Repurpose Like A Pro with Gertrude Nonterah: Mediavine On Air Episode 4

Transcript: 

JENNY GUY: Hello, everybody. Today is Thursday, June 18. Father’s Day is Sunday, and it has been a long minute since we’ve been together on a Live. A whole lot has happened in the United States since then, and sadly, none of it is new. We’re not here to talk about the racism that pervades all aspects of our lives, and I am certainly not the person whose thoughts need to be shared on this topic.

But, as the host of this program, I’d be remiss in not acknowledging the pain that so many people have experienced and are currently experiencing. As a company, Mediavine has said we stand with you, and we are backing that statement up with action. If you’re a Mediavine publisher, we ask that you consider signing up for our no end date PSA campaign. We’ll share more information on that in the comments.

This is just the beginning for our company. Our People Ops department is working behind the scenes on more ways we can contribute, which we hope to announce more about soon. We know that there is much work to be done. While the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery are currently known and spoken of in the media, we want to acknowledge that there are so many more that didn’t make the headlines. We stand with each and every person who should be alive today, as well as their families, and hope that this horrible catalyst will lead to real and lasting societal change.

Now, I’m going to pivot to our topic of today and our wonderful guest. But first, I’m going to ask everybody in the audience a question. Are you getting the most out of your blog content? One of the biggest problems we hear newer bloggers complain about all the time is, how do I come up with content to keep up and continue to be relevant years from now?

Most people publish the blog posts, share a link on social media, and call it a day. But my guest today is here to help you repurpose that content like a pro, and turn one blog post into 15 pieces of content that keep working for your business 24/7. Gee Nonterah is a former registered nurse and medical scientist turned blogger — no big deal — freelance writer, and YouTube creator. Gee is also the host of the Create and Prosper Show, which helps bloggers and writers create amazing content and build profitable businesses.

Gee started My Online Business Journey in 2014 to chronicle her journey into online business, and succeeded in using that blog to attract clients for a social media content creation business. You can find her currently on geenonterah.com, where she’s passionately helping her audience make a living and build a powerful and authentic personal brand with their writing. When she is not creating amazing content, Gee likes to watch spy movies. Hi Gee, thank you so much for joining us.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Hello, Jenny! Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here!

JENNY GUY: I am so excited. I’m excited about her amazing dress, her incredible earrings and her incredible knowledge. We’re going to have a really good time, and she’s in San Diego, which makes me so jealous. Before we get into the nitty, gritty, meaty stuff, tell me what is your favorite spy movie.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: You know, I have a spy series I enjoy. It was a TV show called Chuck. It was on NBC, I think, around 2007. I think they had five seasons, and I’m just a sucker for that show. But definitely, I love all the Mission Impossible movies. Yeah, Mission Impossible, definitely. I love that. James Bond a little bit just because my dad introduced me to that. But as an adult, I haven’t watched a whole bunch of that. But definitely Mission Impossible movies and Chuck.

JENNY GUY: Well I’ll have to check out Chuck. I did La Femme Nikita back in the day. Like, a long time ago on TNT. And then, I loved Alias too.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Alias is good, yeah.

JENNY GUY: Yeah. It’s those female girls. Those women spies.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Women spies.

JENNY GUY: Women spies are pretty exciting. OK, so audience, I asked this right before we got started and talked about what’s going on in the world, but what is your content creation process? Are you currently repurposing your blog post? Tell us in the comments. And let’s get going here.

So Gee, you originally submitted this awesome topic for the Mediavine Influencers Conference in Baltimore, which you were talking about we’re sad did not happen, but we’re super excited that we’re able to pivot this and turn it into a Summer of Live episode. So will you tell me and our audience why this topic was what you submitted, more about your online biz journey, and how it led you to the value of this topic.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So I really am a big believer in the fact that content is the cornerstone of everybody’s business. Even businesses that don’t have or don’t create content are creating some kind of content to move their business along, whether that’s emails, whether that’s videos, whether that’s TV advertisements. They are creating some kind of content, right? And I’ve been a blogger for the last — this is 2020 — so I want to say seven or eight years.

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: I’ve had some various blogs. I don’t write my online business journey as actively anymore because I pivoted my business a little bit. But for five years, that was my blog where I wrote on My Online Business Journey, basically, everything I was learning on this journey of online business and generated a lot of traffic. But more than that, sales, opportunities to speak, opportunities to connect with other like minded entrepreneurs, which have all enriched my life. Right?

So I really do think that content is the cornerstone of every business. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that, a lot of the time, because content is the cornerstone of business, sometimes when I speak with business owners and tell them you need to be creating some kind of content that appeals to your audience and that brings them in, they are really stumped. They’re like, but what do I create, right?

And so that becomes a stumbling block where people are really stuck in this whole content creation process. And sometimes all I tell them is, well, do you have any type of content at all? Repurpose that. Right? If you have anything, it could just even be a brochure. Let’s say it’s a doctor’s office. It could just be even a brochure lying in your office. How can you take that brochure and turn it into several pieces of content.

So I’ve really been very passionate about content creation and also repurposing your content because, let’s tell the truth, when you post content the first time, not everybody is going to see that. 10,000 people may see that, but not everybody sees that. And for certain, in about six months, people would have forgotten about that. And so why not repurpose that? Why not rework that?

And I really do think that this topic we’re going to talk about here — I’m so excited about it — but it is really the genesis of all your content if you really want it to be. It can be the reason why you never, ever run out of content ideas because you’re already taking things you’ve created. And some of you are watching me. Maybe you have 50 blog posts or 20 blog posts. Maybe you are more of a video creator and you’ve created some videos.

