How to Repurpose Past Events into Engaging Content

For busy professionals, content creation often falls to the bottom of the to-do list. There’s no denying the importance of a consistent digital presence, but all that creative energy is typically dedicated to client events.

Fortunately, the visual nature of our industry allows event pros to collect large galleries of curated images that are perfect for targeted marketing.

“The world of events offers an endless portfolio of colorful content to choose from,” says Carin Hunt of Celebration Pros. “The moments felt, the team effort, and the details that personalize each celebration are all opportunities to create engaging content.”

With so much content to work with, it’s easy to maintain your brand presence online without investing much time. To do so, you need to harness the power of repurposing.

Repurposing past events extends the shelf life of your photos while providing a never-ending stream of content to use on your website, emails, and social media. But it’s not just a matter of reposting the prettiest pictures from your portfolio. Instead, follow these four tips to stretch your events into a meaningful, long-lasting marketing strategy.

Start with long-form content

It can seem overwhelming to think about the many ways you could highlight an event in your marketing. Should you post it on Pinterest? Submit it to a real wedding blog? Create a TikTok to showcase your favorite details?

While you might choose to do all of the above, Ava and the Bee’s Adrienna McDermott recommends starting with a blog post before exhausting all your channels.

“Blogging should be the core piece of your content marketing strategy,” she confirms. “A single 500-word blog post can easily create weeks of content to share on social media.”

Since a blog post typically requires more heavy lifting than other marketing channels, you’ll have a bulk of the legwork done with plenty to recycle in emails and on your preferred social platforms. You’ll also have an event-specific landing page to direct people interested in seeing more details, driving qualified traffic to your website.

Keep it fresh

Copying and pasting snippets of your blog post might be tempting, but avoid cloning your content across channels. What works in a long-form blog doesn’t translate directly into an Instagram caption or email newsletter.

Instead, tailor your messaging toward the intended audience of each channel. For example, those on your email list have already entered your marketing funnel and are warmed up to your offerings, so you might go into detail about the client’s experience. On the other hand, your Instagram followers are colder leads, so you may focus more on your design inspiration and how you pulled off a spectacular look. Consider what you want to convey to each audience and adjust your content accordingly.

Another reason to avoid carbon copy marketing: you’ll lose page authority with Google and other search engines. “In the case of SEO, repeating your words tells the internet that you are not relevant as you have nothing new to share,” Hunt explains.

You can also run into problems with inaccuracies from older content, especially if you’re repurposing social media posts from events that are over a year old. Megan Breukelman of Megan & Kenneth encourages event pros to “be mindful of any venue closures, relationships that didn't work out, or other issues that make your content outdated.”

Repurposing content is more than duplicating and resharing past work. Instead, it's a strategic way to freshen up your visuals and messaging for new channels and audiences.

Play with roundups

Sharing a highlight reel of the same celebration multiple times will get old quickly. But there’s no reason to keep content separated by event! 

Breukelman suggests combining event images around a specific topic, like “creating a TikTok about your favorite wedding cake toppers or a blog post about autumn florals.”

In this way, you can compile photos from many events to create new angles for content that positions your brand as a creative thought leader. With so much beautiful work at your fingertips, think of topics that suit your audience’s unique needs, like your favorite local wedding venues or the best color palettes to highlight your region’s landscape.

Create a repurposing schedule

Repurposing past events is a time-saving approach, but it does require your attention to ensure content is distributed evenly and in the right places. For instance, you won't get much mileage by recycling a blog post across social media channels on the same day.

Instead, McDermott recommends spreading it out. “Not everything has to go up the week after the blog post,” she assures. “Filter it out through the next 6-8 weeks.”

Your chosen channels and posting cadence also factor into how much time you’ll need to spend on content marketing. “Choosing where you plan to show up and how often in relation to your capacity for time will be crucial to your success,” Hunt asserts. 

“When you think intentionally about where your audience is interacting the most, you will be able to define which social channels to post to, where to submit features, and whether or not an email marketing strategy makes sense for your brand,” she adds.

In other words, a few strategic posts on the right platforms will have a greater impact than daily posts on the wrong ones. And when time is limited, you can’t afford to waste creative energy on content that doesn’t produce results.

There’s no need to spin your wheels on creating new content on top of producing extraordinary celebrations. Let your work do the talking! Repurposing past events gives you a practical marketing approach to demonstrate your expertise and innovativeness without draining your time or resources.

Meghan Ely is the owner of wedding PR and wedding marketing firm OFD Consulting. Ely is a sought-after speaker, adjunct professor in the field of public relations, and a self-professed royal wedding enthusiast.