A Guide on How to Repurpose Your Event Content

What is repurposed content

In case you catch yourself wondering what is repurposed content, it can simply be defined as giving a new purpose or use to existing content.

Simply put, it is the process of taking material that was originally created for one platform or event and adapting it for another. In the case of an event organiser, this could mean taking a recording from your conference, transcribing it and turning it into an article, social media posts, video snippets, guides, infographics... the list goes on and on.

In short, repurposing means recreating your content in different formats so that it can be used across various platforms, mediums, and audiences.

Repurposed event content

Repurposing event content is a powerful strategy to extend the life and reach of your event beyond its physical or virtual bounds.

Experts often pour hours into creating presentations, workshops, and keynote speeches for events. But once the event is over, that content shouldn’t just disappear.

Instead, it can be repurposed into various formats to reach a wider audience, extend the life of the event, and provide value for a longer time.

Repurposed content could take the form of blog posts, social media snippets, e-books, podcasts, or even online courses. This approach not only amplifies your content's reach but also optimizes the resources invested in producing the original content and, could generate additional revenue for event organisers.

Individuals who couldn't attend the event in-person also benefit from the insights shared and, you may convince them to attend next year through the repurposed content.

This guide will explore detailed tactics for efficiently reusing your event content, enabling you to maintain full control via the techniques and technology that we at Waves Connects have successfully implemented for our clients.

What are the benefits of repurposing event content

There are many benefits to repurposing event content, making it a smart and strategic move for event organisers to extend the life of their brand, drive additional revenue and further their audience reach.

One of the main advantages is that it allows you to leverage existing resources and extend their value. Instead of starting from scratch with new content creation, which cost both time and money, you can use your existing material as a foundation and build upon it to create different forms of content.

Repurposed event content also allows you to reach new audiences who may not have been aware of your event or unable to attend. By spreading the message through various mediums and platforms, you can attract a broader audience and increase brand visibility.

Core advantages of repurposing your event content are:

  • Cost-effectiveness: Repurposing content allows you to maximize the investment made in creating event content. With minimal effort and resources, you can transform a single piece of content into multiple formats, reaching a wider audience without having to spend additional time or money.

  • Increased reach and visibility: By repurposing your event content, you can reach new audiences and extend the life of your event beyond its physical or virtual duration. This not only increases brand visibility but also creates opportunities for future events.

  • Easy content creation: Repurposing existing event content means that you already have a solid foundation to work with, making it easier to create new forms of content without having to start from scratch.

  • Improved SEO: By creating multiple forms of content from one original piece, you can increase your online presence and improve search engine optimization. It's also likely that your speakers are talking about "on-trend" topics, making it easier to rank higher in search engine results pages. This means that your event and brand will be more discoverable to potential attendees or sponsors.

  • New event revenue opportunities: By repurposing your event content, you can create new revenue streams through not just additional sponsorship (year round eyes), but new opportunities such as paywall content, helping you engage with your event community 365 days a year. For example, you could turn a presentation into an e-book or an online course that attendees can purchase.

  • Enhanced attendee experience: When attendees have access to repurposed event content, they can revisit topics discussed during the event and gain a deeper understanding. This not only enhances their overall experience but also reinforces key takeaways from the event.

Types of repurposed content

As mentioned earlier, there are many forms that repurposed content can take. Even if you don't know your TikTok format from your LinkedIn post, there are many options that you can consider when repurposing your event content. Some popular examples include those listed on the right.

By leveraging existing resources and reaching new audiences, it's an effective way to extend the life of your event and enhance its overall impact. The possibilities are endless when it comes to repurposing event content, and the benefits are numerous.

  • Transcribing presentations or keynotes from an event into blog posts is a great way to share valuable insights with a wider audience and attract traffic to your website.

  • Short video clips, quotes, or key takeaways from presentations can be shared on social media platforms to drive engagement and create buzz around your event. Link them to the full session, perhaps behind a paywall, to drive new revenues.

