The Art and Science of Content Repurposing, with Charles Tumiotto

[00:00:00] Tim: Content repurposing can change the game when it comes to scaling your output, but only if you've got the right mindset and approach. 

[00:00:06] You know, I used to approach content repurposing in the most basic way. That's when you take out one of your long-form pieces of content, like a YouTube video or a podcast, carve it up like a giant pizza and distribute across social media platforms. And then, you repeat that process with your next piece of long-form content, and you casually mix that repurpose content in with your regular content flow. 

[00:00:27] Then I had this conversation with Charles Tumiotto. What I learned from him is that content repurposing could be approached as both a science as well as an art. And when you combine this approach with the right mindset, that's when you're really ready to scale your content output to the next level.

[00:00:41] In this episode, Charles shares his insights into each of these areas, and if you're looking to adopt a content repurposing strategy to help scale your content output, I think you'll find this conversation very helpful.

[00:00:53] So let's get into it.

[00:00:54] Hello Charles, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:00] Charles: Hi, Tim. Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:02] Tim: Yeah. Glad to have you here. And excited to talk about ideas, content repurposing and really the mindset for scaling your content production as a content creator. And, I think the ideas question will be important to a lot of creators because it's really amazing how fast you can actually burn through ideas once you start posting.

[00:01:23] So you need that constant stream of ideas to help you along as a creator. And, I understand you had created a framework for developing a year's worth of content in a short time, and I'm really interested to hear a little more about that. 

[00:01:39] Charles: Yeah. Yeah. Basically, as you said, ideas are kind of like the bottleneck of every content business or every content creation journey.

[00:01:47] And so I wanted to fix that problem in a way that didn't involve inspiration or, you know, having these methods of like batching a week's worth of content every week. Because then you miss it one time and you're screwed for the rest of the week. And so this idea was like, yeah, let's, let's take the inspiration out of the equation.

[00:02:09] And let's see how we can create as much content ideas as possible in a short amount of time, while making sure that the ideas are relevant and that they will potentially resonate and work with the audience. And so I put that framework together to take away like all the guesswork and inspiration out of the ideation process.

[00:02:29] Tim: That's great. Yeah, you know, as creators when we start out, I think we're prone to doing that day-to-day kind of production just because, you know, not realizing maybe the value of actually sitting down and coming up with the longer list and as you say, creating them all at once. 

[00:02:48] Cuz you, you kind of have that impetus to want to put the content out there and it takes a fair amount of time to do one good post. So that ends up being all the time you have for that day. So you kinda get caught on this treadmill of continually producing. But it is much better to try and move towards that batch process.

[00:03:07] So how, how does that work? What does it look like to create that? 

[00:03:13] Charles: Well, it comes down to first really identifying the niche you're in. So that is like the big topic, obviously. And then coming up with a certain number of categories. So these are like the main topics that can involve a lot of questions. 

[00:03:28] Tim: Right.

[00:03:28] Charles: And then figure out, what the questions people have in each category. Because creating the piece of content goes a lot faster if you know what you're supposed to be creating. And usually one piece of content, it solves one problem, or at least that's the way I like to look at it, to keep it efficient and productive. And so basically, the framework runs you through this, this process of figuring out what the questions are and finding a way to generate as many of those as possible. And it's only using free tools that are widely available. And you just fill out a spreadsheet, and by the end of the process, you end up with 360 content ideas that theoretically will resonate and work. 

[00:04:15] Tim: That's great. And then, once you've got a bunch of content ideas like that, the struggle sometimes is to figure out what to produce next. Cuz you've only got so much time in a week. You wanna produce the best ideas out of that list. And so how do you recommend a content creator get started? You know, you've got your 365 ideas. Okay, what's the ideas for this week coming up? 

[00:04:41] Charles: So, in my experience, I think that eliminating the friction every time is the best thing that you can do. And so, it always comes down to systemizing your creation process and your publishing process and everything. And so what I like to do is once you have all these ideas in a spreadsheet or whatever, you just assign them a date when you will publish them. And so then, you don't have to figure out what you're gonna post or which idea you will publish next. You just basically follow the plan and that makes things a lot easier. 

[00:05:14] Maybe something else would be to publish more in general, because I feel like publishing more takes away some of the pressure around the results. Like, the more you publish, the less it matters.

