With all the time and effort it takes to produce video content like podcast episodes, webinars, and talks, one can't help but wonder, "how can I make this work harder for me?" Worry not, for today we will break down 16 novel ideas (maybe bar one) that you can employ right away to repurpose video content into images without breaking the bank.
Your long-form videos and episodes have the potential to be repurposed into any number of useful forms, and indeed images too. This article is about content repurposing, so here's a breakdown of the 16 ways to repurpose your video content across platforms, into images:
1. Q&A image quotes
2. Statistic snapshots
3. Industry name drops
4. Testimonial Images
5. Hard lessons learnt
6. Step-by-step advice images
7. Inspirational image quotes
8. Hot trend/topic mention
9. Reaction image quote
10. Host monologue quote
11. Quote collage
12. Infographic image
13. Same question, different answers
14. Killer quotes
15. 'Quarter-wrap up' collage series
16. Questions, no answers
But first, a short rant in favour of images.
We love video marketing, but more than that we love telling a story. Think about filmmakers who create videos in much lower frames per second, or photographers who purposely take black and white photos, or poets who purposely leave a lot of room for imagination and interpretation.
You too, fellow marketer, are a craftsman. At your disposal is an array of video, audio, image, and written tools (think blog posts) to repurpose your content. Despite sounding a bit counterintuitive, images can really tell a thousand words in a way that's different from what videos can capture, no pun intended.
Yup. As popular and accessible as video episodes are, if you think about it, images are technically easier to view and digest. And that's a win for digital marketing.
There’s something inherently motivational in the fact that you only have a single frame and little time to hold the average viewer’s attention when drafting images. It’s a perfect exercise in being concise and efficient, and tends to leave you with literal snapshots featuring your episodes’ or webinars' best moments.
Likewise, it’s easier for your audiences. With all the time people spend browsing LinkedIn, Tiktok, and everything else in between, it’s fair to say that your image content is likely to be easy on the eye at any hour of the day, at any place. You can compare this for example with the notion of needing to 'set some time' to watch a video. I don't meant to downplay video, just pointing out the benefits of images.
People may set time aside to listen to or watch video podcasts and other long-form video content, but image content is served ‘round the clock and quick to get to the gist of something.
It’s a bold claim to be sure, and we know that there are at least a handful of obsessive image creators out there who would disagree with us on instinct. But we maintain: when it comes to repurposing podcasts, images are a cinch.
We’ve done our fair share of image creation and curation—we know it’s a challenge that demands some skill, but it’s nowhere near as difficult as recording an episode or editing a video. You can create compelling stills in a few minutes if you’ve got a sharp skill set and clear idea of what you want to achieve.
From there, it’s as simple as sending it out through your social media platforms of choice with a caption that fits your brand.
Our favourite thing about images is how easy it is to streamline production. If you come up with a general template or colour scheme for your static releases, you aren’t being lazy—you’re showing consistency and close observance to your brand aesthetics.
Videos are a dime a dozen, and when each takes no fewer than 10 seconds to get their points across, you can bet that your core messages are likely to be skimmed over.
Videos rely on motion and progression to get points across. More often than not, you have to see the beginning to understand the middle, and then eventually the end. It isn’t ideal when you have a big idea to communicate.
Conversely, images are great for preserving the idea that inspired you to branch out to begin with. They sit still, like good little photos, and carry your message without distraction.
Like we said, images sit still. This doesn’t only lead to greater focus, but also greater poignancy. Some ideas are more powerful when paired off with a still image—they give viewers the opportunity to sit and reflect, making your hardest-hitting moments even more potent.
It’s a great look, trust us.
A big reason why people turn to video podcasts, talks, and webinars are because they’re effective at posing and resolving interesting questions. These queries can come from your personal notes, insights that the guests or participants in the video are sharing or from audience submissions—whatever the case, they bring people around to listen.
You can promote your episodic show with an image featuring a question that you think your potential audience can relate to, then pair it off with either a summary of your on-show answer or a visual soundbite that invites people to listen in for more.
There’s something authoritative about a big number. Not big like five duodecillion, mind you—big like takes up a lot of space on a single image.
Statistics are great ways to generate interest and demonstrate expertise, and they’re good at catching the eye when they revolve around facts that are pertinent to your target market.
Pull a statistic you mentioned during your show, lay it out on a frame, and invite people to watch the full episode for more nuggets.
If renowned brands are mentioned on your show, or even if your guest comes from such a renowned brand, this can be a powerful way to repurpose your video content around. The benefits of social credibility here are immense, regardless of how well your brand is known amongst your customers and audience. You can take a quick ride on the success of major players by alluding to their brand names in your images.