That content can be repurposed and reused multiple times in multiple ways. Since this was going to be a conference primarily for bloggers, I really wanted to bring that to, you know, the fam and let them know that it’s possible for your content to get as much traction as it can get. And it doesn’t just have to be, OK, I wrote the blog post, or I created that piece of content, I shared it to social media and that’s the end. It doesn’t have to be the end.

JENNY GUY: And we love hearing that because you’re preaching to the fam. You’re preaching to the choir here. These people, our audience, our website owners, our content creators, they love creating content. But I think sometimes what can happen even with us on our own blog on the Mediavine blog is that, well, that’s old news. We wrote that. We already did that. Everyone saw that.

But you’re right. Like, your mom probably sees all your content, but that’s the only person who’s actually catching everything you’re putting out. Other people aren’t experiencing it, right?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. Correct. Absolutely. Absolutely, and we’ll get into it. But yeah, absolutely. Like, even the people that have seen it before, you can always rework content in a different way that sheds a different angle of it. It’s kind of like, if I was looking at my phone here, somebody standing that way is going to have a different perspective of the phone than somebody that’s looking at it this way. It’s the same phone.

So it’s the same piece of content. But we can look at it from different directions, and use it in different ways, and make it seem fresh. And you know, it’s possible for us to do that.

JENNY GUY: And we have got some fantastic comments from people. Leah Ingram says, I have been making more videos to put in my blog posts, and then I use those videos to make video pins and IGTV.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Wow. That’s fantastic.

JENNY GUY: Yeah. So we have some people that are saying — Shaye Wiley says, I’m the write a post share on social and repeat, frowny face. Well, she’s got some tips for you. Lana Taylor Stuart says, I have over 650 published recipe posts that I could repurpose into more pieces of content than just posts.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: That’s right.

JENNY GUY: Holy lot of posts.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: I mean, wow. She doesn’t probably have to create new content for years.

[LAUGHING]

JENNY GUY: She is set.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: She is set.

JENNY GUY: She can just keep going and —

JENNY GUY: Right, that’s a lot of posts. So let’s do an overview first because your original session title was 15 Ways to Repurpose your Content. What sparked that 15 ideas, that 15 number, and tell us what the 15 are. And we’ll get into each of them a little bit more later, but start with an overview first, please.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So 15 because 15 sounded like a good number. I didn’t have a real good reason to choose that.

So I just put 15 because I knew that I could repurpose content in multiple ways. Like, more than 20 ways. So I just was like, OK, I’m going to stick to 15 because I don’t think everybody has time to listen to the 40 ways I’m going to repurpose this content.

So 15 sounded like a good session for us. And so you wanted me to go over the 15, Jenny?

JENNY GUY: Yeah, please.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: OK, sure. So I’m going to go over that. And is it OK to chip in here if people wanted to get these slides at the end too?

JENNY GUY: Yes, absolutely. We can share it now. Gee is nice enough to share what was going to be her presentation in Baltimore. We’re going to post a link in there that you can easily get off of her website. So we’ll drop that in the comments right now. OK?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: OK, great. All right. So the first one would be lead magnets. You can turn your blog post into lead magnets, especially blog posts that have done really well for your blog. You know, I think it was Lana, right, that had the 650 recipes. Was that her name?

JENNY GUY: It was. Lana, you’re right.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah. And so eventually, some of those are going to perform really, really well. But they’re going to get buried under all the new content. So to revive that, you can actually turn that post into a PDF. And then, use it as a lead magnet to get people to sign up for your email list because email lists are everything for bloggers. Correct?

So a tool that I find handy to do that is a Google chrome extension known as print friendly and PDF. It’s a Chrome extension, and what it does is that, when you open up the page for that particular post, you can just click on that Chrome extension, and it will immediately turn your blog post into a PDF. So you don’t have to rewrite copy and paste anything. Just use this Chrome extension to turn it into a PDF, and use that as a lead magnet to build your email list.

Another thing you could do is turn it into an email series. Let’s say that there was a topic that you wrote that was a really long blog post. It was a 2,000 word, 1,500 word, even 1,000 word blog post, and you had bullet points in the blog post. You could discuss each of those bullet points as an email series. And so again, this is a really great way to revive old content.

YouTube videos. All right. You can turn your content into YouTube videos. Live video. Every platform that has live video, you could go on there and create either a live video or live series on that particular post. And then, moving on to a platform like Instagram. You can turn your blog post, you can turn some of that into quotables. Right? Quotable graphics on the Instagram main feed.

You could also turn that into an Instagram story graphic where you show the main bullet points. You could post quotes from the Instagram story graphic. You could post the title and invite people to swipe up if you have more than 10,000 followers on Instagram or to click the link in your bio to read the post. You could do multiple 15 second IG stories. I’m just going through my list here.

You could turn it into an IGTV video, just like somebody suggested earlier on Twitter. You can turn different points in the post into tweets. You can turn them into quote graphics. Quote graphics really work on any platform. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even Pinterest. I’ve seen people taking quotes or taking ideas from their posts and just creating a Pinterest graphic. And then, just linking that to their blog post, and just pinning that over and over again. All right?

Turning your blog post into a podcast. Using certain blog posts that have done really well as pitches to get on other people’s platforms because one of the ways that you can really build your audience as a blogger is to get onto somebody else’s podcast or on somebody else’s blog, or even be on somebody else’s YouTube channel. You can rework that piece of content into a pitch — we’ll talk about that — to get on other people’s platforms. All right?