[00:05:26] Tim: Yes. 

[00:05:27] Charles: So that's also maybe a solution. 

[00:05:31] Tim: I like that. And, I think the other thing is to maybe just mix up the types of posts. So you might have some that are educational, some that are inspirational, you know, some that are, you know, some other purpose. Just have a rotating approach to the types of content that you're putting out there and the format too, depending on your platform, right?

[00:05:51] Like, if you're on Instagram, you probably wanna mix up carousels and single posts, and reels, and so on. And then you can also repurpose within those formats. So something that is a carousel can become a Reel, or vice versa. So you can kind of keep the content going that way as well.

[00:06:09] Charles: Yeah, that comes down to the same sort of like systemizing, where it could be something like every Tuesday and Thursday I'm publishing a like a Reel. 

[00:06:18] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:06:18] Charles: And every Wednesday, I'm publishing a podcast. And so, like if you have a rigid system like that, you basically don't really have to wander.

[00:06:26] Tim: It's amazing how much time sometimes can be expended, kind of overthinking. Like, okay, it's Tuesday; what am I gonna post? So anything you can do to take that away and make it more, like you say, systematic, is definitely gonna help.

[00:06:39] And if you're a small creator, let's say, and you want to get started in content repurposing, how do you approach it at a smaller scale? Cuz you might be thinking, well, I can. I can repurpose maybe from Instagram to TikTok, but I don't know if I'm ready to take on YouTube yet, or what have you. So do you have any recommendations about, how to figure out the right scale of repurposing and content production? 

[00:07:02] Charles: Yeah. Well, I think if you are a small creator, or if you wanna keep it small, the easiest thing you can do is find like the repurposing that will take a very little time because the formats are very similar, right? 

[00:07:16] So, for example, it would be if you film a podcast like we're doing right now. You have that video ready, and you can publish it on YouTube. You can have the audio only and publish it as a podcast. You could use Like a program like Descript to have all the conversation laid out as text and you can publish that as a blog post. If you have a blog post, you can publish that on LinkedIn as well. If you have a blog post, you can cut it into tweets. And so, that's kind of the way I like to approach it, if you wanna keep it very simple.

[00:07:45] Right. 

[00:07:46] But, yeah, basically, even at scale, the system is actually the same. It's kind of like listing what all the platforms are, what all the formats are, and seeing how you can go from one to another.

[00:07:58] Tim: Yeah. And what's your approach? Do you recommend just basically reposting the same thing, like if you have a short form video, would you post that exact same short to Reels, TikTok, and YouTube? And do you do it all at once or do you try to vary the timing of it so that the feeds are a little different? 

[00:08:17] Charles: No, I. I publish it all at the same time usually, and I publish it everywhere. The reason is because people that do follow you usually don't follow you everywhere, 

[00:08:26] Tim: Right. 

[00:08:27] Charles: So if, if you publish on YouTube, they might not see out Instagram later. And if someone follows you, like does follow you everywhere, then they're a big fan and they won't get like, tired of your content. So, like, that doesn't really matter. 

[00:08:40] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:08:40] Charles: And also it's because of the, the way algorithms work in general. Like, you're not guaranteed that someone that follow you is going to like, see every single piece of content that you post.

[00:08:52] Tim: Correct, yeah. 

[00:08:52] Charles: And so that is a way to make sure that you reach everyone. I think it's also it comes down to like systemizing. But I think it makes it easier to publish at all at the same time. It leaves less room for error, or forgetting a piece of content, or something like that. So, I really like when things are very systemized so that I don't forget, or that I don't really have to think about it. 

[00:09:15] Tim: I can see that theme and, and it, and it makes a lot of sense because it will just it'll make things so much more simpler as a, as a creator. And I think you're right in, in, in reality, there's very few people that will actually follow you on, on all the platforms. Like maybe our mom or something like that, but that's about it. 

[00:09:35] Charles: Yeah, she would be happy to see the same piece of content multiple times on multiple platforms. 

[00:09:39] Tim: So, so, are there any pitfalls, about repurposing to watch out for as a creator? 

