Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. The Food Writing School earns a commission from qualifying purchases. There is no additional cost to you.
Want to expand your reach? Repurpose your content. It’s the quickest way to multiply your message exponentially.
In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to repurpose your content. It takes a little time, but not as much as you might think.
We identify 32 different formats that you can use to easily expand your reach.
Now, we don’t think you’re going to create 32 different pieces of content every time you publish a blog post. We just want you to realize how many options you have.
Once you decide on which of the various social media platforms most suit you and your audience, you can choose which to use.
We use Canva to create all our social media materials, including some of our videos.
Images
Let’s start with images. There’s usually a heavy visual element to food writing. Use that.
If you develop recipes, make sure you take lots of photos of your cooking process and finished dishes. If you review restaurants or products, take lots of photos of the food or products.
Include a variety of shots. That means close-ups, overhead shots, and flat lays. Pull back a little to include the whole table or glimpses of the room.
When you create your social media materials, use similar but not identical photos. You don’t want your readers to get tired of seeing the same photo over and over.
Remember, all social media platforms want fresh content. Part of that “fresh content” rule includes using new, never-before-seen photos.
Content
Some food writers start with a video, then transcribe it to create the written text and social media.
Some start with a blog, then repurpose that text into all the other forms.
Do whichever feels most comfortable for you when you repurpose your content.
We start with a blog. From there, we usually create a freebie. Most of the time, it’s a simple worksheet or checklist to go along with the blog.
With our pillar content, it’s a longer workbook or guide (30 pages or more).
Next, we create a Landing Page for our freebie using the artwork from the blog post. We use CovertKit to create our Landing Pages.
We also pull a quote from the text, a one or two-sentence quote that captures the essence of the blog’s message.
From there, we create a video. We base that video directly on the post. It’s usually one person talking to the camera mixed in with photos and screengrabs.
We edit the video, leaving room for opening art which we’ll create when we create our social media materials.
Because our posts are the basis for the videos, the videos are usually less than 10 minutes long.
We also use that video to create a YouTube short. We use the quote that we pulled from the blog as a starting point.
Social Media Materials
Next, we create our social material on Canva. One of the reasons we use Canva is because it will resize materials, without having to start over each time. That’s a great time saver.
It’s important to use the same colors and fonts for all of these materials. We also use related photos for everything.
Because we want our readers to recognize that the materials are about one post and come from us, we build in as many visual clues as possible.
For every blog post, we make a list of the required social media materials. Sometimes it’s lots of Pinterest pins, some Facebook posts, and LinkedIn posts.
See the size chart below for the best image sizes for the various social media formats.
Posts Per Platform
For Twitter, we put together a tweet announcing the blog post, a tweet based on the quote. We also put together a tweet offering the freebie, and a video tweet.
We create five Pinterest pins: a static pin, an Idea pin, a video pin, a quote pin, and a freebie pin.
The static pin, video pin, and quote pin use the blog post URL as the destination link. The Idea pin doesn’t have a destination link. And the freebie pin uses the landing page URL as the destination link.
Then we create our Facebook posts. We always create a Facebook post, a quote post, and a freebie post. Most often, we also create an Instant Article and video post.
We don’t always create a Stories post, Live, or Event post. We usually reserve those for pillar content.
Because The Food Writing School works with professionals, we use LinkedIn. Not every platform is useful for every writer. Use the ones that work for you.
We produce several LinkedIn posts. One announcing the blog post, one offering the freebie, and a short one based on the quote.
We also upload a shortened version of the YouTube video and repost the entire blog as a LinkedIn article.
Next, we produce a TikTok video. We don’t do the silly dances or goofy effects. (If that works for you, feel free.) Instead, we make text overlays on top of video.
And finally, we take the audio from our YouTube video to create a podcast.
We spread the release of the various pieces of content over a week, posting on each platform only once a day.
Platform Specifics
Text length: 280 characters
Photos: 1600 x 1900 pixels (minimum is 600 x 335 pixels)
Videos: 1920 x 1200 pixels (and 1200 x 1900 pixels)
Videos length: 140 seconds long
Pins: 1000 x 1500 pixels
Videos: Up to 240 minutes
Stories: Up to 120 seconds
Posts: 1200 x 627 pixels
Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels
YouTube
Videos: 1280 x 720 pixels
Posts and Videos: 1080 x 1080 pixels (square); 1080 x 1450 pixels (portrait); 1080 x 608 pixels (landscape)
IGTV: 420 x 654 pixels
Stories: 1080 x 1920 pixels
TikTok
Videos: 1080 x 1920 pixels
Conclusion
Altogether, we just detailed 32 ways to repurpose your content over ten platforms.
Do you need that many? Heck, is it even possible to produce that much content every week?
The short answers are no and no. Chances are you don’t need that many unless you’re Martha Stewart or The Food Network. And unless you have a team of social media managers, video editors, art directors, and graphic designers, it’s next to impossible to do everything yourself.
The point of this post isn’t to convince you to create 32 pieces of content every week. It’s to show you that you have options about what platforms you use to spread your message.
Decide which platforms make sense for you. Then repurpose your content and expand in whatever way is comfortable and possible for you.
Visit Best Times to Post on Social Media for more information about posting on various platforms.