You can turn the blog post into books. I know a very popular business owner who started out as a blogger, and I think one of his very first books that hit that Amazon best seller list and, I think, the New York Times best seller list were really just his blog posts that he rewrote. He rewrote the blog post in detail and turned it into a bestseller. So you could do that too.

And then, the last one here is republishing your content on other platforms, and this could be partial or complete. You could take a part of that blog post, and post it on platforms like LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a publishing feature. It’s just very much like writing a blog post. They have their own feature like that. And it can really help you build your LinkedIn audience and drive traffic to your business if you have a business attached to your blog.

And I know I’ve done that, and I’ve got inbound leads into my business because I’ve been active and written content. And sometimes, it’s just repurposed content or reposted content from my blog. Medium is another platform that allows you to do that. And then you can also submit it as a guest post now. If you’re going to submit it as a guest post to somebody else’s blog, make sure that you rework it. Make sure it’s not the exact same thing so that you don’t get penalized by the SEO people.

But at least, sometimes it’s good to state, I think there’s a statement you can make that this post was first published on this blog just so that there is that knowledge there and you don’t get punished by Google, for instance, for repeat content. But basically, that’s an overview of all the ways you could repurpose content.

JENNY GUY: And now we’re done.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: That was a mouthful.

JENNY GUY: People are writing all these comments and going, this is amazing!

It’s really great, and we’re learning a lot. So Leah Ingram said, what kind of graphics? You’re talking about quote graphics. And then Larisha Bernard said, using Canva is a great way to create those quote graphics that you’re talking about. Canva is great because you can resize for all the particular social platforms that you wanted, and then stick it all over the place.

And then, we had Amy is asking, what is the Chrome extension that converts posts into PDFs? So if we can share that link, we will. We got you, Amy. OK, that was a lot of amazing stuff, and we’ve already shared the link for your slide. So let’s talk a little bit and focus on email for a second. So guys, let’s be real in the audience. Who in our audience is collecting email addresses and making use of their list? What are you doing with them? How is that going for you, the process of email. Tell us in the comments.

Let’s go for email. OK, so it’s one of the big ways that you mentioned. And like you said, email is gold for a blogger. Why is email gold for a blogger? I always love to get perspective and hammer this point home.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Oh! Email is gold for a blogger because these people have given you permission to email them about your offers and about your contents. OK? And email — I mean, I feel like this is a whole lecture on its own — but email is really a great way to go deep with your audience. When you are on social media and when you’re on your blog, yes, you can get deep with the people that follow you on there.

But it’s kind of like one off, and then they’re gone. And you don’t know who these people are. But with email, you actually have permission to enter somebody’s most precious inbox. And that is real estate I don’t take for granted. And so when somebody gives me their email, I treat it as, wow, this person could, even if they never buy something from you directly, they could become your biggest advocate. They could become your biggest fan telling everybody about you.

I think Pat Flynn has a book called Superfans. And in that book, he talks about really getting deep with your audience. And so it is an opportunity for bloggers. Email is a great opportunity for bloggers to build those deep connections and to sell. To build those deep connections, to send traffic, and to sell. So I don’t think you should take it for granted.

Now, a lot of the time, people are confused as to how to start building that email list. How do I get people to join my email list? And sometimes I go on people’s blogs on websites and they’re like, oh, sign up here for updates. Well, these days, there’s a lot of email fatigue, and people are not just going to sign up for updates. But they will sign up for something that is super valuable.

And when I first started my blog, I don’t think I even was getting 1,000 views per month. One of the things I did is I just took five of my most popular blog posts. I turned that into a freebie library.

JENNY GUY: Oh, love that! That’s genius!

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: It was just blog post, but I called it a content library. And I was like, oh, sign up, and I’ll send you this content library that shows you these five specific things. And that converted really, really well and had people signing up for my email list because I was giving them something I had already created, but now I had just reworded it.

And when they signed up for the email list, all that was happening was, yes, I could convert it to a PDF, like I suggested. But they could just go back to those older blog posts to read that. And I had that email opt-in for over a year. And remember what I said about the older content just gets keeps getting buried under the newer content.

Well now, it doesn’t have to be because there is a fresh stream of traffic. Every time somebody signs up for that post, that is going back to those old posts. So they’re still getting traction, even if something different or something new was what brought them onto the blog. So I hope that answers the question.

JENNY GUY: It totally did. And so what I’m hearing — you’re giving so much good stuff that I’m mentally taking notes and then wanting to zero in on some of the stuff you’re saying. So a lot of times, like you said, just saying sign up for weekly. Sign up for recaps.

So what you’re saying is, you may be doing that, you may be actually offering them a recap, but that’s not how you’re packaging it, and that’s not how you’re marketing it. You’re giving them a specific call to action hook, a freebie. You’re taking the content that exists, but you’re packaging it in a totally different way. That sounds exclusive and exciting.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Exactly. And that delivers. It’s still going to deliver on the promise. It shouldn’t be hyped. I don’t believe in that. I believe in promising and over-delivering, if you can. But yes, so exactly. Exactly what Jenny said.

JENNY GUY: That’s so exciting, but it’s not something that has to be a ton of additional work. It’s not that you’re giving things that aren’t already existing on your website. You’ve already done the work. What you’re doing is just repackaging, which is very exciting.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Exactly.

JENNY GUY: Do you have any favorite email, like for instance, subscription services? Do you have any favorite courses for email, people that are wanting to get a little more deep because you’re right. This is, like, a 17 hour course that we could teach right now that you could talk a lot about.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: It really is a lot to it. So personally, I learned everything I know about email on my own.