[00:09:48] Charles: I mean, not really. Maybe the main one would be to be wanting to be milking a piece of content a bit too much. Where it's like you take a piece of content that doesn't have that much substance, right. And you create like 15 shorts out of it, or 15 blog posts, or whatever. Because the more you repurpose, obviously, the more meaning and context you lose. And so I guess that would be the main one. 

[00:10:10] Tim: Yeah, that's a good point. I noticed, like on YouTube, you can get penalized if you post the same content repetitively across multiple platforms. So it is something to watch out for. 

[00:10:25] Charles: Yeah. Also, sometimes if you really want to try to cover every single platform, you end up spending more time and energy repurposing than actually creating more pieces of content.

[00:10:35] Tim: Right. 

[00:10:35] Charles: So that can be also another one that is not that great. But other than that, I think repurposing is an amazing way to maximize the output of content that you have. 

[00:10:46] Tim: Yeah. And the only thing I'd add to that is just the importance of engagement along with all the repurposing that you're doing. Because I think that's the pitfall I see sometimes is creators getting caught up so much with content output that they forget about, you know, the importance of engagement not just with the people who are replying to your posts, but also reciprocating that engagement on other people's posts and really using that as the basis for creating a community.

[00:11:14] So the time you're saving with repurposing, just making sure that we redeploy it strategically, and it's not just like, okay, I've saved time by repurposing. I'll just, I'll just do more content push. 

[00:11:27] Charles: Yeah. right, 

[00:11:27] Tim: Because then if it becomes like the one way conversation, it's hard to attract followers that way, especially when you're a small account and you don't have that social proof for other people to say, oh yeah, this is someone I should follow. 

[00:11:41] Charles: Yeah, that's very true. And you brought up, like saving time. I like to think of content repurposing in a different way. I like to think that it's saving energy, or like right inspiration, more than saving time. Because ultimately you're not saving that much time. You're still spending a lot of time creating content. 

[00:11:58] Tim: That's a good point. And then what would be the benefits of working with a content agency to do this as opposed to using automation tools? Because there are tools out there, like Repurpose.io and other tools, that you can use to, as you say, just kind of instantly repurpose everything. So what would be the benefit of, of using a, you know, an agency as opposed to, to the automation? 

[00:12:24] Charles: I think they're both great. But, to me, they serve different purpose purposes. So, obviously, I run a repurposing content agency, so I'm a little biased and I cannot speak for every agency out there.

[00:12:36] But when I repurpose content for clients. I actually go through the content and actually watch the thing, or consume the piece of content. 

[00:12:42] Tim: Right. 

[00:12:43] Charles: And then I am like, repurposing it, and like cutting into shorter pieces or whatever. Like, I'm looking for hooks; specifically, I'm looking for things that make sense out of context, 

[00:12:53] Tim: Right.

[00:12:54] Charles: Yeah, I'm really digging in there and really making sure that what I'm putting out will be valuable for the audience and also the creator. When you use an automation tool, they do an amazing job, and AI is like definitely getting better and better. But I feel like the moments that are captured are a little bit random and don't necessarily make a lot of sense. And, like to me, , you can tell that there, there is not a human that has been behind that piece of content. Like sometimes it's not captivating, sometimes it doesn't really capture your attention like right off the bat, which is really important. 

[00:13:29] And so to me that would be the main problem if you're working with an AI tool, but obviously the, the cost is much lower. So, if you're at a smaller scale. And if you wanna get started in it and like get a feel. If it's for you, if your audience likes it, then an AI tool is amazing. But ultimately, if you take it seriously, and it's like a major part of your content creation process, then I think going by an agency that actually consumes the content and tries to figure out actively how to maximize the impact of this content, I think that's key. 

[00:14:03] Tim: Yeah, having some experience with those tools, I found that it does take some time to refine the clips. Even if, as you say, they've been identified, you usually want to tweak it a bit or customize it a little bit for each platform because the captions don't always carry over in a way that makes sense, or what have you. So, so there is a little bit of work to do. 

[00:14:24] And so, and you talk about like saving energy, that would definitely be a benefit of working with an agency, cuz you know, they're gonna take care of that for you. And then, just outside of that, it's not as, as customized. Or you can make it look a lot better if there's a person on the other end just putting in a bit of effort on it. Because sometimes the, the templates used in the repurposing tools are just very, kind of static, and they're not, they're not gonna be as engaging. 

