Everyone talks about how content is king, but everyone is wrong. Content isn’t king — only really engaging content is.

So, you keep putting out great Instagram content like a never-stopping machine. You’re always looking for new ideas to make your images pop and your captions to be useful and engaging — and probably growing frustrated with an ever-growing to-do list.

Now, I want to introduce you to an idea of upcycling — or simply put, repurposing content.

With upcycling, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel with every post. By taking advantage of a few easy Instagram content creation strategies, you can cut your work in half and engage your audience on multiple levels with a variety of creative mediums, while also making your Instagram profile more wholesome.

Why repurpose content for Instagram?

Instagram marketing and storytelling is a full-time job in its own right, but repurposing pre-existing materials alleviates a lot of the work. Plus, an effectively repurposed piece engages your audience again and again. Another huge benefit of recycling content is that it has the potential to give your old blog posts new life, making your marketing arsenal much richer and much more immersive.

We all like to consume information on our own terms. Some people prefer to read long-format captions, while others like to look at the images. Some people like videos and IGTV. Other types of media like Stories and Instagram Live make your connection to your audience that much more authentic.

By allowing your audience to choose their preferred medium, you show appreciation and understanding of their needs. This will only make your brand more likable and relatable.

Are you making the most of your content?

Now, I know some of you will probably say “but I don’t want my followers to see the same thing over and over again on different channels!” To that I say, that most people don’t follow you on every channel. Unless they are absolutely obsessed with you and your business, they might follow you on a few networks at the most.

Besides, they will not remember your blog posts or your newsletter word for word even of they see it again in a week. So, pace out your content. It doesn’t have to be the same thing everywhere. If the content of your older blog posts is still accurate and relevant, give it a new life and ensure that more of your followers will benefit from this information.

What content should you repurpose for Instagram?

The best place to start is by looking at your analytics and identifying the best-performing content on your blog or other social channels, if you don’t have a blog for some reason. What materials get the most traffic, likes and social shares? This is a great indicator of relevant, useful information that grabs attention. Chances are, it will be even more popular in a variety of formats.

I personally prefer to repurpose my content in a form of visual content, so Instagram is perfect for this. People are very visual creatures and a lot of us learn best by visualizing data and information presented to us. Besides, in a fast-paced world with fragmented attention, visuals grab and increase our interest. They also tend to be easier to comprehend.

There is a good chance you have written at least a few tutorials or how-to guides. Can you give these posts an overhaul and create short video tutorials in timelapse mode? They will be both engaging and useful.

Turn your Instagram captions into mini blog posts

This is probably the easiest thing to do. First of all, you have the content already written, and it looks like you’ve spent a lot of time crafting your Instagram captions. Now, if you are an expert in a field, it should be relatively easy for you to take a paragraph or two out of the blog post and create a quick snippet of advice for your followers.

The only word of caution is to pay attention to your Instagram audience and make sure they like lengthy captions. Also, do not go overboard and try to cram a whole blog post into an Instagram caption. A good rule fo thumb is to transform your long blog post into a series of mini posts for your Instagram.

Create graphics for your traditional feed

I love Canva, a great freemium tool that lets even the least design-capable of us create beautiful visuals. The app has some stylish templates that are easily customizable, or, if you prefer, you can start from scratch. I use Canva to create Instagram graphics and quote posts. Since it saves all of your work automatically, you can create a consistent branding by editing the same visual with new text or background image. You may share quick tips, draw attention to important announcements, or simply create a visual variety by mixing images with graphics on your feed.

If your content has lots of data and numbers, you may want to create occasional infographics. Just make sure they are legible, so do not put more than a few statistics onto one image. Create a post with multiple images that are easy to scroll and read. Creating infographics becomes very easy with a few amazing tools. I recommend Piktochart and its pre-loaded templates. Piktochart offers freemium services, so you may start from scratch or customize their free and premium themes.

Create insightful Instagram Stories from old blog posts

This is pretty much the same idea as the point above. You can create a series of text-based Stories that together form a small series of tips on the topic. You can also create short video snippets of yourself going over this information.

This strategy is especially useful to those of us who struggle with the creation of Stories. If you are lost for what to post to Stories and don’t want to share random snippets of your day, this might be a great first step to strategic posting to Stories that further demonstrates your expertise. You might even want to create a Stories highlight (those little circles that appear below your bio and above your traditional feed) and organize your Stories by topic or make them a regular thing.

Go Live with the topic you’ve already covered

You already have the blog post written; you probably can summarize and reiterate its most important point on a live broadcast.

Video content has been rising as a medium of choice. Give your most popular blog posts a makeover by converting the information into a video. A lot of content can be turned into how-to demonstrations or talking-head videos that viewers can follow along. Even if your offering is not very visual or your company is service-based, you may well employ videos by sharing knowledge or using this medium as a blogging tool.

What this option also allows is that you can peak your followers’ interest and point them to a full blog posts they can read. You can also open up a Live session to relevant questions and further engage your audience by inviting them into discussions.

Already have video content? Upload it to IGTV

Whether you like IGTV yourself or not, I think it is a no-brainer to upload videos to IGTV. Give your Instagram followers a chance to catch those videos they might miss otherwise!

Of course, this one is a bit tricky because most of professional videos are shut horizontally, while IGTV is all about vertical videos. This tactic will depend on the types of videos you want to upload. If your videos are mostly talking-head style video of one person, you should have no issues cutting the video vertically and centering the speaker on the screen.

Creating Instagram content doesn’t have to be daunting. Remember, it’s not always about the volume of unique content you’re producing. It’s about engaging your audience with the content you already developed. There is only so much you can cover in every industry, but if you’re being creative about it, your knowledge can really shine in a variety of formats.

Start by identifying what types of posts your audience engages with the most and what medium they prefer. With just a little effort, you’ll be well on your way to a much richer Instagram content library.

Have you recycled your content for Instagram before? What kinds of results did you get? What medium did you employ? I’d like to know! Share in the comment section below or head over to Instagram @lesyaliu to continue the conversation!