Even Award Winning Musicians Reuse Content

I totally became a music geek early in life and studied and watched music videos any chance I got. Besides cartoons, that’s the one thing I watched the most on TV in my childhood. 

My mind was blown when I watched Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer video. If you haven’t watched it - check it out, the animation was very cutting edge for its time. Very impressive, it won a record nine MTV Video Music Awards.  

I remember buying the SO album that had the “Sledgehammer” song and many others I grew to connect with. I became a big Peter Gabriel fan as a kid and still enjoy his music as an adult. 

Recently I caught a documentary on the making of Peter Gabriel’s album SO. You bet I enjoyed watching it and learning the behind the scenes of how they made the album. For the album So, Peter and his band mates and producer lived in a farm house and transformed an old barn into a recording studio and worked on the songs.

It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, there were times that Peter’s band mates were trying to complete a song and were waiting on Peter to finish it and it got tense. Nothing like isolation on a farm to force creative juices!  

Why the heck am I sharing all of this with you. One profound part of the documentary stuck with me. Peter said that right before making SO he was asked to put together a soundtrack for a major motion picture. He told his producer, since he didn’t have much time to produce new material, go back into his vault and grab samples and old songs to lay the foundation for the soundtrack.  

What? Peter, an award winning musician -  didn’t create the soundtrack for a movie on the spot! He recycled his material to create it and was pretty hands off the process.  

Can you imagine if you did something similar when it came to content creation for your blog, podcast, newsletter, etc?

1)    You wouldn’t be so exhausted to create new content all of the time

2)    Your audience needs to hear your message again and again, it’s ok to repeat yourself and repurpose things you’ve shared in the past.

3)    Reusing makes content creating sustainable so you can do it consistently!

Are you recycling social media posts, webinars, or other content that you can breathe life into?

Why or why not? I’d love to have a conversation with you to make your content easier. You don’t have to work so hard!