My most recent B2B content marketing challenge video over on LinkedIn was heavily inspired by my recent house move! 

I know I'm not the only one who gets distracted from tidying and packing by rediscovering something I'd forgotten and getting completely sidetracked by it ('I'll just quickly read it....'). Last week, I had so little time to pack and move that I had to be pretty ruthless, but it did make me think about what other dormant treasures might be lying in my Passle archives....

To be clear, I'm not talking about evergreen posts, the type of content that keeps performing well and attracting engaged viewers months, if not years, after you've created it. It's always good to check in with these once in a while and wipe a layer of dust away but on the whole they're good at looking after themselves.

No, I'm talking about the content that got away.

You know the one - you liked it and thought it'd do well but it didn't. And so, forlornly, you tried to forget about it, and labelled it somewhere in the back of your brain as 'bad content'.

The challenge is to find this content, and give it a new lease of life.

There are many reasons why the content failed the first time, which I'll outline below:

Timing

Timing can mean the difference between the right person seeing it and not. Ask yourself:

• Did you share it more than once on social media?
• Did you vary your wording and choice of accompanying media when sharing it on social media? On LinkedIn you might want to add the link as a comment instead of in the main body of your status to game the algorithm and get more views
• Did you directly share it with the right people? Not everyone will be on social media at the right time, so do direct message your tweet to the right person or email it directly. Pssst we have a tool on Passle that makes this easy to do.

Format

Sometimes the content itself isn't the problem but your choice of platform for creating it:

• is your blog post secretly an infographic, a slideshare, a podcast, or a GIF? Sometimes rethinking it for a different media can transform your piece entirely and focus it in all the right ways.
• have you got all the collaterals of your content right? For example, if it's a YouTube video: have you added tags, used a specific title, and localised your video where relevant? These are the things that will help people to discover it.
• If your post is a list, transform it into a long-form post, and vice versa.

Content

And sometimes, the problem is with the content itself. Some of it can be cosmetic (change the title, add line breaks and images), but sometimes, you will need to make some bigger structural changes:

• Is your content trying to say/do too much in too little time? Focus on 1 point and be detailed about it instead.
• Is your perspective too predictable? Turn your title on its head and create a more provocative post.
• Is your content out of date? Do some fresh research!
• Is it too long-winded and full of jargon? Copy and paste it into the Hemingway app to help you simplify it!  

If you think the piece of content you have in mind is beyond redemption, do send it my way for a look - I'll be happy to advise....

Need more ideas? Quuu are hosting a Twitter chat tomorrow on this very topic!