AP 0517: Should I Repurpose My Content?

AskPat 517 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 517 of AskPat.

All right, here's today's question from Eric.

Eric: Hi Pat, this is Eric Gallagher and I blog at discipleshipym.com. My question is I'm considering doing YouTube videos or podcasts similar to AskPat where it's just a Q & A. And I'm wondering if you think there's any problem with doing it, but publishing it in multiple different places? So put it as a blog post, but also the video version, and also the audio version through a podcast. I know Micheal Hyatt does this with his podcast and both audio and video. Do you see any issues with publishing these Q & As in multiple places? Thanks for your input I look forward to your answer.

Pat Flynn: Hey Eric, what's up? Thank you so much for the question. So what we're talking about here is repurposing and I think it's a really smart thing to do. Starting on one platform and doing some sort of content there and being able to use that over, and over, and over again. And you mentioned a few: YouTube, and blog posts, and podcasts of course, but there's also other things like social media and slideshares.net which is a great one too that a lot of people use or you can use them for presentations. You can use them for webinars there's a lot of different things you can do starting with a single piece of content.

So a video typically is what people do when they want to repurpose their content because what you can do with a video is take that video, obviously put it on YouTube. You can put it on a video podcast on iTunes for example, Vimeo, and Wistia or wherever you want to have it. Then you rip out the audio and you have that be an audio version that then people can download in an audio podcast. And a lot of people, like you said, Micheal Hyatt does this, he has his video Q & A show, not a Q & A show, but he has his podcast of course and then it's also available as a video. EventualMillionaire.com does this with Jaime Tardy. Micks Richie, Andrew Warner he does video and then rips out the audio. And again, it's really smart because you are able to serve people in more different ways and some people like to watch and don't like too necessarily just listen only, and vice versa.

And there's also, you can take that audio, and then transcribe it, and turn that into something like blog post or you could take snippets of it and put it on social media or, ya know take big chunks of it and put it on SlideShare. Like I said, there's a number of different ways to go about it.

Now the question, your question, is are there any issues with doing this? And, yes, there is potentially some issues, but there's also obviously a lot of benefits. The benefits being that you just have to create content one time and then work with people, or systems, or work flows to then take that original content and turn it into, and format it, and convert it into all those other formats. And the benefit is you are on many different platforms and you get to serve people in all different ways based on how they like to consume content. And of course it saves time, it's very efficient, and that sort of thing.

But some of the issues, and some of my own concerns which is why I don't do this all the time especially with my SPITV for example. I have that TV show and I could rip out the audio but I don't do that because there's a lot of things that I wanna do in that video that are very visual. And if I were to rip out that audio and put it in a podcast, audio podcast, or any other audio format or maybe even turn it into text, it wouldn't translate the way I would want it to.

So for me, specifically, I like to have unique content on unique platforms. I don't like to repurpose content so much, because I want people to go into all those different places. And I like to, you know, yes maybe I'm leaving some people out who aren't going to be consuming that content on that particular platform because I don't put it somewhere else but I have other content that people can consume on those other formant that they do like.

And my job is to cross promote those different platforms, and if I were to cross promote those different platforms and they end up seeing the exact same thing in a different format somewhere else, well then I feel like I've kind of let them down because they maybe have already seen that. So I think a lot of what has to do here or a lot of what you have to do is just be honest about the fact that you are repurposing this content. You don't have to necessarily say that in your episodes like, “Hey guys this is also gonna be an audio, and I'm gonna transcribe it, and turn it into a blog post.”

You know, you don't need to mention that but I think as long as you don't set the expectation if for example, you're cross promoting that there's new content on those other platforms, and then they go there, and they see the same thing. Well they're gonna be let down, they're gonna feel, they might feel like you're wasting their time, and that sort of thing. So those are the issues with that but I think the biggest issue if you do, do this is taking something that is video specific and having that turn into audio it just wouldn't be as good quality content because it would be missing some stuff.

So if you are going to be repurposing content, you want the video content to stand alone in audio if possible. Meaning you don't want to have anything that relates to something visual on those shows. Which then begs the question, well does it have to be video or is it going to be useful as a video? Because video obviously is very visual and so what are people seeing? Why would they feel engaged? Why would they want to watch a video if they could get the audio?

So again I'm just, spit balling. I'm just mentioning some questions to kinda get your gears going, and to have you think these things through, but there isn't a right or wrong answer. I think there's a right and wrong way to do it but I don't think one is bad. I don't think it's bad to not repurpose. Obviously I don't do that very much. But I obviously think it's a great idea too at the same time but I have my own reasons, like I mentioned, for not doing it. And I think you just need to know why? You know don't just do something just to do something. Know why and figure out what it is gonna be like on the other end as the consumer of that content and what it would be like.

So Eric, hopefully that answers your question. Thank you so much for it. We're gonna send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And I also want to thank everybody out there who's asking questions. And if you have question that you want featured here on the show, and of course a chance to get an AskPat t-shirt sent to you free of charge, just head on over too AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page and just hit the record button and use your microphone. Doesn't need to sound pretty, just as long as we can hear you and it's my job to have the good audio quality, it's your job to ask the great questions, which you guys are obviously doing very well.

So keep up the great work. Head on over to AskPat.com to ask a question, and I also want to recommend heading over to willitflybook.com. My new book coming out in, gosh about a half a month now, which is incredible very exciting and also very nerve racking too. And if you want to support my book and the things that I do here on AskPat for free just head on over to willitflybook.com. The pre orders will be available pretty soon, probably in about a week if everything goes according to plan. But you can sign up if that's not available yet to get early notice of when those pre orders are available and of course there's gonna be pre order bundles that you can get and special bonuses for those of you who get in early and all that good stuff.

So go ahead and check it out, willitflybook.com. Again, that's willitflybook.com. Thank you again so much. Here's a quote to finish off the day for you and send you a moving forward into whatever it is that you're going to do next and this is from Jimmy Johnson. I love this quote.

“The difference between ordinary, and extraordinary, is that little extra.”

Take care and I look forward to serving you on the next episode of AskPat. Thanks so much. Bye.