’s FREE Guide To Creating A Month Of Content From A Single Podcast Episode!
Dominique: I have a guide for you that is how to create an entire month of content from one podcast episode. So that's going to give you your content for your blog, your email newsletter, any of your social media, all pulled from one podcast episode. And it's got kind of my step by step of how to do it along with a sample content calendar of how you could actually distribute that over a month without boring your audience.
Annie: Oh my gosh, and without burning out! Who doesn't love that? So if you need, if you have been on a podcast, you have no excuse then to get this awesome guide that is going to help you learn. It’s nothing, you know, nothing less than a strategy for how you can repurpose things. I know Dominique is a great resource for this. We'll make sure that the link is here wherever you are listening or watching Branding with Friends, you can connect with her and check that out. And if today's episode has gotten you thinking, oh gosh, I don't know what I want to be known for, I don't know what kinds of content and stories I should be sharing to begin with, I help with that from a branding Done for You branding services and business coaching perspective, you can always hop on my calendar for a free consultation at greatest storycreative.com. Don't miss the big red button in the top. Right. But I'm so glad that you are here to talk about content repurposing, Dominique. So we talked about, you know, focus on one, your best content, build that evergreen bank, and what is that third thing we should keep in mind?
#3 Action Tip
You don't have to do it all and you don't have to do it all yourself.
Dominique: Can I stick in a bonus tip before we get to that? Absolutely. Okay. So here's one of the bonus things that I share with a lot of my clients. In addition to using that best content, also looking for pockets of content that you might not really actually know you have. For example, right now, as we're speaking, I have my phone sitting beside me running on video is actually running on a time lapse video right now. But whether you're recording it with audio, recording a time lapse, whatever it is, record B roll all the time, while you're working, while you're in a meeting, while you're talking to clients, because there are so many gems and little gold nuggets that will come out of those. I'm sure from this conversation alone, I could probably go in and find 10 little audio clips to make 10 Tik Toks or reels or Instagram Stories, whatever it is, or something that one of us have said that could be pulled out as a quote or just a gold nugget from the conversation. So use your phone. It's always with you anyway. Yeah. And as somebody with ADHD, who's easily distracted by my phone, if I'm using it to record something, I won't actually, you can't play with it. Yeah, so it works kind of double duty there.
Annie: Double hit. Yeah, that's like a bonus.
Dominique: But the other thing, the tip that I actually wanted to share was you don't have to do it all yourself, and you don't have to do it all. Forget, don't even do it yourself. You just don't even have to do it all. When we say you know, repurpose the content, when we say online presence and when these gurus are preaching be everywhere do everything, they're not talking to me, who's a mom of two little kids racing around just trying to keep my head above water. They're not talking to you, if you're a solopreneur just getting your foot in the water. You can't do it all on, you can't do it well, so choose the platforms that you really want to be on. Yeah, I'd like to make sure that we've got a discovery platform, so that that's normally Tik Tok, Pinterest, Google, if you're doing blogging and focusing on SEO, so some sort of discovery platform, some sort of nurture platform. For a lot of people that is like a Facebook group or their Instagram account. Email is another nurture platform that I really like to focus in on, but choose your platforms wisely. You cannot be a LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Reddit, and Twitter superstar and run a good podcast and a blog. Still sleep and have a family however.
Annie: Yeah!
Dominique: You can't, you can't do that by yourself.
Annie: You can't do it well, and you can't be profit, a big thing about it is you can't be profitable. And you can't and even if you are perfectly, you can't do it for a long period, because you will burn out. And so what good is that? Right? So like, sustainable strategy is like picking, it sounds like a sustainable strategy, like picking your best content is picking your best platform, maybe a discovery and a nurture platform. A discovery I would assume is a platform where you are more likely to encounter new people and people are more likely to encounter you. And they've never heard of you yet, right? So Tik Tok is probably like the latest and greatest for that, where the algorithm is serving up content that you don't necessarily follow and inviting you to follow it. And then nurture is about I would assume building relationships over a period of time, right?
Dominique: And once you've got those platforms, you're rocking and rolling there, then start looking back at that same content, you don't need anything new, and figure out what else could I do. So an example of this would be I've been on Instagram for a long time. Like most people, recently, I've kind of started to jump ship on Instagram, because it's not serving me the same as it used to. So what I'm doing now, I'm really doubling down on LinkedIn, but I haven't created anything new for LinkedIn. I've doubled down on going through my Instagram content bank to figure out what actually makes sense to repurpose on that platform. Because that's something we find, that your content, it can't be copied and pasted. Each platform plays a different game. And you need to cater to your content to the platform and the audience.
Annie: All the more reason you can't be everywhere, nor should you try? No.
Dominique: No. So really digging into that content bank and just you know how, with minimal effort, can I create a presence on a new platform? Is really the best way to start?
Annie: Yeah, smarter, not harder. And yeah, and I know that there are individuals such as yourself, and we've had a past guest, Brandon Birkmeyer, who also does this, people that you can hire to actually cut up these clips for you and help you come up with a strategy of how you repurpose them. Right? So that's part of the piece of you don't have to do it all, or do it all yourself.
Dominique: And you don't have to do it all now. Right? Yeah, adore that. Like, you know, you mentioned that you've got books, you've got tons of previous content.
Annie: I have so much content, Dominique, we could have so many, so many conversations.
Dominique: Now, if you've got that content bank. Great. When you're ready, then we dive into the content bank, and we start pulling those gold nuggets out. We don't have to do it today.
Annie: Yeah, I think that's, I appreciate that. And I'm big on permission. And I think permission to do business differently, marketing differently, very anti hustle culture, right? Like, you don't have to be on your phone all the time. It's not good for any of us, right? And also this content creation train. So thank you for helping us, you know, get off the train, get out and see a few things in our life, enjoy the islands that we want to go to instead of being stuck on that constantly travel mode and getting to actually enjoy the content that we've created and have it bring our ideal clients to us. So anything else that you want to share with us, Dominique?
Dominique: I don't think so. I think that really kind of covers the big bases there.
Annie: Well, I've learned so much today. So I know that you shared with us that we should always start by focusing on what our best stuff and what we want to be known for, for content going forward. And then we should take that and build a repurposing bank and evergreen bank of our content, you give us an awesome bonus tip, which is always be thinking about content, you know, for especially B roll have your phone recording video of yourself or audio of yourself because you're creating content without even realizing it. And then that really big final tip, which is you don't have to do it all and you don't have to do it all yourself right now, it sounds like. Well, thank you again for joining us. It's been a pleasure talking with you about all of this.
Dominique: Well, thank you so much for having me. It was great.
Annie: Awesome. Well, we hope you guys enjoyed yet another episode of Branding with Friends. So many thanks to my special guests Dominique Dunlop, tune in next time when we're going to tackle yet another topic where branding and business meet. Till then I'm Annie Franceschi of Greatest Story Creative. You can find all of our episodes, branding resources and so much more on our website, greateststorycreative.com. Stay awesome.
“Branding with Friends” Episode 36
Show Notes + Resources
Here are 3 key tips for Content Repurposing in business:
Create a content bank or library of evergreen content.
Focus on your best content for repurposing.
You don't have to do it all and you don't have to do it all yourself.
Resources:
If you’d like to grab Dominique’s FREE Guide To Creating A Month Of Content From A Single Podcast Episode, click here!
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