The Ultimate Blog Podcast - The 4C Method to Repurpose Your Content and Decrease Burnout with Krystle Straub

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

Content burnout is real, especially for bloggers juggling blog posts, social media, email marketing, and more. The pressure to constantly create fresh content can feel overwhelming. But what if you could get more content out of every blog post you write? That’s exactly what today’s guest, Krystle Straub, shared on the Ultimate Blog Podcast. She’s an expert in content repurposing who shares her best strategies for turning one blog post into multiple pieces of content – saving you time and helping prevent content burnout.🔗Start your blog today→ Join The Ultimate Blog Roadmap📷Get our 8 Step Guide to Image Optimization💻Grab Krystle’s guide on how to start a blogConnect with Krystle at Krystle Straub Co.Do you love this podcast?  Say thanks by leaving a positive review and/or rating!  🔗Check out the show notes for episode 173

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicki. And I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips. We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice.

Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Today we are talking about repurposing content and why it can really make a difference in your blogging business. And to do this, we brought in Crystal Straub. And so we are really going to get schooled today on how we can be better

at repurposing content to hopefully prevent some burnout. So welcome to the podcast, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we are really excited to kind of dive into this topic today because burnout is something that a lot of people can feel. But even if a blogger is listening today and isn't experiencing burnout yet, I still think this is a really important topic.

That way we can set up our blogging businesses to prevent burnout. And so can we just kind of dive into what repurposing content is? Like what is the definition of repurposing content? Sure, so for me, I just like to say that repurposing content is? Like what is the definition of repurposing content? Sure. So for me, I just like to say that repurposing, I'm a foodie. So basically, imagine going and buying chicken, right? And you cook chicken at night and you have leftovers. Well, let's say the first night you made chicken and mashed potatoes. That's your original meal,

right? But you still have all this leftover chicken. What content repurposing is, is taking that chicken and then making it into a soup, making it into, I don't know, something else. But basically you're taking that chicken, you're just using that main ingredient and you're just recreating it into something else. So that's the easiest way to style it. You're just taking one original piece of content and you're just reusing it in different ways. So in this example is your blog post like the chicken? Yes. And that's why I love them like on a blogging podcast because I like to say that blogging

is the best originating piece of content that you can have. Like you start long and you go short. And I just feel like blogging just gives you so much opportunity for content. It's literally insane how many pieces of content you get from one blog post. So what would be like for one blog post, I don't know if you have this number just like ready to say, but what about how many different pieces of content do you predict that the average blogger could get out of one blog post?

And what would that be? Like, what examples would that include? Oh my gosh, I actually have a really great example that I like to use. So I was a previous travel agent. So I love writing content for travel agents. And I have a blog post that was like five top five honeymoon destinations. So that one blog post, I actually have an outline where I divide it into 26 different pieces of content. It's crazy, right? Because you could take each of those places and that one week of Instagram content, you

can break it like resort one, resort two, resort three, do the same thing for emails. Each point gets its own highlight. And then you could go even deeper into those points as well. So yeah, it's like at least 20 feet to the content can come from one blog post. It's really cool. So when people are blogging, whether they're a beginner or intermediate or whatever,

I know that it can feel like they're being stretched in a lot of different places in regards to creating blog content or creating content for social media. And then now we add on like email marketing. That's something that we really encourage people in our community and here on the podcast to make sure that they're utilizing. And so that can feel kind of overwhelming as people are like, I have to create content in all of these different places.

And whether you're repurposing it or not, it can still feel overwhelming because you still have to sit down and create it. So what encouragement do you have about, how do people do it all? Is there a step process, or what is your encouragement there? Love this question because, yes, it does. It seems very, very overwhelming.

And I think there's a couple of different ways to approach this. So one is remembering that you don't have to start from scratch. I just want to reiterate that again and again. So I like to say the content that you need already exists. So let's say if blogging obviously is your main source of content, if that's what you love to write, start there. Again Again in my opinion. I feel like it's so much easier to start in that place because you have so much that you can trim down

I know for some of us the wordy people that can be a little bit hard But I feel like it's a way harder to go short long in my opinion So I think first it's like recognizing that piece of content that you enjoy Writing the most and then start to add other platforms. I like to call it the holy tree I like you want to have short from content so you don't have to be everywhere So choose like one short form platform, whether that be Instagram thread LinkedIn whatever and then obviously email marketing would be another

platform that you definitely need to be on. Take advantage of that. And then long form, which would be blogging, podcasts, YouTube, something like that. From there, I would say you would take your blog, decide where you're going to tap it up to, and just pick out a couple of key points. I wouldn't overthink it too much, especially for social media. Just pick one key piece, one big takeaway from your blog, start there, and then find a second, find a third, find a fourth. And you just find your cadence. And again, if something really just isn't hitting, if you're really struggling, I would just kind of just take a step back and reevaluate.

