After you’ve gone through all the trouble of recording a great video, don’t you think it would be a shame to use it just once? The fact of the matter is that in many cases you can actually repurpose your social media videos and turn that one video into numerous other pieces of content.

If you want to start to repurpose your social media videos right now, there are a few tips that could help you to be more effective about it:

1. Don’t get rid of the original footage

Arguably the most important tip if you want to effectively repurpose your social media videos is to always keep the original footage that you record. By not discarding the footage you’ll have more options available to you when you repurpose the video – rather than simply being able to use the video from the final cut.

As far as possible you should also try to catalogue and keep track of the footage that you have available. Odds are you’ll end up with quite a lot of it as you crease more and more videos, so being able to find the specific clips that you need in a rush can be very helpful.

2. Optimize the duration based on the platform

Viewing patterns can differ greatly between social media platforms, and for example 5 to 10 minutes videos may be fine on YouTube, but on Facebook 1 to 2 minute videos (at most) are ideal. Some platforms such as Instagram and Twitter prefer videos that are much shorter than that as well.

Because of this the best way to repurpose social media videos is to come up with a different version for each platform – and optimize the duration accordingly. In some cases that may mean breaking up longer videos into shorter and more specific topics, or it may simply require you to trim out any bits to shorten it.

3. Transcribe videos and turn them into text-based content

Overall it is always a good idea to transcribe videos, as it will let you create captions and subtitles. On top of that however it is also a great way to repurpose the videos you publish on social media and turn them into text-based content for a blog or website.

In addition to transcribing the videos you could take a few screenshots as images to add to your content. Effectively all it would take is a bit of editing to turn your transcript into an article.

4. Create highlight videos and lists

Don’t just focus on how you can extract and spin-off your social media videos, but also consider ways that you can combine them. One of the best options is to create highlight video compilations, or ‘best of’ lists that make use of footage from several of your videos.

In order for this to be an option you need to have several social media videos that are structured around a similar theme. For example if you publish travel videos on social media, you could extract highlights from several videos and turn it into a ‘best destinations to visit’ video.

5. Use the audio track as a podcast

Educational and instructive videos can make for some great podcasts, and you should consider repurposing them as such. The only caveat is that the voiceover that describes each step needs to be clear enough to stand on its own – otherwise you may have to record additional audio to provide further explanations.

Once you extract the audio and create a podcast, you should try to distribute it via various channels.

Make no mistake there are lots of other ways to repurpose social media videos, but the tips above should give you more than enough to chew on for a start. As you can see the manner in which you repurpose videos will vary depending on what types of videos you’ve published.

If for any reason you don’t have the original versions of the videos, you needn’t worry too much. In most cases you can download the version that you’ve published on social media, or in a pinch you could use a screen recorder to record for example Facebook video or other videos from other platforms. For example you could try Movavi Screen Recorder, due to how easy it is to use.

All in all repurposing social media videos is definitely an option worth keeping in mind. Not only will it let you add to your stable of content, but you’ll also maximize the value of the videos that you create.