How to recycle your tweets

You might have heard that one of the easiest ways to succeed on Twitter is "picking up a lane" (aka a niche).

That means choosing a few content topics related to each other and creating content around them until you build trust and authority there.

While that's true, that approach to Twitter has its disadvantages.

We can only come up with so many original ideas during the day and the truth is that 90% of those won't even be tweetable.

But who said you need to find new ideas to tweet all the time? Here's where content recycling comes in.

In this article, we'll learn why they do it and how you can do it too.

What is content recycling?

The essence of content recycling is to identify what pieces of content you already published have the potential to be published again, with a few tweaks.

The best creators don't focus on saying 100 new ideas. Instead, they focus on telling one idea in 100 different ways. Or they read our article about 24 things to tweet for when you run out of content ideas.

That's how you build a positioning and a strong message.

How to recycle your tweets

The 101 or recycling content is:

1. Identify content worth recycling
2. Save it to a swipe file
3. Repurpose it
4. Publish it again

Let's dive in 👇

1 - Identifying content worth recycling

There are two ways to find content worth recycling. You can either:

• Take underperforming content that you feel could have done better
• Or you can pick the best pieces of content that did the best

Then we need to look at the metrics to figure out if the content is interesting or not.

For the top-performing content, we want to focus on impressions, likes, and RTs. These are the best metrics to understand when a tweet did well.

For the underperforming content, we want to focus on profile clicks and replies instead. These metrics might not seem that important, but that signal that the content was attractive to the audience, even if it didn't bring in as many impressions or likes.

You can check out this article we wrote to learn how to use Twitter analytics if you need it. Or you can use Tweet Hunter to find out.

There are two ways you can search for your content on Tweet Hunter.

#1 Use the Search function.

Take your username and paste it into the search bar. Tweet Hunter's algorithm will bring up a selection of your best tweets.

It's a great place to get started.

#2 Use the Analytics tab

At the bottom, you'll find an entire list of your tweets, which you can filter by impressions, reach...

Whatever it is, these are two quick and easy ways to find your old content.

2 - Save it to a swipe file

Swipe files are places where you save content (yours or someone else's), so you can return to them when you need inspiration.

In this case, it also serves us to build a content library of your tweets.

On Twitter, you can use the Bookmark feature to build it. It's a bit uncomfortable to use, but it does the job.

If you use Tweet Hunter, you can use the collections feature instead. This is how it works:

1. You run a search with Tweet Hunter
2. You select what tweet you want to add to your swipe file
3. You "star" it
4. You choose into which folder you want to save it (we recommend you create one called recycling)

You can add tweets to collections without running a Tweet Hunter search.

Instead, go into Collections, click "Import tweet," and copy-paste the link to whatever tweet you want to add.

3 - Repurpose your old tweets

Here's where the "magic" happens. Once you've identified a tweet to recycle, do one of the following:

→ Restructure the content (Example: make it shorter. Or longer. Or add bullet points) → Add visuals or make it a video → Change the tone → Or copy-paste and repost

Let me give you two examples:

What did I do?

I took the core idea from the first tweet and expanded on it in the second one. Another example:

In this case, I just adjusted the timeframe of the tweet. I "updated" it.

As you can see, I chose both tweets to get them recycled because they had an important number of likes, and I also felt the insights were more evergreen.

Is recycling content safe? Won't my audience notice?

This is the thing about repurposing your content: 90% of your audience hasn't seen it yet. And from the 10% that have, they probably don't remember.

So you repurposing it is like doing them a favor.

There are a few things to take into account though

• Don't repost content from week to week. Space them out a little bit. I usually aim to recycle content that it's at least 4 to 6 months old.
• Always strive to make it better. Copy-pasting is tempting, and it will probably work. But the content quality will improve if you try to make a little effort.
• Don't give up because you've tried it 3 or 4 times. Some ideas need to be presented in a particular way. But don't get obsessed, either.

Keep that in mind, and you'll be fine.