  • f you have multiple sessions or workshops on a particular theme at your event, consider compiling them into an e-book that can serve as a valuable resource for attendees

  • Condense complex information from presentations into visually appealing infographics that are easy to digest and share on social media platforms.

  • Recordings of keynote speeches, panel discussions, or interviews with event speakers can be turned into podcasts that can be accessed by a wider audience at any time.Item description

  • Item description

  • If your event has a specific focus, such as industry trends or best practices, you can compile tips and insights from presentations into a comprehensive guide that can be used as a resource for attendees and non-attendees alike.

  • Turn presentations or workshops into online courses that attendees can access even after the event is over by creating sections from each key takeaway from your session. This not only adds value to the event experience but also creates a new revenue stream for your organization.

What is an example of repurposed content?

We attended (and hosted) Event Industry News' AI: Shaping the Future of Conferences session in London this summer.

From this session, we transcribed the session, turning it into an article and created a number of short social clips in varying formats, to help drive post event traction to the website and full session recording.

You can read the article summary here, or watch the videos below.

We have also been repurposing content for event suppliers, taking streams like interviews or case studies and turning them into dedicated landing pages, written case studies, presentations and social media clips.

As you can see, there are many different ways to repurpose event content and each one serves a specific purpose. By utilizing various forms of content, you can reach a wider audience and extend the life of your event in a cost-effective way. So why let all that valuable information go to waste?

How do you repurpose event content

It can seem overwhelming to think about repurposing all of your event content, but the key is to prioritize and start small.

Begin by identifying which sessions or presentations were most valuable or popular among attendees and focus on repurposing those first as they are likely to gather more traction amongst your online audience.

Consider what forms of content will best reach your target audience and leverage your existing resources to create them. Whilst there is almost infinite possibilities of content types you can produce, creating a course requires significant time and planning to deliver well, where a blog and social media clips are relatively easy to formulate and share with your event community.

Don't forget to repurpose content in a timely manner - the sooner you can get it out there, the better. This will not only keep your event fresh in attendees' minds but also capitalize on current trends and topics discussed during the event.

Record your content

In this guide we're using a conference session that has been recorded as the basis for subsequent content creation.

So, the first step is having your content recorded.

It's crucial to get the sound and video (AV) recording right to start with. Speak to your AV production partner to make sure you get the best possible quality footage as without a quality recording, the content may be completely unusable.

Low-quality recordings will not be suitable for repurposing and may even harm your brand's image. If you're recording your event sessions yourself, make sure you have the right equipment and setup to capture the best possible audio and video. Consider using a lapel microphone for speakers, having multiple camera angles, and ensuring good lighting.

Transcribe your content

Once you've captured your content, you then need to transcribe the session.

It's not as hard as you may think. The advancements of artificial intelligence in improved transcribing software means it's relatively easy and affordable to transcribe your event content.

We use software called Descript which is quoted as being 95% accurate in its transcription accuracy, meaning you have relatively little to correct. If you would like to know how we create our transcription and social media clips using Descript, please get in touch

With every video we've ever transcribed, we always listen and watch through the session to ensure accuracy and that any elements that shouldn't be included are removed. You don't need annoying tannoy announcements screwing up your audio / transcription or session interruptions.

Although AI can help you summarise sessions too, which is a huge time saving, at Waves Connects, we always listen through the recordings, making notes of some of the key topics or sections we think could create more interesting clips for social or articles. We use a simple spreadsheet (you can access it free here) that lets us put the session title, clip time to/from, subject of the content and how we could repurpose it such as article, social clip, stats for an infographic and so on. Download it for free here in our Waves Connects Resources.

Once you are happy with your transcription, you can then begin the editing process.

How to repurpose different types of content

In this section, we cover a number of ways that you can begin to repurpose your content for different means as well as the software we utilise to help expedite the process. Once you have created a number of these phases the process becomes more natural and easier to achieve.

Don't be afraid to experiment with different formats - what may work for one event may not be as successful for another.

Create an article summary of the session recording

From the transcript, and the notes that we made earlier, you can start to create an article summary of the session to help drive views on the main session (and it's sponsors!)