JENNY GUY: OK.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: And just by listening to a lot of podcasts. I listened to a lot of podcasts when I first started. I use ActiveCampaign as my email subscription service. I know ConvertKit is another one that’s really big amongst bloggers. But I think both of them work very, very well. Another one I’m beginning to fall in love with is one called MailerLite.

JENNY GUY: OK.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: And I love MailerLite just because, if you’re starting out and let’s say your budget is kind of limited, you can get 1,000 subscribers for free. And they give you landing pages. You get really, really, really simple, functional landing pages that people can go to, which I think ConvertKit has but ActiveCampaign may not have this similar comparable thing. But any one of these works.

I think a thing has to be said here about tools and getting bogged down by which is the best tool. The best tool is the best tool that works for you OK? So I don’t think that there is a best tool out there. I think there is a tool that is best for you and your purposes. So you know, there’s ActiveCampaign, there’s ConvertKit, there’s MailerLite, Mailchimp, even though I don’t– OK, anyway. There’s Mailchimp.

Ooh, let’s not do that.

JENNY GUY: I see some dirt. Let’s don’t go there. Or let’s do go there and talk about it. OK.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah. Yeah. You know, but any one of these, as long as it works for your purposes, just go with that. I pay for ActiveCampaign, and there’s a reason why I pay for it and don’t choose a free plan. It gives me more features. It allows me more flexibility. So just choose what works for you. But do it.

JENNY GUY: Yes, but do it. Don’t sit there and allow the fact that you can’t choose the right tool prevent you from actually doing something with it.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Correct.

JENNY GUY: Analysis paralysis, Gee, it happens to all of us.

[LAUGHING]

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes, of course.

JENNY GUY: OK, so let me go through here. We’ve got a few people that are saying, I collect emails, but then don’t send emails. Do you have any advice on how often are you doing it? What kind of content are you doing weekly? Tell us about it.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So I do weekly. I do, at least, once a week. And I tend to do it towards the beginning of the week. So usually, like a Monday or Tuesday. Again, choose what’s best for you. But I think Mondays or Tuesdays works. I tested Saturdays once. Open rate was really poor.

JENNY GUY: OK.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: So Monday or Tuesday works for me. Once a week. And usually, what am I sending them? I believe you shouldn’t send your list emails only when you have something to sell. You should send your emails consistently because, again, it’s about building deep connections. It’s about creating superfans. Right? So you want to be emailing them frequently.

Now, I even know some people that email every single day and I don’t get mad at them because their emails are that good. But I don’t recommend that if your emails are not that good. OK.

JENNY GUY: Selfies. It’s a lot of selfies of yourself.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: You know!

I mean, the people that I can tolerate that from are very, very few. But that’s because it’s so good. But you can still send a really good, one email per week. The different things that you can send them, you can send them your newest content. Right? Repurpose. You can send them old content. Right? Old content because some people subscribe to your list that never saw that content, so send them that.

Like, oh, this was my most commented on post from 2011, and this is why it’s still relevant. You know, so send that to them. Have personal conversations. Something that you went through recently, but tie a business lesson to that. So I am very big on story selling, story telling where I tell a story, but I tie that to the content and the purpose for why they are on the list. It doesn’t have to be a random story.

So I remember last year I traveled outside of the country, and I was able to work from outside of the country. And I sent an email that just said, I love working from anywhere. And so in that email, I shared my trip with them. But then, I tied it back to the fact that this is why I do what I do because if I hadn’t built this kind of business, I wouldn’t be able to travel outside of the country and still be earning money.

And so it still came back. Even though I shared my trip with them and how much fun that was, it still tied back to the original purpose. So tell parts of your story, and tie that back to the purpose of why they’re on your list. And if you can do that consistently, you know, sending them content, sending them stories, that teach a business lesson, building connections with them, it becomes much easier to sell because they’re like, oh, she has a new book? Of course I’m going to get that. She’s awesome. You know?

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: You know? And you build yourself up as an authority in a deeper way when you do that. So these are just — I think I give three ideas. So your content, stories, products that you have for sale. Don’t be shy to send it. People will unsubscribe every time you send an email, but that just means they are not the best fit for your email list. And that’s OK.

JENNY GUY: I love that. That was a very — well all the things, but that was very freeing. Like, people are going to unsubscribe. That’s OK. They’re not your super fans.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah. It’s fine.

JENNY GUY: Just let that go. That’s weight. And you’ll pay less on a lot of these subscription services. So if they’re not your people, they’re not your people.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: They’re not your people.

JENNY GUY: So. OK, I have so many comments. And just to let everybody know, we’re having some issues with getting comments. Things are weirdly happening here. So we’re trying to get all of them. We’re not ignoring you. Don’t be sad. That’s not an intentional thing that we’re doing.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah, for sure.

JENNY GUY: Although, can we just stay here and talk for about 75 hours because you are amazing, Gee, and I’m learning every single thing.

OK. Brenda says, I just started my weekly email with the help of VA. I just don’t like doing it, but now I’m focusing on how to create lead magnets that will, hopefully, increase the sign-ups for different projects. We had somebody who said — this is a good question. Well, they’re all good. But Leah said, I’m collecting emails. I have two lead magnets. How many can you have running on a blog? I have different audiences based on different niches that I cover within the context of her one website. Do you have any thoughts on that?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Ooh. Yeah, I do. Because I’ve made this mistake before, I’m going to just put it out there so that you don’t be like me. So I did have a blog where I had multiple different opt-ins. And ultimately, it got confusing to sell to them because somebody signed up for, like, an Instagram story email. Somebody signed up for an email on how I was doing YouTube. So there were different lead ins to the email list.

