5 ways to repurpose content for YouTube shorts

Susan Wojcicki, the CEO of YouTube, mentioned that in less than 12 months, YouTube hit 5 trillion all-time views on shorts. She also said that shorts is one of the major priorities for the platform. It means the YouTube algorithm will provide more reach to brands doubling down on creating shorts.

But how do you get started? Which content to publish as shorts? Enter repurposing. You can repurpose content you already created and gain views and subscribers.

5 ways to repurpose content for YouTube shorts:

1. Turn a long-form video into a YouTube short

Repurposing your long-form video into a YouTube short is the easiest way to create content for YouTube shorts. Why? You’ve ready-made content and have to only pick the interesting snippet from it to start.

First, find the best-performing YouTube videos: Visit your YouTube channel > videos > click Popular.

Then:

a) Pick the (<1-minute) part of the video that shares insights/case studies, teaches something new or is generally insightful. Repurpose that snippet into a short. Or

b) Read comments on all your selected popular videos. You’ll find viewers highlight a specific instance of the video they loved. You can repurpose that part.

Ensure you add subtitles, emojis, and other visual filters. For inspiration, look at how the My First Million channel repurposed a short from this video.

2. Repurpose your podcast clip

Your video podcast is a treasure trove for posting YouTube short content because the guest is likely to share multiple frameworks, insights, and experiences throughout the conversation. So, you can pick different snippets with such content and create a YouTube short.

For example, Ali Abdaal picked a snippet from his podcast conversation with the guest (Lana Blakely) that shared how she crossed 1 million YouTube subscribers and turned it into a YouTube short content.

Similarly, you can do the same.

3. Convert your blog post

You don’t have to repurpose the 2000-word article into a 60-second short. You won’t be able to cover each point and confuse your viewers. So, instead, pick a particular part of the post and repurpose that.

For example, if you’ve written an article on “How to do SEO,” you’ll mention the 9-10 different steps, isn’t it? Pick any 1 step (it could be the “do keyword research” part) and talk about it in a <60-second video.

Ensure you add visuals (images, charts, emojis, and more) and show how you do it (instead of just mentioning “do keyword research.”)

4. Repurpose social media content

You might already post content on social media platforms. It could be short posts, polls, or asking questions to your audience. Repurpose such content.

For example:

a) You can ask a question like “What are the Digital Marketing trends for 2023?” and note down all the answers and make a YouTube short featuring them.

b) Similarly, poll your users to gather their opinions, and create a YouTube short featuring the answers.

c) Repurpose your text content. If you’ve written a short LinkedIn post/Twitter thread on influencer marketing, summarize it in a YouTube short.

5. Post customer testimonials

Ask your happy customers to record a video testimonial and then repurpose that as a YouTube short. Specifically, ask them to answer:

a) What were their problems?

b) Why did they choose you?

c) How did you help them?

d) What are the numbers that show the results? For example, XYZ increased our leads by 300% and email subscribers from 100 to 10000.

So, now you know how to get started with creating YouTube shorts. Use these content tips as inspiration, tweak them according to your brand, and double down on creating YouTube shorts.