[00:14:54] But I think the best use case for it is actually when it's a short form video. You're just reposting exactly the same thing, then the automation is a good case for that. But if you're trying to take like a conversation, turn it into a Twitter thread, or turn it into a carousel, it's a lot better to to have that human intervention and make it look nice. 

[00:15:15] Charles: Definitely. 

[00:15:15] Tim: And yeah. And so it's not all the same. That's the other thing as sometimes with the automation tools, it starts to look very repetitive, like because of the templateized approach. 

[00:15:25] Charles: Yeah,, when I work with clients, we customize everything. We try to match their branding, if they have one. Like we really work with them to make sure that we produce a product that they will end up liking. 

[00:15:37] Tim: Excellent. 

[00:15:37] Charles: Also, we look back on what we posted, and we look at the analytics, and we try to make sure that what we used ,or the pieces that we used, were relevant. And if they're not, we're just dropping that content pillar altogether. \

[00:15:50] Tim: Right. 

[00:15:50] Charles: And we stop repurposing that. So that is also something that a repurposing tool cannot do. Is that we can get to know the client better over time and we also know their audience better. And so in that sense, we also get better at repurposing the content.

[00:16:04] Tim: Yeah. And I guess you're giving them feedback along the way too, like about, you know, what, what's working or not working and why. 

[00:16:14] Charles: Yeah, we document what we go through. Like basically we're gonna be like, well, we tried that topic and that didn't work, so we're not gonna cover that topic anymore. Or, we tried doing interviews, and interviews don't work for whatever reason with the audience.. So we're gonna stop repurposing interviews. And if the client really wants it, we'll keep doing it, obviously. But, yeah, this is the insight that we're providing. 

[00:16:36] Tim: Yeah. I guess it depends. I mean, for me, I'd, I'd find that valuable because You know, working as a creator, the main content feedback you get is is through the audience. But sometimes it's nice to have another expert that is, is looking at the work and just providing objective feedback. But maybe it can be a bit more critical because you know, there you have that opportunity to help the client. To help them, help them move their, their content forward.

[00:17:04] Charles: Yeah. That's also the, the good thing about the agency I'm, I'm back to that question. Ultimately, I want the content that repurpose for my client to be extremely successful, because the more successful it is, the longer I will work with that client. So yes, obviously I've that incentive, where like the repurposing tool, it doesn't have that.

[00:17:23] So yeah, that's why we reflect on the content a lot, and we try to refine it and make sure it's unique, and make sure it's powerful and it's gonna resonate with the audience. Cuz otherwise the, the content just flops. And that's not good for business. 

[00:17:36] Tim: And then, aside from the kind of the the technical, technological or financial barriers a person might have to repurposing or scaling their content, I think there's a mindset barrier sometimes too. Because you know, for creators that are building in public, there's also the notion that they might fail in public, so that they can pull back for that reason. Or they might be concerned, oh, what. you know, if it's really scaled to a large extent, there's people in real life I know who will definitely see this. And you know, just being prepared for that. You know, you probably will run into that resistance to some degree, whether it's articulated or not by the clients. So how do you, how do you help them move through that? 

[00:18:22] Charles: I think it's a few things. Maybe the first one would be, maybe realizing that people are gonna judge you no matter what. Like, that is inevitable. Especially, with content because it's such at scale that like, it's just gonna happen. 

[00:18:37] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:18:37] Charles: So, like you don't have to worry that, oh, what if it happens? No, it will, it will. Like, it, it, it is a certainty. Also, I guess we tend to blame algorithms all the time. We're like, well, it doesn't show my content to people. So you can also take that reflection to your advantage and be like, well, then people that don't like me probably are not seeing everything that I'm posting. So that's, so that's probably a good thing. 

[00:19:02] And I think also behind that there is like a little bit of that spotlight effect where you kind of feel like, because you're putting something into on the internet that like everyone keeps looking at you and watching your every move. But ultimately, people don't really care. 

[00:19:17] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:19:17] Charles: Kind of like, try to remember the last time you saw a piece of content that you were like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing for that person.

[00:19:24] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:19:25] Charles: Like, I, I don't, I don't think it, you can, like, I cannot. I, yeah, I don't know. I don't know when the last time I thought that about something. 