So in this example, say we've written a really good blog post that we think is going to be helpful and we like to share, we've chosen Instagram as our platform for sharing. So maybe it was like you said, like five top tips for travel wherever. And so you're going to break that into five maybe separate posts that you're going to share on Instagram. So then what would be kind of the next step? How would you... You're trying not to recreate the wheel. So you've got your points, but you still have to create something. Are we creating videos? Are we just posting a photo? How do you go about then we just posting a photo? Like how do you go about then transforming it from a blog post to an Instagram post?

So what I would do actually kind of depends on your style. If you are a video person, 1000% you could sit there, you could create a series. It's a really quick talk to camera, my top five, you know, part one, part two, part three. And then I would just say again, the main point and then like the forming point Just how you have like your headings and then you have your sub points. That's your post right there or my favorite carousel like I Constantly am taking my blog post and making a pair of cells for Instagram So I would say video carousel if you want to do that

Sometimes if you really just don't feel like creating a whole big thing, you can just do like again, like a big main takeaway and then lead people to your post. If you want to hear more about this topic, click the link to my bio, comment, whatever and then send them the link to your blog. I mean, ultimately you want to get them on your blog anyway to drive that traffic. So I would say any opportunity you can to do that through Instagram or any other social platform, do it. And even that goes for emails too. Like

I view this constantly in emails where sometimes I'm just kind of time strapped. So I'll kind of summarize a new blog post and I'll say, click here to read the whole thing. And it works out really well. Yeah. And also it's probably easier for them to digest because I think sometimes we feel like we have to tell everybody everything and I know me personally if an email is too long if a social media caption is too long I'm just not gonna probably read it for that long and so I think it's it's that's the beauty of taking that blog post

and using it in like a smaller form. It's like just those little nuggets essentially is what you're doing to repurpose. Because we want people to engage on social media, but we also want them to open our emails and read them and then do the call to action, which is likely going to be possibly purchase a product or go to the blog post or?

Sign up for something else that we're that we're hosting or doing and so kind of think about what your end goal is to I Think can be really encouraging Crystal you have developed a method like the 4c method and I would love for you to explain what that is because I find it Really awesome and helpful. Yeah, I love this so much. So basically the four C's is a way to repurpose your content. And it starts with first part is curating your content. And what I mean by that is really just going through your social media feed, blog posts, emails, any presentations you've given,

anywhere that you have contact your notes app on your phone, you probably will have so many ideas that you haven't touched or forgotten about. So you're going through your channel and you're pulling out content that is sitting there that you really, really love. Sometimes, like honestly, a post on social media, especially will just flop, but it's like there's good information in there.

Might as well try to revive it. So first is security, Matt. For me personally, like I have a Google Sheet for that one. I know people who use Notion, Airtable, wherever you wanna house that, just have a dab of these of just like context. It's amazing.

The next thing you wanna do is figure out what channel you wanna put that one. So it's security and then channel. And this is going back to what I was saying before with the Holy Trio. You want to have repurposed it to a social platform, long form content, and email marketing. Again, you don't have to be everywhere, but just kind of pick one platform for each of those categories. So you have Curie, you're going to pick your channel that you're going to repurpose it to. So let's say you have a blog, you want to turn your channel that you're going to repurpose it to. So let's say you have a blog, you want to turn it into an email.

You have a blog, you want to turn it into Instagram posts. So you're just kind of creating a system there and a loose schedule. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to craft. So you're going to take the information from your originating piece of content, your curative, and you're going to craft it for the new platform. Because again, you're not going to put a whole blog post in an email, right? You're going to want to simplify your bite sized pieces

as digestible as possible. And that's what crafting is. It's just editing it for the right platform, pulling out those key pieces and just making it easy. And then next is that you want to customize it. This is where you're going to add an SEO, if you are blogging, any kind of design elements, anything to optimize that piece of content

to help the person take the next step. So that's a blank to go, you know, for call to action. So that's what the four Cs are. Hey there, thank you for being a listener of the ultimate blog podcast. We want to take a moment just to thank you for tuning in and being a part of this amazing community. Are you ready though, to elevate your blogging game even further? If so, we have some fantastic news.