Your summary should include key takeaways, quotes from speakers, and any additional insights or resources mentioned during the session that makes it attractive and useful to your audience. Consider adding visuals, such as photos or graphics, to make it more engaging and shareable on social media - remember, word of mouth marketing is your friend - so make it easy to digest and share!

This article can serve as a comprehensive standalone piece, or you could pair it with the full session recording for readers seeking more detailed information. Over time, you have the opportunity to enhance and repurpose this single webpage. Remember, search engines, especially when considering SEO, appreciate the continuous addition of content, not just thousands of new pages all the time.

Create short social media clips

Using the same transcript and notes, you can also create short video clips for different social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. These can be snippets of key points made by speakers, interesting statistics, or any other engaging content that will entice viewers to watch the full session recording.

Using Descript to create social clips

We have a lot of fun creating social clips. There are so many options to choose from in terms of which clips to create, and the potential is endless. From creating text-heavy content clips with only background music or something more playful where you see a number of speakers or panellists talking about different topics.

It may be easier to watch a video than read through this description, so please do check out our resource section which includes videos here, but currently (November 2023) this is how you create a social clip on Descript.

Design your template

With portrait, landscape, square or custom dimensions, it's important to create a layout that resonates with your brand colours, fonts and styles.

You can easily import a background image that includes space for captions, size and shape of video, space for a progress or wave form bar.

Inside descript you can select custom colourways as well as import custom fonts so that your template is consistent and on brand.

Once you have your template, don't forget to save it to a project, for example, Your Event Name. This will enable you to use the same template for all future clips, speeding up the process even further.

For our clips, we utilise simple designs in Canva and import that into Descript, however, you can add custom video / gif style images to the backgrounds to really make your content stand out.

The opportunities are endless, which is why we suggest you view our little tutorial video here.

Add captions to your clips

Adding captions to your repurposed content clips can make them more accessible to viewers who prefer reading over listening as well as help make them visually more appealing to people scrolling through social media.

It also allows you to share your clip on platforms that don't necessarily play audio automatically, like LinkedIn and Twitter.

In Descript, it's incredibly easy to add captions. Simply select the clip you want to caption in the timeline, add your subtitles or captions, adjust your design and font, and you're good to go!

Select your clip and create a new composition

Go back to your main project and highlight the text you want to create as a clip. Right click and select "duplicate to..." then new composition or "Ctrl+Shift+C" automatically does that for you. Click your files down arrow (at the top of the screen) and select the composition you just created.

Add your template to your composition

Above your composition or clip, there's four little square boxes - click that. This is where you can select the relevant template for your new clip. Click it and it will apply to your clip.

Simples.

You can export the full video or publish a link to share with colleageus for comments before it's signed off and ready to share. There are numerous options to export such as the quality of your export, but also add things like your metadata here.

Create multiple clips

Don't stop at the one summary video. Once you have worked through this process a number of times, you will become very efficient at turning your full session recordings into micro-clips for use across social media.

Again, experimentation is key and you will find yourself improving each time you create content for your event. Don't be afraid to try something new - if it works, great! If not, you can always adapt or change direction for the next clip.

How to create blogs and articles from short clips

This is where you would do well to employ a copywriter or someone who can help craft the short summaries you created into something more extensive. However, if you don't have the budget to bring in an external copywriter to support you, there are a few things you can do to create long-form content from your short clips with the use of AI tools such as Jasper.

Your copywriter can utilize the summary points you've crafted as a reference, along with viewing the entire session for complete context.

This will facilitate the transformation of each clip into unique blog posts, articles, or written social content.

The task involves not only expanding on each "short clip" you've produced but also incorporating additional details and commentary to enrich the points made and each clip could cross reference the other short clips or full session recording to make the content even more complete.

Utilizing AI tools such as Jasper can help save time and resources in this process, while still ensuring high-quality written content for your audience.

I don't have the time or resource to repurpose content

It's a common frustration amongst many event marketing teams - "I don't have the time". You have a billion other activations to deliver, alongside your general marketing duties.

We get it.

That's where we, at Waves Connects comes in.