[00:19:32] Tim: Most the time, not. You know, you figure, well, they're putting, they're putting this out there because they want to, and either you liked it or, or you didn't. But you know, you kind of just move on.

[00:19:41] Charles: Yeah, exactly. Like you might cringe for like a minute, but then you just like forget about it. 

[00:19:45] Tim: Right.

[00:19:46] Charles: Like, yeah. Like people, people are not obsessed over over your every move. And also, it kind of goes away. Like the more you post, and the more you get used to it. 

[00:19:54] Tim: Right. 

[00:19:55] Charles: Like if you end up posting, like multiple times per day, because you're repurposing your content or whatever. Like, I can guarantee that after a month, and posting like maybe 200 pieces of content, you will not care.

[00:20:06] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:20:06] Charles: Because you're gonna realize that the vast majority of the comments you're getting are either neutral or great. 

[00:20:12] Tim: Yeah, and I've even heard, you know, like you say, trolling type comments are inevitable. I've heard them referred to sometimes as troll trophies. Cuz it means your content really is reaching a lot of people cuz it's eventually reaching those people who don't you know, maybe don't agree with it or don't like it, but as you say, that's just kind of part of it. And those you know, they only, they'll, they'll dislike so many pieces of content and then they won't see your content anymore cuz the algorithm will will take care of that. It's, it's a good way to think about it. 

[00:20:41] Charles: I think also don't get that many trolls. Like, like, I don't know about you, but like, I feel like most people like, it's, it's more of an issue that exists in your head than in real life. 

[00:20:50] Tim: True. 

[00:20:51] Charles: You, you don't get like 50 trolls per day.

[00:20:53] Tim: That's true. 

[00:20:54] Charles: Especially when you get started. Like it just does not happen. It's really annoying when you get one, but yeah, like it's. It's not as frequent as you would like to think.

[00:21:03] Tim: That, that's true. I think people that haven't posted a lot sometimes think, oh, I, I don't wanna post because I'll, I'll get like 10 troll comments. But the reality is, you, you don't. A lot of communities are, are fairly supportive. Especially if you're posting stuff that is mainly like educational content or what have you. It's a little different if you're kind of veering more into topics that will be provocative. You kind of expect that. But regular type, educational, inspirational content, it's mainly reaching people who want to see that anyways. 

[00:21:36] Charles: Yeah, for sure. 

[00:21:37] Tim: So any further thoughts about how to do repurposing in an innovative way, as opposed to just, you know, let's say you've got you know, a YouTube video and, OK, I'll just cut it up and I'll put it out there as, as segments. But what more can you do beyond that to make to make repurposing work for you?

[00:21:57] Charles: It really depends on every piece of content really. Because sometimes people have an editing style on YouTube, for example, that It's very dynamic, that have a lot of potential hooks. And so, if that is the case, then there is not much more work than just chopping up the YouTube video and putting subtitles on and maybe adding like a few animations to make it a bit flashier. But sometimes, you know, the tone is just a lot more conversational and the topic's a lot more complex. So then there's like, a lot of editing work to do, because we still want to convey that message in like a shorter format. 

[00:22:34] Tim: Right. 

[00:22:35] Charles: But yeah, I mean ultimately that's what we do. We try to take the one message or the one idea behind a piece of content and put it on into as many formats as humanly possible. And I think that's where the innovation comes in, in a way, is you can, how many ways can you think of that in a format to reach as many people as possible. 

[00:22:57] It, it really is infinite. The thing is, you can repurpose a repurpose piece of content, so it really is endless, because you take your YouTube video, you can make shorts out of that. There are shorts; you can publish them on Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, TikTok. And then these shorts, you can transcribe them and make them into tweets or Twitter. And then these Twitter threads can end up being like a small blog post. And then this, blog post can end up being on LinkedIn. And then you can potentially hire an actor and read that blog post and post it as a podcast, like, it really can be endless. So obviously you don't want to do it too much, because then otherwise you're losing the meaning and whatever. But there's not really any limit of what you can do, technically, especially nowadays with all the tools that we have. It's very easy to get a transcript out, to get subtitles on videos, or whatever.

