Who the heck has time to deal with social media?

YOU do, if you play your content-creation cards right.

The secret to success is to think like an online publisher, because that’s exactly what you are.

You have at your disposal all the power of multiple publishing tools to create and distribute stories about your destination, attraction, hotel, or tourism-related business to a worldwide audience, 24/7, and most of the tools are free or very low-cost.

That’s what effective content marketing and social media are all about, really; connecting with people and telling stories.

To get started thinking like an online publisher, try this:  take one interesting aspect of your town, capture it in a compelling way, then re-use it on different social media channels and in your emails to reach many different prospective visitors, guests, and customers.

It’s not a new concept; take a look at how Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia expands and extends an idea for pansy flowers.

Rock the Content Marketing Chocolate Milkshake

Let’s take a destination example using a chocolate milkshake (honestly, we’re talking chocolate here, people. It’s a no-brainer.)

Here is how to take one idea, create content around it, and then re-use it.

Notice that on every channel, we recommend sharing most effectively by linking or tagging.

Step 1  –  Use your phone camera to take a dazzling photo of a chocolate milkshake from the real corner drugstore that you still have in your downtown. Get a mouthwatering close-up.

While you’re in the drugstore anyway, shoot a short video of a drugstore employee showing how they make the perfect chocolate milkshake. Bonus points for shooting both horizontally and vertically, because different formats work better on different platforms.

Put those videos on your YouTube channel. The vertical version will be a YouTube Short. The horizontal one is probably better for embedding in a blog post or your email newsletter.

Step 2  –  Put the milkshake photo into a round-up blog post that calls attention to fun, quick, unique downtown places to eat. Link to each of those businesses in your post; this helps people find them easily and also helps their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Google, Bing, and other search engines plus AI summaries.

Embed the horizontal how-it’s-made video into the blog post. You can embed vertical Shorts, too, but sometimes they can look wonky.

Add the link URL from the blog post to the video’s description box back on YouTube: “For more great places to eat, click this link to our blog post.”

Step 3  –  Link to your blog post in an update on your destination’s Facebook Page. The photo in the post will show up in the link, or you can add a different one, which is good because photos will do better than plain text on Facebook.

Tag the business Facebook Page of the drugstore where you took the milkshake photo, plus the Pages for the other eateries mentioned in the post – that helps people find them and easily Like them on Facebook.

Option – Upload the video to your Page instead, and put the blog post link in the first comment.

Step 4  –  Post the link to your blog post 2-3 times on Threads, Twitter / X, and/or Bluesky, over a few days, at different times so you’re not overwhelming your followers and you reach different people and time zones.

Try to leave room in the posts to include the “@” handles (if they have one) of those downtown businesses featured in your post – that helps people find and follow them.

Related – Content repurposing examples: Instagram and blog post

Step 5  –  Make a carousel of milkshake photos for Instagram, or use a single milkshake image, or make a carousel of one photo from each eatery listed in your blog post, or use the vertical video to make a Reel (pick the media type that tends to do best with your followers.)

Tag the IG accounts of the featured businesses in the post, if they have IG accounts.

Then, add the IG post to your IG Story, and add a link sticker back to your blog post. (Note: as of this writing, Instagram is testing clickable links in IG post captions, so the Story sticker may not remain your only IG link option.)

Step 6  –  Consider sharing the blog post link on your LinkedIn Page to reach a more B2B audience, perhaps by giving it a downtown / Main Street / economic development angle, or talking about places to eat near your meeting, event, and conference venues.

You can do status updates on both personal LinkedIn profiles and brand Pages – plus tag people and brands – just like you do on Facebook.

Step 7  –  Don’t forget about Pinterest for repurposing photos and video. It’s a travel inspiration search engine for many audiences.

You can link a Pinterest Pin to a relevant blog post or website page, so it’s a source of traffic for you without a ton of extra work.

Step 8  –  Last but DEFINITELY not least, pop the chocolate milkshake photo into your email newsletter. Include a short excerpt of the blog post with a link back to the full post.

This puts chocolate in your newsletter (can’t argue with that, right?) plus it shows subscribers that you have a blog. Don’t assume that people know that!

Go ahead; ask them in the newsletter to share the milkshake blog post with their own social media network. Bonus: Ask them to hit Reply on the email and share their favorite milkshake flavor with you. Yes, you can build community and have conversations with email.

Don’t worry if you are not active on all of the social media channels that we’ve listed above.

The point is to take one idea, capture it visually, and then create content with it to share across multiple channels.

—>>  Note that I do not advise taking any of this chocolate milkshake content and blasting it simultaneously across multiple platforms.

Craft the content to fit the platform, or you’ll end up with broken tags, weird displays, hashtags where no one uses them, and other messes that make your hard work less effective.

Create something once, then rock it all across multiple digital platforms!

What is your favorite tip when it comes to content repurposing . . . or milkshakes, for that matter? Let me know in the comments.

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Want some help with learning to think like an online publisher?

This isn’t my first social media rodeo – I’ve been a content creator for years. Bring me in as a speaker and educator to help you and your partners learn how to tell your stories online and attract new visitors and guests.

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