Packaging Your Expertise: How to Get the Most Impact From Your Content

Every single one of you reading this has extensive experience and knowledge of our industry.

Believe it!

If you can learn to share your expertise (you are an expert!) you can boost your credibility and grow your business exponentially.

I remember "back in the day" when I was just starting out as a landscape designer, in order to get exposure and build my expertise I had to rely on traditional public relations. I had to get publications to write about me or allow me to write for them.

Welcome to the age of Content Marketing

That has all changed. We are now in a democratized information economy. That means we are now our own publishers and PR agents. We control our message.

Along with this new and huge opportunity comes a lot of work. I know--I hear ya--social media hasn't created any less work for us :-)

Building your credibility, expertise--becoming an authority figure in your industry--requires that you create a lot of content on a regular basis.

Content can include blog posts, newsletters, images, videos, presentations, tweets, whitepapers, podcasts, and on and on.

Constantly creating new content can be overwhelming. I know you're all busy as hell running every aspect of your business and I can't imagine you have a "content creator" on staff :-)

We need to learn how to best utilize--and maximize--the content that we do find the time to create.

We need to learn how to package our expertise!

You do this by repurposing your content.

Repurposing = Less Work

To repurpose content means to take information in one medium, mash it up, extract bits and pieces, expand on points, and turn it into another form.

Repurposing content saves you time and energy. And it allows you to reach a greater number of people with your message because your expertise is packaged in different forms and media.

I'll illustrate this with a personal example. Let's say I create a 60 minute presentation that I will present to an audience at a green industry conference.

Here's how I could repurpose the presentation's content:

1. Offer the same presentation as a LIVE webinar.
2. Record the webinar and package it as a physical or downloadable product.
3. Repurpose three or four of the presentation's main points into a series of articles for this site.
4. Turn some of the sub-points into short tips for my weekly GetSocial! e-Newsletter.
5. Turn the presentation into a three to five page whitepaper that I give away for free to build my email list.
6. Repurpose the content into a 1,000 to 1,200 word article for an industry trade magazine.
7. Repurpose a handful of points in the presentation into a series of tweets and Facebook posts.

The content is the same--it's just packaged differently.

How this applies to you

What can you do as it relates to the content you create as a landscape industry professional? Lots.

Here are some examples:

1. Repurpose a long blog post into a series of shorter e-newsletter tips (or vice versa).

You could write a blog post titled, "7 Critical Things to Consider After Installing the Landscape of Your Dreams", and turn that into a series of, you guessed it, seven newsletter tips.

This is also a great way to move readers from one medium to another.

2. Repurpose the blog post above into a home show or garden club presentation.

3. Turn the blog post into a whitepaper that can be downloaded from your website.

4. Expand on the topic and turn it into a helpful manual that you give to your clients.

5. Repurpose the blog post above into a 1,200 word article that you submit to a local home and garden magazine.

6. Images of your work can be added to your website's portfolio page, uploaded to Facebook and Flickr, tweeted, or published to your company blog (This is called syndication).

7. "How To" articles can be repurposed into "How To" videos (and vice versa).

8. Images can be turned into short slideshow videos.

9. You can even repurpose much of your content into book format. See how Susan Cohan did exactly this using the online publishing platform, Blurb.com.

You have the knowledge. You have the experience. You are an expert!

Learning to repurpose your content allows you to more easily package your expertise and earn more exposure.