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Dear reader,

People love repeating (ironically) that there are multiple ways of looking at something. That there are multiple sides to every story. Multiple points of view on every issue. Diversity of thought, diversity of experience, diversity of expression.

Seems their conviction stops with content.

In communications, repetition haunts us. It's the ghost of branding past; a remnant of the "consistency" that brand strategists have always drilled into our minds. Repeat the logo, repeat the tagline, repeat the...messaging?

Our industry elders rarely think twice about the effect that repetition (or should we say regurgitation at this point?) has on the brand long term—which means they certainly don't think about the effect it has on the audience. They continue believing that a small set of narrative and messaging guidelines can deliver all the content creation necessary for a brand to brand itself. And that's just speaking of product and service marketing, which always takes the front seat; we haven’t even arrived to think about longer-form, exploratory, educational content yet.

So, let's do that for a moment: What happens when the strategic input is not enough to generate anything new? Or when there's so little understanding of the brand's intention that comms professionals stop dead in their tracks, paralyzed by the realization that they don't comprehend the messaging well enough to create something new or even relevant?

What happens is repurposing.

Why do people seem to naturally opt for repurposing?

Today’s content rehashing stems from two internalized points:

• The fear of letting the aforementioned incomprehension of the brand messaging show, both to the audience and to one's boss.

• The inaccurate belief that there are best practices in terms of what a brand's editorial calendar should look like.

We already talked about the first one, and the second one is not difficult to understand either. Much of the regurgitation we see today is partially due to the not just misguided but truly incorrect belief that the "right" editorial calendar exists. That there are days and times of the week more conducive to good engagement with what we publish.

Given how often things change and how not-in-your-control those changes are, you can quickly see why this parasitic thought should be removed from your mindset. Because even if it were true, why do you care? Why would you spend another minute thinking about when to publish your content if your process for creating it is what needs a bit of work?

I don't mean to be facetious, especially given that you have nothing to worry about. First because it's natural, and second because it's solvable. It's natural because, in anxious moments and amidst time constraints, humans tend toward the guidance of others. In this case, you go looking for advice on what to do—and what do you find? A bunch of materials around frameworks. There's very little about mindset given that it can often seem elusive and most people are too lazy to deal with that. So, the engagement is lower, the SEO is lower, and the possibility of you finding it is even lower.

But you do find a lot about frameworks. A lot of recommendations on which content types to focus on for each channel and what schedule to follow—the beloved playbook, if you will. And you subconsciously begin adopting the mentality that that's what's important, thinking that those tidbits around what and when are what will make your comms successful. Combine that with the possibility that you don't have enough input from the brand guidelines or other members of the organization to really generate added messaging value, and you have yourself the perfect storm.

You jot down what the "ideal" strategy is based on what you've researched, after which you find yourself—with your team—staring at a list (or calendar) of content pieces that need to be created. And in that overwhelming state, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

“Is there existing content we can repurpose?”

I've seen it more times than I can count, but the fact that it’s normal doesn’t make it right. Think of the values this misguided process carries: things like constraint (there isn't enough time), fear (I don't know enough), and self-doubt (someone needs to tell me what to do).

That last one is key because it's an act of disrespect towards your growth when you don’t give yourself the chance to find the best solution on your own. Not to mention the complete disregard this process has for your audience, who you should never assume is gullible—or should we say uninformed—enough to remain blind to such tricky ways.

At this point, you might be thinking this is all a bit harsh, but I'm the kind of person that feels if there's even 2% missing, then there might as well be nothing at all. And I believe all of us, as comms professionals, can change this disempowering behavior before it renders our digital spaces unbearable. Before we make it absolutely impossible for any of us to cut through the noise that we, ourselves, have generated.

That's a great point actually: Maybe we should all stop focusing on cutting through the noise and start focusing on not contributing to the noise. Only if we do that might I accept complaints about how today’s audiences have short attention spans (not true) or how they're more difficult to engage than ever (still on us).

How to curb the desire to repurpose

What I've described thus far is what happens in the background every time we decide to repurpose content. And I trust it will make you think twice, but should you need additional help, here are several of the steps I follow when faced with the urge to repurpose:

• I take my favorite quote from an article and treat it as a prompt for something new.

• I read the entire piece of work and then write a social media post solely by memory (you can go back for data points once you've independently noted which ones you need).

• I bring the strongest statement made in a body of work back to the author and ask them, "If somebody was to say this isn't true, how would you answer?" The emotional charge of that statement often fosters additional ways of perceiving the same topic.

• I push further on the how. I search for points in the existing content where the reader might think to themselves, "OK, I get it, but how?", and I figure out the best way to answer that—either by asking the author, an additional subject matter expert to broaden our scope, or even another piece of content.

• That's a good point: Bringing together bits from multiple pieces of content can create magic. Just make sure to apply the same rule of reading, understanding, and then writing from memory. You can fill in the holes later.

• If you're really going to pull an excerpt from an existing piece of content into a new space, then try to always add something fresh. Don't do a simple copy/paste.

I find that these considerations allow me to uphold my values of creating audience-first, writing as thinking, and coherence.

It's audience-first because I never put myself or the brand above the needs of the audience. If what's right for the audience is to not state the same thing over and over again, then I won't do it. I push back on the concept of leading with an editorial calendar until those who've hired me accept that there will be less content—but better content.

Furthermore, my approach regularly confirms my belief in writing as a means of improving one’s thinking. It asks that both editor (or any other type of communicator) and expert put more pen to paper. And you know there's nothing more powerful for perfecting a thought process than attempting to write it down clearly.

Finally, my favorite: coherence. The principles above contribute to the coherence of the brand I'm communicating for. While the rest of the world hammers away at their consistency and repetition, I've found immense peace in thinking of my actions as painting in the story of the brand. I envision a canvas on which an image has already begun forming, and everything I do either paints in the details or expands the edges with more context and sense.

Which is why we can’t repeat things—we can’t repeat things because they’re already on the canvas. Our role is to always look for something to add that would give the painting more vibrancy, more clarity, and more content.

In my case, my dedication to editorial thinking would never let me do it any other way...

Stay human,

Flavia Barbat