The benefits of introducing user-generated video are vast. It’s more cost-effective, enables continuous learning, supports wider business priorities and can help you to connect with your people more directly than other learning media. But, another extremely under-utilised aspect of video (or indeed, any learning for that matter) is the art of repurposing.
What is content repurposing?
To be clear, repurposing content is much more than simply re-using or re-distributing it. When you repurpose content, you typically do one or both of two things: a) change the format of the content and/or b) change the target audience for the content.
So, you take a great thing and turn it into another great thing. This is beneficial because it extends your options for connecting with different audiences at different points of need. We know some people prefer to read, whereas others might like to listen to a podcast or watch a video. Repurposing can help with this.
Within video, you have a world of rich assets which you can leverage and use to create new content for new audiences. With learning teams increasingly responsible for curating growing libraries of online learning resources, the need to develop repeatable, scalable and low-cost models for producing value-rich ‘marketing’ collateral is rising.
User-generated video has so much repurposing potential as part of a communication or learning content plan. With disruptive experience and curation platforms emerging as part of the learning technology ecosystem, the need for high- quality, relevant content is increasing. This is particularly the case for L&D teams who aim to maintain a regular cadence of content to breathe life into their LXPs and learning platforms.
So, don’t use your content once and let it disappear into the ether of your learning platform. Read on to find out how to get the most value from your library of resources or take a look at out 5 best elearning video ideas and examples for inspiration on the types of video that lend themselves well to repurposing.
1. Create a blog post using the video transcript
People say some valuable stuff in videos, particularly if they have been reflecting on their experiences and sharing expertise. Don’t waste those insight-rich stories!
Use AI tools such as Sonix to generate a transcript from your video. You could then top and tail the content with some context and share as a post or resource on your intranet or learning platform. Don’t forget you can also embed the video in full or as snippets to serve colleagues who don’t want to read the whole thing.
2. Write an article
Once you have the transcript consider writing a longer or different article using the interview narrative as a foundation. If you’ve collected several videos from different colleagues on the same theme, pull together the threads and weave in relevant content from other sources. You can embed quotes and video clips as social proof to continually reinforce trust and the colleague voice. Here’s a great example from the University of East Anglia where they share student onboarding stories.
3. Identify specific quotes
Authentic user and other stakeholder quotes will steadily build trust with colleagues and reinforce the value of your programmes and campaigns. Take positive statements or phrases from the interview that will strengthen the message you want to share or create online banners and other collateral incorporating them. These assets could be used as part of learning or engagement campaigns you are executing, or perhaps even just to promote the video itself!
4. Short social videos
Effective social videos are short (to grab fickle attention spans). To make more of your videos, why not create a 30-second clip of an interview that focuses in on one key aspect: be it entertaining, informative, or emotive.
Think carefully about your target audience and reflect a key topic that you know they’ll relate to or are experiencing themselves. Share the clip on your LXP, intranet or social learning platform with a call-to- action to view the rest of your content. When designing the interview framework for the video, think about crafting an introduction that can work as standalone content, i.e. “In this video, I’m going to talk about…”
5. Get more social proof
Whether your video star is an expert, senior leader and/or team member, adding their voice can help reinforce your message. Embed relevant snippets of their video into other learning content to evidence what colleagues are saying, thinking or experiencing. Considering this use case in advance means you can structure interview questions in a way that also elicits soundbites.
6. Video montages
Rocky had a montage, so why can’t you? Assemble clips from several videos into longer-form content that builds a story, reinforces a message or shows a range of viewpoints. This multiplier effect can be a powerful tool for sharing tips or advocacy and is a great way to drive wider awareness of the original learning content.
When compiling the montage, consider the flow of narrative as well as the energy and length of the clips to keep viewers engaged over a longer video. Check out these examples of the learning community sharing their lessons learned.
7. Podcast content
The growing popularity of podcasts has been near-meteoric. According to statistics from Ofcom, the number of weekly UK podcasts listeners has nearly doubled in the past five years. So, if you run an internal learning podcast, repurpose the video interview audio track to feature in your next episode.
You can utilise portions of the video or the whole clip. Also, don’t forget to use a video trailer to promote the podcast like Mark Cobain, creator of the ‘Learn, unlearn, repeat’ series!
8. Video stills
Capture stills from the video to use as photos to accompany your content and promote on your social channels. Square format video and pictures look fantastic on most platforms across mobile and desktop.
9. Video diaries
Learning diaries have always been a compelling method of supporting reflection and providing evidence of knowledge transfer, but they can be tricky to execute. With video, you don’t need everyone to be a creator because you can amplify the voices of those who are prepared to share. Capture self-filmed interviews over a timeframe and compile these into a blog-based video diary. It’s a powerful way to share a complex story in bite-sized chunks.
10. Start a conversation
Use any knowledge, tips or advice from the video to update your FAQs, Wiki or create and contribute to a thread on your social learning platform. Making sure you have designed a process to keep these resources up-to-date and relevant is critical to retaining the attention of your audience.
How to get started with video content repurposing
Search through your video archive for relevant content and try repurposing it. As you experiment, you can document the steps so it becomes a simple and repeatable process which your team can support. Being able to quickly capture new valuable video in the future will help you continue to provide and promote great resources. To help with this, look at ways that you can accelerate and scale video production too.