And even though my email list grew, everybody was there for a slightly different purpose. I think that if your email magnets can, if it’s possible, and they can be centered around the same bucket of subjects, it’s good. Or you can decide to have maximum, and this is just me and my brain. Maximum. Three different tracks where it’s like, OK, this list is for, let’s say you have a blog that combines your cooking with sewing.

JENNY GUY: Right.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Then, you say, OK, this list is for all the people that signed up for my recipes or to get my recipes. And this list is for the people that signed up to learn about my sewing. So when you create different digital products, you know which list to send it to. You won’t be sending the sewing digital product to the cooking list because you’re going to convert really badly.

It’s not going to work out, and you’re going to be sad. And that was always happening to me. So don’t be sad. Don’t be like me. So that’s what I did in the beginning until I learned that no, no, no. it’s important to either segment it or to build the list around a bucket of topics that are similar so that you know that, for instance, people that are interested in blogging are most likely also going to be interested in learning how to create an online course. Right?

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: So it’s like they’re different topics, but they are related so if you can create that kind of email list. But if you do cover it completely different subjects, then you would go to option number two, which was be segmented, and send the right emails to the right people. So I hope that answers the question.

JENNY GUY: It did. She said it did. OK. A couple more questions on emails. And then, we got to move on, and we’re running out of time.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right.

JENNY GUY: And you just awkwardly laughed when I said that I wanted her to stay for 75 hours, so she won’t let me keep her. Maria John said, do you link back to your blog in these emails or just excerpt those top five posts with that? I believe she’s talking about the lead magnet that you mentioned in the beginning.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So there are multiple ways you can do it. You can do the excerpts of five posts. You can lead back to one post. You can turn it into a series. So you can do it those ways.

JENNY GUY: Any way that makes you happy. The best way. The way that makes you feel best. Brenda says, I am curious what we should be looking at when comparing different email service providers. They all seem to offer mostly the same thing, but the prices vary wildly. Why do some services seem to have higher open rates than others? Is that a factor? And how do we know what we’re comparing?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: I agree that some email services do end up having better open rates than others because I did see that when I switched from one that shall remain unnamed to ActiveCampaign.

JENNY GUY: Got it.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: So I think, to be honest, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, and MailerLite are all good services. So if you’re looking for recommendations, those are my recommendations for you. MailerLite because they do have a free plan where it’s 1,000 subscribers, and you don’t have to pay. And then, after 1,000 subscribers, I think it’s like $10 or something like that. It’s not heavy expensive.

Then, I think there’s ConvertKit, fall somewhere in the middle of that. Then, ActiveCampaign is a little bit higher. So if you were looking for a comparison, that’s how I would go.

JENNY GUY: That’s really helpful. And also, I think it might depend on where you are in your email journey.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes.

JENNY GUY: If you’re an experienced emailer maybe, and you know it works for you, and your audience is there for it, and ready to buy, and you’re going to make money back on it, spend money on it.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: If you are just dipping your toe in the waters of being a consistent emailer, try something out that’s a little less expensive.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: That’s right.

JENNY GUY: OK. Morgan Smith McBride says I have maybe 80 plus opt-ins. The lead magnets that are post specific and needed to complete that project crush it for us. She highly segments their list. Good to hear.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: That’s good to hear, yeah. That’s really good to hear.

JENNY GUY: Yeah, it’s exciting to hear. It sounds like Morgan is using it as a — and hey, Morgan. She’s been on the show before. She sounds like it’s a continuation of the blog posts. Like, you need this specifically. Like, if you want to do the next step and whatever project it it. I love it. You guys are so smart.

OK. We had a question asking about YouTube, so I’m going to use that as a little segue here. Another one of your big suggestions involves one of our favorite topics, which is video. If you didn’t know, around here at Mediavine, the year of video became the decade of video. And 2020 marks the new decade of video. TLDR, we are obsessed with video at Mediavine. We have a video called Video, Video, Video. We like videos.

So anyone that advocates for creating more video, you’re on our good list. So tell us a little bit about your video strategy and your best tips for turning a blog post into a video.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So if you’re going to turn a blog post into a video, I highly recommend that you do a little bit more research on YouTube. For instance, I YouTube at least once or twice a week. So you want to use a tool called TubeBuddy. I highly recommend that you install it. It’s a Chrome extension too. Install that, and then whatever blog post it is that you want to turn into a video, go on YouTube, and search for the topic, and see who has the best videos on that topic. Like, the videos that come up first.

And if possible, watch those videos, and see what they said. And then, you want to use TubeBuddy to look at the tags and the titles that the person has used for their videos. And use that for your video. So you’re going to film your own video, but I want you to watch what they talked about because how they talked about it is going to be one of the reasons why the video is so popular or so well-known.

Their tags are also going to be important. And without TubeBuddy, you don’t see those tags. But with TubeBuddy, you get to see those tags. And you could copy or borrow some of those tags onto your own video. And it does help with you getting found in search. So if you’re going to turn a blog post into a video, first of all, do the research.

Go and do your due diligence. Look at who has created videos on that. See what they said. See how differently you are saying it, and that’s going to be your unique selling point. Right? And then, using TubeBuddy take some of those tags. There’s a lot to TubeBuddy, but use TubeBuddy to borrow those tags from those videos for your own videos so that you can either be found in search or be suggested alongside those videos. So that’s for YouTube.

JENNY GUY: That’s very helpful.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah. since we’re talking about video, for live video on YouTube, you could use a similar process. But for live video on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn has live video now. You know, these don’t have search functions, but they do have viral potential. So just go live.

