How And When To Repurpose & Repost Content

When you create content online it's important to remember that:

• All of your new followers never saw it.
• Most of your current followers didn't see it.
• Many followers who saw it don't remember it.

That could mean a lot of your most important core lessons go unseen.

For example, let's think about a pretend scenario for a second:

1. I have core lessons about teaching Creator Newsletters and SuperThreads.
2. I turn a handful of my most important deep dives into SuperThreads on Threads.
3. 75% of my current followers don't see them or remember them, and 100% of my new followers never saw them...

If I only post these core lessons ONE TIME, there's a solid chance I'm essentially wasting extremely valuable content.

Oh, and the best part?

Of that other 25% of followers who HAVE seen it and DO remember it:

• 12.5% of them are happy to be reminded of your best stuff.
• 12.5% of them are not bothered by scrolling past a repost.

All this to say: it's extremely important to know how and when to repurpose and repost content.

But first we need to know the difference.

• Repurposing Content: Repurposing content usually means tweaking content to be able to use it on another platform, or substantially tweaking and reposting it to the same platform as though it's a brand new post.
• Reposting Content: Reposting content usually means a direct repost of the same content either on the same platform or a different platform.

The key difference here is the tweaking of the content.

✍️ The Purpose Of This Deep Dive

The purpose of this deep dive is NOT to teach you how to repurpose your content to different platforms.

The purpose of this deep dive IS to teach you:

1. How to re-use your content strategically.
2. How and why you should repeat yourself.
3. How to what to iterate on when reposting.

That said, we talk about repurposing A LOT when it comes to repurposing your newsletter.

As text-based creators our newsletter is the engine of everything we do online.

We have discussed repurposing it to:

• Your blog articles and SEO.
• Your website growth/CTA flywheel.
• Your resource hub for your audience.
• Your entire social media growth flywheel.
• Your base for the paid products you make.
• Your evergreen paid acquisition growth funnel.
• ... where more than 90% of your revenue will come from.

You can read more about this in my full deep dive here.

But we have also discussed when you SHOULDN'T repurpose...

In our deep dive "Beginner's Guide To Becoming A Text-Based Creator" I discussed the importance of staying hyper-focused on ONE social platform to start, dominate it, and THEN repurpose to other platforms. 

This is a trend we've seen among many large creators, to the extent of seeing A LOT make it to 100K followers on a platform before deciding to expand to others (and some never expanding...).

This is the hyper-focus that allows you to dominate a platform.

At a certain point it is smart to start repurposing and expanding, but I want to make it clear that that is NOT the purpose of this deep dive.

✍️ Another Reason To Repeat Yourself

Still not sold on repurposing and reposting?

What if I told you that you need to be reposting your core content for marketing psychology reasons as well?

Katelyn Bourgoin, the marketing psychology wizard behind Why We Buy, discusses this in the Twitter post I shared above.

She's referring to the Mere Exposure Effect.

Here's what it is:

The mere exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things they are repeatedly exposed to. In other words, familiarity breeds liking. This effect suggests that the more often we encounter something—be it a person, product, song, or even a shape—the more likely we are to view it positively.

The TLDR? 

The more you repeat yourself, the stronger your message becomes.

This is especially important for your Expertise Content.

The content that shows your expertise and are pillars to your overall Brand Identity and unique mechanism.

I discussed this a bit in the intro and gave a specific example, but the mere exposure effect is just another reason why you NEED to be reposting your content.

✍️ Reposting When Your Follower Count Explodes

The first creator I want to highlight is Jade Bonacolta. 

Jade started out on LinkedIn and quickly EXPLODED her following there.

Jade now has 386,000 followers on LinkedIn and 145,000 on Instagram.

NOTE: Jade got in at a perfect time for the LinkedIn algorithm, and had a great base network of connections there to help, BUT also mastered the platform and put out incredible content.

I want to focus on ONE main point, and one sub point: 

1. Main Focus: Jade's reposting and repurposing strategy and how it adapted over time.
2. Secondary Focus: The fact that Jade waited to conquer LinkedIn before expanding to other platforms like Instagram, even though it was a simple repost to be able to repurpose a carousel between the two.

In the image above you can see some of Jade's reposts.

Let's break them down a bit...

🔎 Jade Bonacolta Reposting and Repurposing

• February 16, 2023: Jade was just starting out on LinkedIn, but already having a lot of success. She posted her first iteration of "Ted Talks are free education" (a hook style we've seen often, and one that is highlighted in SuperThread Mastery).
• March 27, 2023: Just 39 days later Jade reposted the same exact post. No change in hook. No change in format or style. Why? Because he follower count EXPLODED. She had tens of thousands of new followers who had never seen this post, and she wanted to give them a chance to explode it (by engaging/reposting) like the first one.
• January 24, 2024: Nearly a year later Jade posted another iteration of the same post, this time as a one pager. This is an example of repurposing her content. But why did she change it so much? At this point the LinkedIn algorithm changed a bit and the best way to go viral was by getting as many reposts as possible (rather than also optimizing for dwell time, which is what the original carousels were great for).

💡 Key Takeaways

1. Pay attention to your growth and change up your reposting schedule accordingly.
2. Also consider repurposing the content into different types of formats.

For example: A lot of my deep dives break down multiple different creators in one deep dive, so sometimes I can write a SuperThread that breaks down ALL the creators under that one topic umbrella, and other times I can write a SuperThread on ONE creator from the deep dive.

