Nowadays, it’s not enough to simply press the “Go Live” button and start your live stream. If you really want to grow your audience, you need to diversify your content. The availability of multiple media formats, communication tools, and devices opens up lots of new opportunities for repurposing your content.
Consider how many different content formats you consume daily. Most people watch videos on YouTube, read blog posts, and tune into live streams. Whether you already live stream for a living or just want to try your hand at it, there are so many more ways to deliver information and attract even more people from all over the world! In this guide, we’ll cover content repurposing: what it is, why you need it, and how to do it.
What is repurposing content, and why do you need it?
Content repurposing is taking a piece of content you already produced and editing or reformatting it for another platform or in another medium. Turning a video into a blog post, editing a live stream into a social media teaser, or converting a live broadcast into a podcast are good examples of content repurposing.
So why would you want to repurpose content? Delivering content in a new way across the web helps you grow your audience by attracting new consumers. And you can reach that new audience without having to create new content from scratch. Not only does repurposing content work for live streamers, but also for businesses, marketers, and influencers.
For instance, perhaps the only way you share content is by live streaming on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook. Your audience only consists of people who enjoy watching streams. Imagine how many more followers and subscribers you would get if you made a video montage of your stream and posted it on YouTube. This example illustrates just how useful the repurposing of content can be for every content creator.
Create and repurpose live content with Restream Studio
Before you can repurpose your live video content, you need to create it! The easiest way to live stream is directly from your browser, without the help of any additional encoding software. With Restream Studio, you can go live with just a browser tab, camera, and microphone. The Studio is also packed with features to make live streaming and repurposing content a breeze. Restream will record each of your live sessions, so you can easily download and edit them for later use. You can also use the split-track recording feature to separate audio tracks for each of your stream participants — a must-have tool for producing quality podcasts. And, whenever you go live with Restream Studio, your recordings are saved with high-res audio.
Repurposing live video content is much easier when you have a transcription of your live stream as well. Having a text version of the entire video saves you a lot of time, whether you’re creating a post for your blog, a quote post on social media, or captions on your VOD. A useful transcription and video/audio editing tool is Descript, as it allows you to transcribe your videos and then edit them like a document. You can easily remove all the “ummms'' “ehhhs” and awkward pauses from your video, just by clicking on them and deleting them in your text. Descript also has an overdub feature, which creates audio — that matches your voice! — from any text you add to your doc.
The best part about Descript is that it integrates with Restream, so you can download your recorded live streams from Restream Video Storage directly to Descript for transcription and editing. You can also upload your edited Descript videos into Restream Video Storage and schedule them as live broadcasts for later.
Now that you know how easy it is to live stream and repurpose content with Restream and Descript, let’s look at how you can repurpose your content.
What are the ways to repurpose live streaming content?
Although there are lots of effective ways to repurpose your content, how you go about it depends on your original content format. Here, we’ll cover the most popular repurposing strategies for live video.
🙌 Download, edit, and post
After your live stream is over, you can download the video of your live stream session (also called VOD) and create a well-produced video of the highlights of your stream. All it takes is some basic trimming and Photoshop skills.
First, cut every failed or unnecessary frame, leaving only the best and most important ones. Next, create an appealing preview (a thumbnail) for your video. Finally, post it everywhere you want: from YouTube and Facebook to Instagram and Twitter. You can go even further and embed the new video into your blog or create a short teaser to post on Instagram.
💬 Quotes from video
Another popular way of repurposing content is making snapshots of your live video and adding interesting quotes on top of the image. This strategy is simple, yet effective. And it’s easy to do with Descript as well, as you can easily lift a quote from your transcript and add it to a still image. All you need is a high-quality screenshot and an engaging quote from your live stream. Then, post the result on Facebook or any other social media platform with a link to the VOD version of your video or your channel.
🎥 Instagram teaser
According to Facebook, more than 500 million people use Instagram daily. Instagram should definitely be one of your destinations for repurposed content. There are several ways to share video content on Instagram, and each one has a different video length limit. You can add videos to your feed if they’re 60 seconds or less. If you want a longer video, you can upload it to IGTV, which accepts 15-minute videos from mobile and 60-minute videos from desktop.
So, let’s say you have a two-hour live stream video. You can create a 60-second highlight video to share on your feed or upload a 5- to 10-minute synopsis on IGTV, for example. You have several options on Instagram, so choose the one that suits your content best.
Read later: Fun things to do on a live stream 📍
🎙 Audio podcast
As of 2021, 55% of the US population has listened to a podcast. Podcasts are popular for those who prefer listening to rather than watching content, and if you can convert your live stream into a podcast, you can broaden your audience substantially.
Simply turn your recorded live stream video into an audio file, clean it up, and post it on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the many other podcast platforms out there. Make sure the audio quality is high before publishing. Nobody wants to hear silence, annoying background noises, or volume jumps on a podcast.
🐦 Twitter snippets
Much like the Instagram teasers and quotes from live videos, Twitter snippets can give your content more exposure. These little teasers can be a short video or just a still image. Come up with an engaging title and description, as well as a few key hashtags. And don’t forget to add the link to your main content!
📖 Keep your blog alive
Which blog is more engaging: the one that has nothing but a wall of text, or the one that has engaging images and videos embedded? If you have a blog, use your live videos on it! Moreover, the views of embedded videos count towards the total number, which positively affects your reputation on video hosting platforms.
Posting the transcription along with the video makes your blog post more useful to readers and incorporates keywords so it’s easier for your target audience to find your blog.
📹 Reusing old videos
Depending on the content type, you can reuse your old live stream recordings to create a compilation. Compilations are often used to make tutorials and presentations for online courses. If you have knowledge or experience you want to share, this repurposing content method is perfect for you.
✉️ Email campaign
Email campaigns are one of the most effective marketing strategies out there. They allow you to target your exact audience. Usually, you cannot embed your videos into email, but you can add an interesting thumbnail and the link to your video. Also, your emails should have a precise call to action. What would you like people to do after reading them? Visit your channel? Watch your video? Subscribe? Make your intended action clear.
🤩 Schedule a live stream
One of the most effective ways of repurposing your content is to live stream your edited videos. You don’t have to go live at a specified time; you can prepare your video ahead of time and schedule it to go live whenever you want. Send your stream to streaming platforms like YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, and even LinkedIn. Not sure how to schedule a stream and broadcast it to multiple platforms simultaneously? No worries, Restream has got you covered.
Restream’s multistreaming service lets you choose from more than thirty social channels to multistream. Going live across several platforms at once is the ultimate way to repurpose content — just imagine how many viewers you can reach!
With Restream Events, you can schedule a video to go live and create an event link for it to share on social media, via email, on your blog, or wherever you promote your content. Scheduling pre-recorded streams and videos is perfect for Twitch affiliates, who can reuse their streams on other platforms after the 24-hour exclusivity period ends.
Wrapping things up
Repurposing content allows you to present your content in new ways to reach new audiences. There are many ways to repurpose your live videos, but some of the most effective are:
- Videos into live streams
- Live streams into edited videos
- Quotes from video
- Instagram teasers
- Audio podcasts
- Twitter snippets
- Reusing old videos
- Email campaigns
- Multistreaming and scheduled events with Restream
You’ve probably noticed that many popular creators do not limit themselves to one repurposing method. Choosing the right way to repurpose your live videos depends on the type of content you already have, however. With a useful tool like Descript, you have tons of ways to repurpose your content as well. You’ll need to figure out what works best for you. But remember, the more people discover your content, the faster your audience will grow.
