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8 Ways To Maximize The Value Of Your Social Media Content

You deserve better.

You put in blood, sweat, and tears to create content, followed the advice of the “experts,” released it to the world, and got…well, not that much.

Unfortunately, this story is too common.

Maybe it’s because your creation isn’t good enough. But it’s just as likely there’s another reason your content has underperformed.

Most creators don’t maximize the value of their creations.

Most blog posts, videos, podcasts, and social media posts are underexploited and leave potential value on the table.

Here are a few ways to avoid doing that…

1. Create Evergreen Content

If you create content about topics that are only relevant today, then today’s the only opportunity you have to recoup value from them.

This drastically reduces the return on investment for your content.

By contrast, “evergreen”content will be just as relevant to your target audience a year from now (or five years from now) as it is today.

Evergreen content is exponentially more valuable than topical content.

My most popular blog post was published two years ago and continues to be the biggest driver of subscriptions to my For The Interested newsletter EVERY DAY.

That’s only possible because the post’s content has no expiration date.

The simplest way to maximize the value of your content is to create things that will have a long shelf life.

Longer relevance equals greater potential value.

2. Pay Attention to Your Audience

Pay attention to how your audience responds to your content.

Their reactions — the comments they leave, things they share (or don’t), links they click, and likes they give — are key data points you can use to learn what works.

What performs well on one platform will most likely perform well on another — even if you have to tweak its format a bit.

This is why I pay close attention to which of the 10 ideas I share in each week’s For The Interested newsletter receive the most clicks from my subscribers.

This data shows me which headlines are most likely to perform well when I share the content on my social channels and which didn’t resonate so I can adjust them accordingly when sharing elsewhere.

It helps me gauge what content clicks with my audience and how best to present that content.

The more you learn from an audience’s reaction, the better you’re able to position your content to maximize its value.

3. Create Modular Content

Consider from the start how you can repurpose your content in order to get more value from it and build that into the format of your creations.

One of the easiest ways to do that is to employ a modular format which makes it easy to manipulate your content because each module has the ability to stand on its own.

This post you’re reading now is a good example.

Each of the eight tips I’m sharing in this post can be repurposed as standalone social posts — because of the post’s structure, it’s as simple as cutting and pasting.

The modular format means this one blog post can become eight social posts and generate eight times(or more) the value.

An even better example is the format I use in my For The Interested newsletter.

As you can see in my most recent issue, the format is as follows:

  • IMAGE
  • QUOTE
  • SHORT INTRODUCTORY IDEA
  • 10 INDIVIDUAL IDEAS WITH QUOTE/SUMMARY/LINK

This is not a coincidence.

This format enables me to maximize the value of each week’s newsletter and easily pull it apart to repurpose elements of it elsewhere.

I can share the image on Instagram, and repurpose the quote, introduction, and each individual idea as individual posts on my website and social channels.

As a result, the time I put into the newsletter not only creates value through the newsletter, but generates about 20 additional social posts which can unlock additional value.

Plus, 99% of my content is evergreen so all of this has the potential generate value forever.

The more modular your content, the more easily you can maximize its value.

4. Create Elastic Content

Here’s a simple one.

If you create a big piece of content like a long blog post or podcast episode, look for ways to convert pieces of it out into small pieces of content.

You can create quote images based on a single sentence, or share audio snippets based on a funny moment.

If you create small content like a Facebook status update that particularly resonates with your audience, look for ways to expand it — for example, turn that update into the headline of a blog post.

When something small works, the chances are an expanded version of it will too. And when something big works, the chances are there are many small elements of it that can work on their own.

Good content is elastic if you learn to think of it that way. And elastic content is valuable content.

5. Share And Share Again

You know that content people liked when you shared it on social media?

Share it again. And again. And again.

Because our social feeds are dominated by algorithms, MOST of your followers have not seen your content no matter how often you’ve shared it.

We overestimate the portion of our followers (and non followers) who have seen our stuff and as a result we tend to not share our content as much as we should.

(We also don’t share because we’re uncomfortable promoting our work. But here’s how to get over your fear of self-promotion.)

The more you share it, the more value you’ll get out of it.

Don’t be afraid to re-share old content as well — especially if it’s evergreen.

That post that you shared a month ago was never seen by people who didn’t know you existed a month ago…and probably wasn’t seen by many who did either.

6. Switch Up Your Headlines, Images, and Descriptions

Here’s another easy hack.

Take an old piece of content and switch up the elements that appear in people’s social feeds when it’s shared — the headline, image, and description.

Now share it again.

Doing this (without misleading people about the content topic) will lead to more people checking out your content because people who weren’t intrigued by the initial way it was presented may be interested in this new version.

7. Syndicate Your Content

Your content doesn’t only have to live on your own platforms to generate value.

Look for ways to repurpose your content by syndicating it to other people’s platforms.

Contribute it as a guest post on somebody else’s blog, get it published on a popular Medium publication, or offer the video to a YouTube channel with more subscribers in exchange for some cross promotion.

Syndicating content is the easiest way to get additional exposure without doing additional work.

8. Have a Newsletter

Can you tell I love newsletters?

There are lots of reasons for that, but one of them is it’s a great way to maximize the value of your content.

A newsletter gives you an additional platform to share your content (and grow your audience), but more importantly it gives you a way to establish a direct connection with your audience.

It’s a way to escape being at the mercy of social algorithms.

Plus, a newsletter can become the launchpad of your content efforts.

As opposed to using your newsletter to share content you’ve already published elsewhere, you can invert the process. Create content initially for your newsletter and then repurpose it elsewhere on your social platforms or website.

Either way works and either way will generate more value for you than you would otherwise get without a newsletter.

Want to see exactly how I make it work? Sign up here to check it out.

A “Secret” Invitation For You…

Since you made it to the end of this post, I’ve got an invitation for you.

I’ve been sending “secret” daily emails with social media tips to a few people. Email me if you’d like to check them out.