Email your list again. Tell them you’re going live. Tell them that you’re discussing these things. Sometimes when people read things, it’s not so easy for them to get some of the nuances to what you’re saying. And so you can explain it further in the video or in a series, if live video is part of your strategy.

JENNY GUY: So we have someone on here who is saying, I love video, but hate writing. So that’s a separate issue. But what I wanted to ask was, how do you determine which blog posts are really great for videos? Do you just choose ones that are performing really well? Or what is your process there?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: I do a little bit of both. You never know until you test. So you start out with the ones that are doing well. Right? They’re doing well, so you can start out with those 10 minutes of videos. And then, somebody had mentioned embedding that video within the blog posts.

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: So that’s the other benefit is Google owns YouTube. So you could be winning on both sides. On YouTube and on Google with your blog. So embed that. What was that? Sorry. Let me go back to Jenny’s original question. Please, ask your question again because I think I lost my place.

JENNY GUY: Well, first, I wanted to jump in and say, you definitely want to upload your videos and embed them into your blog post using the Mediavine video player so you’re getting the money from those that you’re not necessarily getting on your YouTube video. But you can then put those videos through your Mediavine video player, and then still funnel people to your YouTube channel with a link or a title card. So all of those things are options there.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right.

JENNY GUY: What I asked was, how do you determine which of your blog posts to turn into videos?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: OK, yes. Yes. So I think, start out with the ones that are doing well. Then, later on, if that has run out– hopefully not– but if that has run out, then even the ones that are not doing well, just test those and see if they’ll work. Go on YouTube and, again, use that search process I just described in TubeBuddy to research to see.

And usually, if you find that — TubeBuddy has a scorer. And they tell you, oh, this video is a big potential for you to optimize for it, then that’s your opening because even though it may not be doing well on your blog post, you could turn it into a video and, who knows, it may take off. So just test.

JENNY GUY: So tell us a little bit about your video strategy. How do you create video? Are you using your phone? Do you have a camera? Are you investing? Are you outsourcing? Videos can be a big, big thing and scary for some people, for sure.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes. For sure. I invest. I invest in my video quality a lot because it matters. But if all you have is a cell phone if you have an iPhone or even some of the newer Android phones are really good. So you can start with that. I have two cameras. I have a Canon EOS SL 2 camera. I can put it in the chat. And I also have a canon M50 camera.

So both of these are really good options for people that want to create content wherever you want to create content because they’re both higher end cameras, and so the video quality is good. One is a DSLR. One is a mirrorless camera. But they’re really good quality, and so the video comes out looking much better than if you just use a cell phone because I have shot on my cell phone, and I wasn’t so satisfied with the quality.

But if that’s all you have, then just use it. But I do invest in that. I edit my own videos. I have paid other people to edit them when I’m too busy. So if that’s an option for you, you can do that. But I do edit my own videos and upload them. I do all the research myself. I try to optimize my videos really well for search and suggested on YouTube. And again, that goes back to the tool I mentioned, TubeBuddy on YouTube.

JENNY GUY: Awesome. OK. So do you have a favorite editing software or a couple of recommendations on that? I know there are a lot of people out there who —

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Ooh. iMovie is good. I’ve used that. I currently use Filmora. And then, there are people that I’ve heard really good things about. I think it’s FCPX, but that’s more expensive. Filmora, I think I bought it for $60 or something, but iMovie is free and does a good job too.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. Thank you. OK, let’s pivot a little bit here. You mentioned this one. Well, first, do you have any advice for our friend who is more of a vlogger than a blogger, and how to do the reverse process, turning a video into a blog post?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes. So you can upload your video to — it used to be free, but I think now you’d have to pay something — there is a software called Otter.ai. I’m going to type it to the team so that they see it. But Otter.ai, you can upload your video there, and get a transcript of the video, and you can edit that into a blog post.

YouTube also used to have a way for you to get the transcript. These days, I don’t find it, but it’s possible. It just maybe my computer. But I know I’ve used Otter.ai to turn the video into a blog post. So if you are a video creative, that’s easier for you. You can do that.

I know apart from Otter.ai, there are services. Like, I think there’s one called Rev.com where you can get something transcribed for $0.10 per minute. You know, so if it’s 10 minutes, then it’s $1. Something like that. So yeah, there are services out there. And you can do some of them for very free or cheap.

JENNY GUY: And that’s good, yeah. If you’re a filmmaker, make your films. And then, turn it into a blog post. Do it the other way. Whichever way works better for you.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: For sure.

JENNY GUY: OK. You are a big fan, based on your presentation, of the Gram. Like, you love Instagram. So you’ve got multiple ways that you talked about promoting that one piece of blog content on this platform. So tell us why you are so in love with Instagram, and give us your secrets.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Well, I’m in love with Instagram because I think it’s one of the most personable platforms out there. And I think, really, they built the app really well. And they’ve given us multiple ways to use it. So with Instagram, you have IGTV, you have Instagram TV. That’s a separate app, but it’s still related to it. You have Instagram TV.

You have videos that you can put on that Gram itself. You have the graphics and pictures of yourself that you can put on the Gram itself. You have the opportunity to go live. You have IG stories. You have even the DMs. OK? I’ve converted people in my IG DMs. So I feel like if a platform gives you any tool to use, you should use it. There’s even an option for you to do audio in your DMs. If you know that, you can record audios and send it to people.

JENNY GUY: That’s awesome.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah. So I think it’s a great customer service tool. Anyway, so that’s why I love Instagram. Plus, it’s used by, I think, it’s now up to probably close to a billion people use it. So a lot of people use it. It’s a popular platform. It’s very versatile in whichever content type you’re into. And there’s also the fact that when you put post your image on the main feed, you can write a micro blog underneath that image.