Keep an ear out for any big brand mentions you drop during your episodes, and pull a quote onto a layout. It’s an easy way to generate interest and invite viewers to hear what other information you have on the names they recognise. In this case Masters of Scale simply highlighted the guest, who was a brand name drop in of herself (whether you're thinking Sheryl Sandberg, or Facebook). Double props to them in this case.
Over time, your audience base is bound to have a handful of good things to say about your show, products, or services. If they do, you may go ahead and pluck some of their more compelling quotes and convert them into an image for your social profiles.
People love stories. What's more people love lessons learnt, because its a way of capturing entertainment and utility value in one. Thinking now of your video podcasts, talks, or webinars, find moments where either members of your own company or guests you've had on had shared practical knowledge. No need to make it longer than a few words, the goal here is pique interest and drive attention back to a larger pillar asset, such as said video. It wouldn’t do to give everything away, after all.
This one is loosely related to the above, but different altogether as well. Over the course of your episodes, there’s a chance that you’ll end up listing steps [to do something] in a helpful sequence. This is great for your audience, but even better would be a visual summary they can refer to after the episode.
Don’t expect them to keep a notepad handy while listening. That’s your ego talking; be generous and pass notes after class has wrapped.
Inspirational quotes sell for a reason. Not to get to deep, but Maslow's hierarchy of needs dictates that people will always be in pursuit of self actualisation. It's our human nature. This gives you enough assurance that this content format type is worth incorporating when you are repurposing video content.
Make it fun. Have a teammate to pick out favourites with you.
Similar to industry name dropping, taking a hot topic or trend referenced during your episodes can make for great image material. In the example below it's remote working. Use visual soundbites that’ll resonate with people in your target industry to market your show.
If your video show involves guests, their reactions and responses to what you have to say can be great material for images.
Keep an ear out for their best reaction moments in the video and find ways to repurpose those as image content to be featured. Reaction here could be interesting commentary mid-discussion, or a particularly cool response to a question. Doing so proves your investment to your guests and community, and helps promote the insights and expertise that your show has to offer.
Since you undoubtedly take the time to prepare for them, any extended monologues the host launch into during the course of the video podcast, talk, or webinar in question are likely to contain a line worth quoting in an image. The point here is that we shouldn't always be quoting just guests, rather, we should look inwards to see if our people on the team had said anything smart too (that includes your boss, or your boss's boss if they're featured).
Here's a mega one. Sometimes, you’ll find yourself with too a quote per video pertaining to a certain topic. You can collate them cross-videos and repurpose them them as a new collection altogether. Why not?
Scoop a handful of your favourite quotes that relate to a single topic (again, one that’s interesting to your target audience) and display them together or as a series of scrollable images on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram.
Maybe you’ve spent a video talking about everything useful under the sun. Maybe you didn’t waste a single second, and made every beat count with hard-hitting information.
If you’re sitting on episodes that feature an impressive amount of knowledge, summarise them into an infographic like you’d do for a blog, then share it. It grabs attention, and proves that you know exactly what you’re talking about as a domain authority.
Unless your guests are unimaginative hacks (in which case, why?), you’re bound to get a host of different answers to any single question you ask them.
You can take their answers and present them over photos of your guests as quotes and profiles—giving back to the people who make your show possible by boosting their brands, while boosting your own show’s brand as well. We're still looking for our favourite image example, so will probably update this article when we find it.
Not all your quotes have to be useful and informative. We’re sure there are a lot of heartfelt moments, witty remarks, and/or friendly banter that’ll catch your audience’s interest.
Be fun and prove you offer more than stuffy (if intelligent) conversations by taking killer quotes and giving them the spotlight. Still haven't decided on our favourite one here either!
Run a show for long enough, and it helps to provide a periodic recap, say over a quarter. Especially when speaking to your business audience, there is an appeal to repurposing things to a quarterly cadence to suit their business rhythms.
Drafting images that capture top moments, takeaways, and even community statistics can keep your audience base engaged and help newcomers feel better about the idea of coming aboard in media res.
Here’s a bit of a curveball for our last entry to promote more crowd participation: drop a question with no resolution—at least, no resolution until your next episode.
Like a teaser trailer for a film, teaser images and cliffhangers are great material for your images. Take any dangling concepts left over from your episodes and work them into content for your social feeds.
Just try and remember to resolve them with a call to action link (i.e to your full video). The only thing people hate worse than being left hanging is...
Your video podcasts, talks and webinars are prime material for repurposing. It’s no secret that the most successful shows put in the work to promote themselves, and that doing so means more than just an investment in their episodes’ content.
We know that the last thing any business wants to hear after wrapping an episode is to get even more creative, but it pays in the longrun; in your journey to becoming a prolific and recognized marketing craftswoman or craftsman. The work has to be done if you want to rise above the flood of content already on the market.
Keep your nose dry, keep your mental gears turning—and keep this list handy the next time you go over your show episodes.
Feel like brainstorming? Chat to us now or book time for a call