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I think what I love about it so much is it's another, it's like a system that you can put in place in your blogging business. So whereas, you know, we love to be creative, but feeling like you have to be creative constantly is truly overwhelming. You're trying to come up with new ideas and just impress people and draw people in and that can be like an exhausting cycle. So having it set up in a way where you're coming up with an idea, but then you're able to take what you created and use it in so many different ways based on this kind of formula that you have. I think it takes the pressure off of us

and probably lets us even be more productive with all of this because we know exactly what to do. We know what to look for with each piece of content. You can be thinking about it as you're writing your blog post and maybe making some notes about how you wanna share elsewhere. And that way you're not having to post and maybe making some notes about how you want to share elsewhere. And that way you're not having to constantly make decisions about it.

You can just plug it in, you know, put it in your template, you know, customize it for that platform and go on your way. So I love that piece of it. And I think one question that people might have is, okay, what if I don't have any ideas? What's a good way to kind of just get the ball rolling, get myself a database of ideas here for what I could share or how I could go about this or what platform I should even be on? Oh, I love this. So, you know, there's so many different tools out there. Some of my favorites are like going just in Google and just kind of going through like the search and search the things that you do.

So I used to be a virtual assistant. So I probably start with virtual assistant and see what comes up, what kind of questions are being asked around that and create content around that. Another platform is ask the public or answer the public. I think it is. That is a good one too. You go in, you type a topic in there, and it actually comes up with a wheel of different questions that people are asking about.

So that's another really good one. Going through social media and just again, searching your niche and see what people are asking about, what they're talking about, what kind of content's getting, engagement a lot, I would get to those topics. Another way is to actually just go through your DMs and your, you know, the different questions that you're getting constantly on questionnaires, on calls. When you're sitting in, even like networking calls and you're part of any kind of community,

there's so many questions in there. I get so many ideas when I'm sitting through those calls. And honestly too, podcasts. Like I listen to podcasts. I'm like through this call. And honestly, too, podcasts. I listen to podcasts. I'm like, for some reason, I get so many ideas through podcasts, too. Those are really great, tangible things that anybody could do today are those tools. And I want to dive a little bit deeper into tools, too. Are there any tools that you recommend for people to use to kind of make this repurposing part

easier? ChatGPT. I mean, definitely do not copy and paste, but make ChatGPT your friend. I love just taking a big old blog post and what I'll do is I will literally just copy and paste it into ChatGPT, tell it how to ask, hi ChatGPT, I'm very friendly to it. Please ask as an expert copywriter who specializes in email marketing, please use the blog post to turn it into a series of emails

about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It'll send back something to you and I will use that as an outline. Doesn't always hit right. I feel like in order to get the best output of chat, GBT, you have to train it as an employee so that it really understands your business, your voice, your services, and really has to know you really well. And, but once it does, it is the best way to kind of cut through, you know,

save time. And I mean, I even do this for my clients. A lot of my clients have podcasts. So I will paint their podcast transcripts and then have it just pull out the bullet points for me. And there I have blog posts, I have emails. It's a really, really good tool. Yeah. I think this is just a really encouraging way to remind us that even though we're content creators,

you don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time. So when you're coming up with these ideas, think about it in a bigger picture and think about how it can continue to serve. And maybe you let's say you have 100 or 200 blog posts already written, think about everything that you've already created and how you can repurpose those things in order to, I don't know, sometimes I feel like we go through these like kind of lulls as a content creator that you really do feel like, I don't know what I'm supposed to say anymore. Like I don't have anything creative. I don't know. And maybe I don't want to, I don't want to be creative today,

or I just don't feel like doing that. That is a very normal feeling. And so being able to use some of the tools that you've mentioned, Crystal, I think is really, really helpful to just, I don't want to say fake it till you make it because that doesn't really make sense there, but it's kind of that relying on these tools to help us during these times where we're not on like our total A game. Like you don't always have to be there or maybe we're going through something personally or you know, whatever it may be. And we just need a little help to get the content written. Chad GPT, I think we're learning more and more ways to utilize it, to make it work for us, to help cut down on the time that is spent

creating content. And like Crystal said, you're not gonna copy and paste and just use it how it is. We don't recommend that at all because you still wanna be able to hear your voice and all of that, but it can be a really powerful tool. You've mentioned social media occasionally throughout this interview. And so I wanna just kind of touch a little bit on that