[00:23:45] Yeah, I think right now, the thing that makes it valuable is really understanding each platform. And really understanding which format is gonna work well, and what message is gonna work, how and where. 

[00:23:56] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:23:57] Charles: I think that's the main thing, because in terms of like how you can get one piece of content from one platform to another, you can pretty much do anything. And you can really create like one YouTube video and end up with like 60 pieces of content, if you wanted to. 

[00:24:11] Tim: Yeah, but it's, like you say, it's where and how you, how you use it. That'll be key for the success of the repurposing. 

[00:24:18] Charles: Yeah. And also because platforms change and sometimes, you know, you get incredible distribution on certain platforms, and then it stops. And then it's something else. 

[00:24:27] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:24:27] Charles: Like we saw it with TikTok and Instagram reels, where like two years ago you could post pretty much whatever, and it was pretty much guaranteed that you were gonna get lots of views from that. And now we're seeing that it's a lot harder.

[00:24:39] But yeah, like carousels are kind of making a comeback on Instagram a little bit. You're seeing Carousel on TikTok now. They are also doing really good. Shorts are doing great when they were not doing that well a few months ago. So, yeah, it keeps changing. So it's a matter of, like, noticing where the attention is and where all the, where the cheap distribution is and kind of capitalizing on that. 

[00:25:02] Tim: Excellent. Well maybe you could tell us a little bit more about how your agency helps creators and how people can get in touch with you. 

[00:25:11] Charles: Yeah. Well, my, my agency just does that, just does that. So we just like take pieces of content and we repurpose it across multiple formats, platforms, and everything. We work with each creator like individually and we go deep in there and really try to understand what they want to do. What is the message you're trying to convey? And we try to serve them as good as we can. 

[00:25:34] As for reaching out the best way right now is through email. So charles@ctj.media will work. 

[00:25:43] Tim: Very good. We'll share that. 

[00:25:46] Charles: Awesome. And also there's my there's my framework as well, which I am guessing we're gonna link in the description so that can this way we can get in touch because you're gonna get an email from me automatically and you can just respond to that if you're interested. But yeah, this is what we do. 

[00:26:01] Tim: Well yeah, I know how much work it is to get a website set up and you know, all of the branding and the back end of that. So I wish you the best of luck with it. And 

[00:26:11] Charles: Thank you.

[00:26:11] Tim: I really want to thank you for taking the time to spend with me today, Charles.

[00:26:16] Charles: Yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you for the conversation. 

[00:26:18] Tim: So, it's a little hard to admit this, but I think the biggest barrier to my taking full advantage of a content repurposing strategy has been the mindset barrier. In fact, over the last six months, I've had access to automation tools that I could have been using to scale my content output even further, just with the press of a button. 

[00:26:36] But that's a button that did not get pressed as often as it could have. And the reasons go back to what Charles and I talked about in our discussion. You know, I think as content creators, we get to a certain level of reach and audience, and we become comfortable with that and to go beyond that does take a little more push outside of our comfort zone.

[00:26:57] This is natural because having a bigger audience perhaps generates more expectations and more potential for judgment of your content, both by people on social media and people you know in real life. And I think at some point we just have to make a decision to push past all of that if we wanna leverage this kind of strategy to support the success of our YouTube channel, our podcast, or social media platforms.

[00:27:22] I'll tell you what, let's do this together. So I got my preview account here, and I'm gonna set it up so that it's cross-posting to TikTok anytime that I publish a new video to Instagram --automatically, it'll just roll it over there. 

[00:27:37] My challenge for you this week is to try and find a platform that you could be repurposing more content to and try to start repurposing more over there. And if you want to scale your content production even further, the other thing you're gonna want to do is adopt that systematic framework for generating even more ideas. I've put a link to the framework that Charles has created in the description so you can access that. 

[00:28:04] So this concludes season one of the podcast, and I'll be back shortly with season two. And when it comes to season two, I'm looking to talk even a little bit more about the strategies that I'm using to grow the podcast and YouTube channels so I can draw in a few more personal insights based on experience. I'm also planning to try out some different formats to keep things interesting, and of course, we'll still continue to have on guests who can talk about their knowledge and experiences with content creation and social media strategy. 

[00:28:36] I hope to see you around. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button, and we'll see you soon.