The internet was, is, and still will be the internet. If you've created posts for your website or blog, it's a waste if you don't reutilize them.
Refreshing, renewing or recycling your old contents can certainly make them reach more audience. While the internet was and still is the internet we know today, people do change.
While you certainly need to continue creating new and fresh contents, the landscape is constantly reshaping itself , and recycling your content, as well as creating evergreen ones, could be the key that benefits your internet marketing strategy.
The biggest misconception about resharing your content is making it spammy. This isn't true. Resharing is common on the internet, and that is because trends change when time passes.
Aside from that, resharing is also good for your website or blog's SEO. As more engage with your post (either news ones or the old ones), the better your website/blog will appeal search engines.
With almost zero tweaks to the contents= itself, you can double or even triple the value of your post. Because trends change, chances are, the people who saw these posts the first time they were shared are not the same people when you reshared them.
Related: Working With Both SEO And Content Marketing In A Hand In Hand Strategy
Old Post, New Looks
One year on the internet is like forever. Many things change and trends that were once a hit are now obsolete. If you have evergreen contents, that is already an advantage for you since those type of contents should thrive against time.
If you have those contents up and running, you may need to transfer those contents to meet your newer posts.
What you need to do, is tweak the post to aim for the current audience. Evergreen contents already have the advantage of thriving against time, so making them geared to suit better against newer trends, could be one of your best time-saving content marketing strategy.
You don't need to do a lot of tweaks. Minor changes like the images, captions, headlines, some grammar and content rundown should be enough. Updating your website's social icons and design can also be a plus.
The whole process took less time than writing a brand new post.
Repackaging Old Contents With New Ones
The internet can be cruel place to be. As an author of an article, you may dream of it to be viral. You may have spent a lot of time crafting your high-quality contents. But that won't necessarily translate to success.
Most people on the web reshare things they see, without even clicking on the link you give them. It can be disheartening, but that is the fact of modern internet.
Here you need to experiment on things. Like crafting old contents to surface your older ones. Or make your older contents repackaged with the contents you've written recently. This strategy puts references to your posts, providing readers more things to digest.
The repackaging strategy works best when it re-frames your contents with a new focus. Like for example, giving them a new theme or rounding them up with similar posts.
This encourages people to stay longer as they click on links for your different articles you've gathered up. This will increase engagement, more than when you give those contents separately.
Reaching And Testing New Audience
The internet is big, and so is the web. Most websites and blogs that depend on search engines for visibility, will likely have more people that never see their posts at all in the first place. So if you're one of those websites, why are you so scared of being spammy?
Another thing to remember: people tend to reshare things on the web and social media without even reading the content behind the links.
This is the fact of the web. While it does make you as the author of the content uncomfortable to some points, but remember that your audience may change. So it's important not just to change and refresh your contents to give them a second chance, but to also change the way you share them to the web and social media.
Different audience react differently, so here you need to see which audience suits your website/blog best. Write for them, and be there when they need you.
Analyze, Improvise, Automate
Your best posts are only as good as the engagements they get. So here you need to perform some analysis about their performance, improvise whenever necessary, and then automate the process so you don't need to keep manually resharing them.
Analyzing your audience, their demographic and how long they are engaged can be the key metrics that describe how appealing your contents are. If you see some that should be added to improve those metrics, you may tweak some of the elements.
And as for automation, the process will save you a lot of time while keeping your brand personality intact. It frees you up to have real-time interactions with your audience; providing you time to brainstorm new ideas for new posts, etc..
But remember that automation isn't a substitute for consistently creating great new content. But it does give your existing evergreen contents the opportunity to shine longer that it were meant to be.
The internet is noisy. It's full of clutters and information. This is why old contents can be obsolete and have their reach declining. Refreshing, resharing and recycling, are just ways for you to tell the world: "Hey. we're here, alive and kicking".
Creating one quality content can take a long time and constly. But if it gets the engagements it needs, the result is all worthwhile. If you already have contents that are high-quality, resharing is just a simple way that can benefit you handsomely.
Further reading: Increase Your Website's Traffic By Updating Your Existing Contents: Giving Them A New Life And Chance