in regards to like templates and stuff. Is that a way that people can also kind of do it faster to get their stuff posted on social media? Cause we are hearing more and more from a lot of our members and people that we're connected to is that I don't want to be on social media a lot. So like, how can somebody who really wants to spend less time on social media because they feel like they're just like a hamster in a wheel. How can they repurpose that content in a quick and efficient way? Yeah, 1000%. So I am a human like fan of templates, whether that be an email template, social

media, blog, like template, everything. So if you just copy and paste and save so much time So when it comes to social media, I would say definitely have maybe about three or four different carousel design And just keep for using them Like I think so many times and I know I catch myself in this too Is that we feel like we have to keep creating from scratch, right? We feel like we have to keep saying something new I don't have anything new to say and that's what makes us it's not so much that we don't enjoy content creation It's that pressure of like I have nothing new. I've said this before And I have been there guys and let me tell you it is it's miserable you get in this right and you're just like I'm Over I want to quit and I think that kind of pressure is what

leads to burnout a lot um and like that resentment towards social media especially when you're sitting there you're trying to think of original new ideas and it falls flat right I think at the end of the day we're just like I spent all that time and it did nothing and to that I just want to just help us with that because I've had to pull myself through lots of muck is that it doesn't have to be from scratch. Repeat yourself, please don't be afraid to repeat yourself because one, people are missing it the first time. But also like they need to hear things over and over and over and over. Like I don't even know what the status anymore. How many times people have to be touched before they make

a purchase? I think it's seven. Oh my goodness. Seven? I think it's seven. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

So, and you figure every time you post on social, let's say, like only, gosh, less than 10% of your actual followers are seeing it. So, you know, lessen that pressure on yourself. And with repeating, it's good to repeat yourself. The more you repeat yourself on your blogs, in your emails, in your social, that is gonna build brand recognition. That's building your messaging, that's building your brand.

So I would lean into it. And the bigger brands do it all the time. Like we know their messaging and we're not hard of it. We just, we come to know them. Yeah, yeah. I think there's something comforting in that feeling of knowing like, here's my message and I'm just going to keep repeating it. I might do it in a slightly different way. I might post a carousel. I have a blog post. I have a quick video, but overall,

your message stays the same. So I think there's something empowering in that, and that you're not recreating the wheel every time you sit down every day to do your content creation job. You're just really trying to reach people with your message and that it just it just helps you so much to be able to reach the people that you're trying to send that message to versus trying to create all this new stuff that could end up being confusing when, when in fact we can just send the same message and really, really have an impact. Crystal, I've loved this interview. I think you've given so much good advice and tangible. And I think not for the beginner blogger, for somebody who's been blogging for years, I think just utilizing some of these systems could be so, so helpful.

Systems are important to Jennifer and I as well. So we're gonna piggyback on what Crystal said. Find a content management system of some sort. The one that we recommend is ClickUp. And it doesn't matter what you use. I just encourage you to use something. Have that place that you can go back to, to like grab your content from,

and then put some of these methods into place. And I think that you'll find just more freedom in your business, quite honestly. And it allows you to have some more white space in your calendar that then allows you to be more creative. It's when we feel like we're just constantly like going, going, going, that we don't feel like we can be creative.

So I hope that this episode has helped you so much. Crystal, I know that people are going to want to connect with you. So can you please let them know what you do, how you help people and where they can find you? Sure. So what I do is I repurpose blogs and emails required of all different industries. It's so much fun. So basically I take that one piece of content and I spice it up. I have that in various forms where I do it for you or done with you where I actually sit and I do those four Cs for you where I curate the content

and I send you ideas of pay, email about XYZ and break it all down. So it's just more breeze based for you. And how you can connect with me is on Instagram is usually where I hang out. And my name is spelled differently. Thank you, mom and dad. Um, it's crystal. They were upset with dynasty back in the eighties.

Oh my gosh. So that's hilarious. Crystal Carrington. So that's where the weird spelling comes from. So it's K R Y S T L E underscoreT-L-E underscore Straub, S-T-R-A-U-V on Instagram. Then my website is crystalstrawbko.com. Awesome. We will put those in the show notes.

And thank you so much for joining us today. This has been so helpful. Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about building your blog, visit theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash newsletter to get signed up for our email newsletter. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love for you to share it with a friend, subscribe and

leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next time.