We have been delivering content for clients like this since 2020 and we have the expertise and experience to help take some of this pressure off. We can turn your entire event into a visual marketing machine that keeps on giving well after the "End of Event" with relatively low effort or input from you.

We have been honing our skills with Descript and other tools for many years now and the process we have fine-tuned enables us to create multiple short social clips, articles and other content very efficiently, turning your event into shareable content that can generate buzz and engagement around your brand.

Keep the content human

Repurposing content from your event is an effective way to extend the reach of your event and engage with audiences on different platforms. However, it's important to remember that the content should still be human and relatable.

If you don't read what's been summarised, or don't check content for accuracy and purely rely on AI tools to do all of the work for you, you run the risk of losing the human touch.

Whilst there are event platforms out there that can do all of this work for you, we believe content should still have human influence, someone who understands the context, vibe and feeling of your event to help you repurpose it accurately and effectively.

So, whether you decide to outsource the content repurposing process or do it in-house with a dedicated team member, make sure there is always a human touch involved to keep your event content authentic and engaging.

We suggest utilizing a mix of AI tools and human input to ensure that your repurposed content still resonates with your audience. The combination of both can create engaging and impactful content that will keep your brand top-of-mind long after the event has ended.

Measure and optimize: Unleashing the power of content repurposing through analysis

How do you determine if your event content repurposing efforts are bearing fruit?

The answer lies in measurement and optimization. Here's a guide on how to analyse the impact of your content repurposing initiatives and optimize them for even greater results.

Step 1: Set clear objectives and KPI's

Before diving headfirst into content repurposing, it's important to have a clear understanding of what you hope to achieve. Ask yourself, do you want to increase your website traffic, boost brand awareness, generate more leads or create more revenue?

Once you've identified your objectives, define the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will help you measure success. These could be unique page views, social shares, or conversion rates.

Remember, your KPIs should align directly with your business goals and provide tangible proof of your strategy's effectiveness.

Step 2: Monitor engagement metrics across channels

Once your content is live and distributed across relevant platforms, start tracking engagement metrics.

This includes likes, shares, comments, dwell time, and click-through rates - all dependant on what it is you wanted to achieve.

Each channel will offer different insights, so make sure to monitor all platforms where your content is published and measure what is relevant to you.

By analysing these metrics, you'll be able to understand which aspect of your content resonates most with your audience which in turn, can guide your future repurposing efforts.

Step 3: Adjust your strategy for even greater impact

Measurement and analysis should not be a one-time activity.

Instead, it should be an ongoing process that informs your content strategy.

Based on your findings, make necessary adjustments to your repurposing strategy, for instance, if a blog post repurposed into a podcast episode generates high engagement, consider transforming more written content into audio formats. Remember, the goal is not just to repurpose content but to do so in a way that amplifies its impact.

Measuring and optimizing your content repurposing efforts is not just about crunching numbers. It's about understanding your audience, learning from your successes and failures, and continuously refining your strategy for maximum impact.

So, start analysing, keep optimizing, and watch your content flourish like never before!

Content repurposing is a powerful strategy that can amplify the reach and impact of your event content.

This guide underscores the importance of not just repurposing content, but doing so in a way that maintains a human touch and resonates with your audience.

While AI tools can expedite the process, a blend of AI and human input ensures authenticity and relatability.

Key steps in the repurposing process include setting clear objectives and KPIs, monitoring engagement metrics across platforms, and making strategic adjustments based on these insights.

Repurposing isn't merely about transforming content into different formats; it's about optimizing these efforts for greater impact on your brand visibility, engagement, and overall business goals.

The power of content repurposing is truly unleashed when it's paired with constant analysis and optimization, enabling your event content to flourish like never before.

If you need help repurposing your event content, our team at Waves Connects is here to assist.

With our expertise in creating engaging and impactful content, we can help turn your event into a goldmine of valuable repurposed assets. Let's work together to make the most out of your event!

So, remember, don't just end your event with a closing speech or ceremony - use content repurposing to keep the conversation going and reach even more audiences!