During your overall content creation strategy, do you ask yourself before spending time on any piece of content whether or not it is scalable? It’s a good idea to consider this issue. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create some content that can only exist in one format, but it does mean that you might want to spend less time and effort on content that cannot be repurposed.
* Look at Your Content Goals – During every stage of content creation it’s important to keep tabs on whether the content you’re producing is working or not. First, take a look at your content goals and then check your metrics to ensure that the content you’re creating is getting you closer to meeting those goals. Plus, evaluate whether the content you have already can benefit from scaling.
* Repurpose – Can you repurpose old blog posts? Can you create infographics out of stats that you’ve collected? Can you create a slide share off an old report? How about a YouTube video? If you can create anything you have already made into a different format with added flavor based on the place it will be distributed, then you will make the most of your content.
* Evaluate New Content for Scalability – Going forward, evaluate each potential new piece of content for scalability in advance of creating it. That way you won’t waste as much time or money on content that can’t be used in other ways. Once you have decided what content can be repurposed and used in different ways, craft a plan to get it done.
* Make Use of Technology – The other issue about content scalability is the technology available to deliver your content. Is your website responsive? If not, then it will be difficult for some of your users to view your content in any form. Make use of the technology that is available and upgrade your technology quickly to become responsive. More people are buying mobile technology than are buying PCs today, so the time is now.
It’s important to deliver the right content to the right people using the right channels at the right time. To do this you need to research your audience, plan the content you will deliver and know what technology you need to deliver it. Plus, you need to know when your audience is ingesting the content and through what mediums. This takes a lot of research and time spent on understanding how everything works in concert together.
Once you garner an understanding of how everything works together, you’ll be able to ensure that you create mostly scalable content that will enable you to get more bang for your content buck. If you can reach more people with the same amount of content but distributed through different technology in different formats, you’ll essentially unleash a multiplier effect that will explode your reach exponentially.