✍️ Reposting When You Go Viral

The next creator I want to highlight is Tobi Emonts-Holley, who is very active on Twitter.

Tobi has over 100,000 followers on Twitter, and about 25,000 on Instagram.

Similar to most of the creators we see: Tobi crushed one platform and then began expanding to others.

But the main point of me highlighting him here is for us to take a look at his most viral post ever: Navy Seals Breath Control.

And the best part?

It has gone viral 3 different times...and that's only from what I can find!

🔎 Tobi Emonts-Holley Viral Reposting

• October 6, 2022: Tobi posted his first iteration of this post on October 6, 2022. He already had a decent following, and the post went viral. But then his following continued growing more and more...
• May 23, 2023: MANY people hadn't seen this post, and he knew it was something that had the potential to bring in A LOT of people to his audience and get eyes on his content. So 7 months later, on May 23, 2023, he decided to repost it; and as you can tell by the 6.7 MILLION views on the repost, it was a good decision.
• April 13, 2024: About 10-11 months later, Tobi reposted the identical SuperThread again for a whopping 2.8M views. Not quite his 6.7 million, but still a great result.

💡 Key Takeaways

1. Don't be afraid to repost your viral posts, even when they've been seen by millions of people and you already have a large following.
2. Sometimes it's great to iterate, but you don't always have to, and you don't want to change to much when you do. In this case Tobi iterated on the image between his first and second post (no change in the hook), but in the third he simply added a layer (one extra line) to the hook.

Big Note: Tobi could very well have repurposed and reposted this SuperThread multiple times in between without me noticing. He could have used different hooks and images and completely switched it up. These are just the viral post iterations I was able to find in my digging.

✍️ Reposting Your Core Content

The final creator we'll be looking at is Sam Browne. 

Sam is another LinkedIn creator (LinkedIn is quite easy to deep dive being that creators typically only post 1 long form carousel or post per day so they don't have their reach suppressed) who has over 100K followers.

Sam teaches people how to grow on LinkedIn and one of his core lessons is writing LinkedIn hooks. 

In the post above you see "LinkedIn Hook Writing Secrets" is a massive 42 page carousel he has posted nearly half a dozen times (I believe it is more than half a dozen now, actually).

As you can see, Sam reposted the same EXACT carousel (changing the hook of the actual text-based post attached to it) on repeat every 2 months.

🔎 Why Is Sam's Methodology Powerful?

Let me start by saying this: This is not the only carousel that Sam does this with.

He has about 3-5 others that he does the same thing with.

So why can Sam get away with this? Why does this work?

There are a couple reasons:

1. These are Sam's Core Lessons: These carousels show Sam's expertise, build his authority, and leverage the mere exposure effect.
2. Sam is giving away a TON of value: Sam isn't just reposting these carousels to try to go viral. He's reposting them to give tremendous value.

In my opinion it wouldn't be nearly as possible to repost this often if it wasn't Expertise Content (pillar content teaching your specific lessons that build on your Brand Identity, authority and overall unique mechanism), but if you DO have these posts...consider leveraging them accordingly.

(And don't forget about the mere exposure effect.)

✍️ The Playbook For Reposting Content

My reposting calendar is nothing sexy.

When I write an awesome SuperThread it gets added to a massive Notion doc. 

Sometimes, if the SuperThread is just re-hashing on my story and it's not new enough to warrant a full new section in the doc, I'll add it as a note to another similar post.

But for the most part I have a giant running list of content that I have posted on Threads, and I continue to repost and iterate each time.

🔎 How Often Do I Repost Content?

My general rule of thumb is 3 months right now.

I'm sitting at about between 6,000 and 7,000 followers at the time of writing this, so when I have 50,000+ my schedule may change, but right now this works with my current growth.

AND, I have a fair amount of Expertise Content and core content that builds on my pillar lessons, so it has been working extremely well.

I do keep an eye on few things when deciding to repost, though:

1. How many views did the original post get? I have a post that I loved writing on famous authors "creative space". But the hook completely missed the mark. So instead of my normal 2-10K views, it has under 1,000. I may decide to iterate on the hook and repost it after a month or two instead. (Not many people have seen it; and of the 900 or so views, far less have actually clicked in to read it)
2. How many followers have I gained? There are going to be times where we go viral when we're using SuperThread Mastery. In times like this we may double our follower count. This makes it important to notice that our Expertise Content and core values likely haven't been seen by these new followers. I'll consider bumping up my content calendar at moments like this.
3. Am I reposting Reach Content or Expertise Content? If the goal of the post is reach and virality, to bring people into my eco-system, it's probably not that important to rush the repost. Waiting a bit longer will likely mean more to my current audience. I'll stick to the rule of 3 months or so.

And then, of course, the final piece of this equation is actually knowing how to iterate on the content we're reposting.

🔎 How To Iterate When Reposting Content

As I mentioned with my post on author's creative spaces, I will be iterating on the hook.

The hook didn't work. No one read the post. I missed.

So I already know that's what I'm going to be fixing.

But what if it went viral?

If it went viral we'd be having a different conversation. I would likely be waiting a minimum of 3 months and then deciding on if I wanted to iterate with a slight tweak to one of the lines, or even by using a different image like we saw from Tobi above.

NOTE: You don't want to change to much.

When Mr. Beast teaches iterating on YouTube he teaches people to change ONE thing about the last video. If you change too much, you don't get enough data on what actually changed the outcome.

Iterate on the hook, the image (if any), or the structure each time.

But also decide on what is the most important part to actually change (or not).