So it makes it so, so versatile. Now, I already mentioned all the different ways you can use it. And really, if you just sit down and think about that blog post that did really well and you’re just going to take one point. You’re not even going to take the whole blog post because people don’t want to read your 2,000 word blog post on Instagram, but they will read something that is punchy, packs punch, and delivers value.

And so just one tip. Like, recently on my Instagram, I think I had just posted — if you go to my Instagram profile, which is instagram.com/gnonterah; shameless plug — but anyway, if you go there, you’ll see that I recently wrote — let me just pull it up because I just want to read it directly. But I wrote something like writing tip because I speak to writers quite a bit.

And I said, writing tip, sit down and just write for 30 minutes every day. That’s it. Don’t complicate it. That’s something I created as a longer piece of content before. It’s just a quote graphic that I wrote. It ended up getting 50 likes. I got a lot of comments on it. A lot of people messaged me about it. One of my coaching clients got in touch with me and was like, oh, that was so great. I wrote three chapters of my book this week because of that tip.

OK. And it was just one sentence on a quote graphic that I shared on my Instagram. You know, so I didn’t take the whole thing. I just took one little point, and it packed punch. And I just shared it. So that’s one way you can do that. You can just take one point from the post, and then make it punchy, make it to a point, and then share it. And it ends up delivering a lot of value and helping people get quick wins.

If you help people get quick wins with your content, that’s another thing. It ends up being super helpful. You can turn that into multiple 15 second IG stories. So this same tip, this whole sit down and write for 30 minutes, I turned that into an eight 15 second IG story where I was like, OK, so today I’m going to tell you why because I think I had posted before and people said, well, I feel too lazy to write. And that was my response to people saying that.

And so I recorded an IG story and I said, you’re telling me you’re too lazy to write. You don’t have time to write. You can write for 30 minutes. And so I did like eight stories for 15 seconds each. And then, I downloaded those stories, turned that into a video, and posted it on my IGTV.

JENNY GUY: There’s three pieces of content right there.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Three pieces of content right there from the same thing, the same statement. Stories, IGTV, that lives on forever, and the post. And all of them did well. You know, so people want to engage in that content in different formats. You could go live. I don’t typically go live on Instagram, but I could take that same tip, go deeper on it, and go live for the next 15 minutes.

JENNY GUY: I love everything you’re saying.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: And it’s a live video. The people that DM’d me about that tip, I can DM them back and be like, hey, what’s up? If I had a product that was attached to that, that would be my opportunity to tell them, well, if you wanted to go deeper, this is a product that you may be interested in. You know, so these are all the ways that you can really go deep with your audience on the Gram. Offer value that makes them win. You know, ultimately, helps them win and, really, they will love you and follow you forever.

JENNY GUY: Well everyone was asking to make sure we’ve posted a couple of times on what your Instagram handle was because everybody said, I missed it! Someone post her Instagram handle!

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: OK. OK, hold on.

JENNY GUY: We got you. We got you. We got you. I just wanted to let you know that people are jonesing to follow you on Instagram.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: OK, there we go. IG.

JENNY GUY: So we’ve talked a lot about the traditional places. And we don’t have much time left, which is sad, but I’m going to go ahead and skip over Twitter and get out of the more traditional platforms like we talked about. Bloggers equal social. That’s, kind of, a one-to-one sharing mode. YouTube. All those things are pretty natural fits. But in terms of non-traditional ways to get outside the box with this with a book, or a podcast, or you said pitching for speaking. Can you talk to about some of those and give some quick tips on there?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes. So for instance, for podcasts, if you have an interest, I find that these days– well, now that we’re mostly self-isolating, and quarantining, and not commuting, I think a lot of my podcaster friends have said their listens have gone down because a lot of people were getting a lot of listens on people’s commutes.

JENNY GUY: Yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: So that finally got down. But we’re not going to be in this stage forever. So I think this is a great time. And there are not many podcasts out there, to be honest, as compared to blogs. So if you wanted to turn your content into a podcast, you could.

I’ve done this multiple times. I have a podcast. And I turned a lot of my posts that ended up doing really well. And usually, I look at two metrics. They did well on Google Analytics. And then, they did well on Pinterest. I just went through the talking points.

And sometimes I have evolved since I first wrote that content. Or I’ve learned new lessons. Sorry. I don’t know what that was. But anyway.

JENNY GUY: Awesome.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: I’ve learned new lessons since I wrote that content. And so, yeah, that ends up being helpful.

JENNY GUY: There’s that. You talked a little bit about what I was most interested in. You talked about the book, which we all want to write the New York Times bestseller. But talk to me about pitching. Talk to me about what metrics you’re looking at for which of your blog posts you’re going to use as your pitches, and how you’re going about writing those pitches. What are you pitching for?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. Well, hopefully, all of us are creating content to attract a certain type of person to us, your avatar. Right ? Whatever your avatar, your business, or your avatar for your business is, you’re creating content for them. And so I say, go on iTunes, go on Google Podcasts, and just type – I find iTunes helpful because I have an iPhone.

I’ll type in, let’s say, business podcasts or blogging podcasts. And find the ones that speak to a subsection of the audience you want to reach. And usually, they will have a website. They will have some way for you to get in touch with them.

Once you get that information, just write to them and say, hello, my name is so-and-so. I create content specifically for this audience. In fact, this post that I wrote ended up doing really well and has since gotten over 100,000 visits. And I was just wondering if I could come on your podcast and talk to your audience about five ways for them to achieve this. Bam, and you’re done.

JENNY GUY: Your numbers are my favorite thing. Like, that you’re just like, five ways, I’m going to make you a better person. Two ways, till you’re going to be, and you’re going to wake up tomorrow, and you’re going to be — I love it. I’m crazy over it.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yes. Your life, we’re going to get you all together.

JENNY GUY: I’m going to change you in three simple ways. Here we go. That’s amazing. We just shared your podcast, as well. OK. So one more thing I want to hit on as we’re running out of time a little bit, sometimes this can be controversial, but you mentioned it. Content syndication. Sharing partial of whatever your content is or sharing all of it. Have you seen value in that? And how do you go about that successfully?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Right. So yes, I see value in that because whether you’re posting on LinkedIn, I’ve posted a lot of LinkedIn. Not on Medium as much. But definitely, I can speak to the LinkedIn, and then the guest posts. If you already have something that did well and you’re going to create something similar for, let’s say, you came to me to pitch me. I don’t do guest posts much, but if you came to me to pitch me to write a guest post, and then it was great because it did so well because, what, it did well on yours. It’s mostly going to do well on mine, as well.

JENNY GUY: OK.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: You have to be in the mindset of the person you’re writing to. So when you pitch a similar idea, or a parallel idea, or a different perspective of the same idea, it is a great way for you to establish your expertise in front of that person’s audience, just like the podcast. And you can have people because you’ll have a byline, so you’ll have people coming back to your blog. And if you like, you can make that byline directly to that other piece of content so that the moment they land on there, they are on there.

JENNY GUY: Very, very smart.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: And same with LinkedIn. You could give a preview of the post, like the first three paragraphs, and say, if you want to read more of this, click here. And that’s another way. You created content, but you also drove traffic back to your blog.

JENNY GUY: All of this is amazing. And I want to have more conversations with you because we’re just skimming the surface. But as we’re almost out of time, I wanted to get more of a overall strategy for you on how you do this. How do you keep track of all of this? Is there a specific way that you track your shares, track your progress metrics, do you use Google Docs, do you use spreadsheets? And I’m going to let you think about all that.

Like, getting started, if somebody has been evangelized and wants to do the Gee Repurposing 15. They want to get started. How did they start? Do they focus on a couple of places?

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Yeah.

JENNY GUY: You’ll think about that for a second. I’m going to make an announcement. And then, I’ll be right back to get with you. OK, so think about those things. All right.

Guys, our next episode of the Summer of Live — this is the Summer of Live, by the way — we didn’t talk about it. It’s hot outside. You guys know. You didn’t tell me — I should have worn sunglasses. Next Thursday, June 25 at 3:00 PM eastern time, we have Katelyn Fagan of “What’s Up Fagans”. We’re talking about improving in post affiliate earnings. I am really excited about this. We’re going to get some good screen shares going for you guys so we can talk about ways you can boost those affiliate earnings.

I know that a lot of people are looking for those opportunities. Oh, I also wanted to say we have rescheduled our episode with Beth Santos of Wanderful and WITS for Thursday September 3. And we will be looking at a possible date in the fall to reschedule Alison Gary for those two episodes we rescheduled for the beginning of the Summer of Live.

But I’m so glad that we kicked off today with Gee. She is incredible. Will you please answer the question, and just remind us where we can find you because everyone’s in love with you now.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: All right. So I can definitely be located on Instagram. I also am on YouTube. If you go on Instagram and click my profile, you should find my YouTube channel. But just look for Gee Nonterah on YouTube. You should find me.

And then, I have a freebie, which I think we already entered. But you can go to gnonterah.com/mediavine if you wanted to get all these 15 ideas on the PowerPoint slides that I was going to present at — in Baltimore, then you can have that, as well.

JENNY GUY: Fantastic. And if you wouldn’t mind answering the question I, kind of, word vomited at you about how to get started and how to track all this and manage it because it’s a lot.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Mm hm. So I think you should start out with a few. I shared 15 of them because I wanted to give people a buffet of options. But I do think that you can make it work for you. Do three or four, or five of them that really work well. How do you track metrics? I think that just use the inbuilt analytics on each of the platforms.

So for instance, on Instagram, you do have an opportunity to look at insights, and views and people that have likes. So there is that already built in. And if you go deeper, you can find those insights, as well. There are software out there that allow you to track that, as well. So you can definitely do that.

As far as YouTube goes, there’s YouTube Analytics. You can take a look at that. YouTube Analytics has improved so much. You can look at click through rates. You can look at views. You can look at view duration. Like, how many people are staying on? How long are they staying on for? When are they dropping off? That all tells you all kinds of information.

You know, your blog post itself gives you a lot. You can also, within Google Analytics, tell where people are coming from. So you can always look at those analytics. I say, make analytics your friend because if you don’t know the data, you don’t know anything. So know your data. And then, the ones that work, keep on doing that. The ones that don’t work, maybe put that on the side burner until you get these ones really figured out. Then, got try working on those ones. But I say start out with three or four of these ideas first so that it’s not overwhelming.

JENNY GUY: And that is helpful. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, but it’s really exciting to hear that you already have the content. You just need to package it slightly differently, yeah.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: You need to recycle it.

JENNY GUY: We love it. Thank you so, so much for joining us. This has been a great time.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: For sure. Thank you so much Jenny, and Mediavine team for having me.

JENNY GUY: And you stay safe in San Diego.

GERTRUDE NONTERAH: Absolutely. Thank you. Bye everyone.

JENNY GUY: See you next Thursday, guys. Bye.