Content takes time. Time to think, research, draft, revise, schedule, post, promote – not just dropping a prompt into your favorite LLM and hoping it doesn’t hallucinate halfway through your thought leadership piece.
We’ve all heard of the Circular Economy, where nothing goes to waste, everything is reused, repurposed, or reintroduced into the cycle. The same logic applies to content – cue in the Circular Content Economy™. Same principle, different subject matter. Instead of a plastic water bottle, you have an article – both take resources to make, petroleum or an employee's time, and both can be turned into something else and have a new life, such as a recycled chair or an email.
Recycling content is about getting smarter with what you’ve already invested in. Done right, it expands reach and reinforces your message – and it is the (financially) sustainable thing to do!
Here are six ways you can recycle content in 2026:
An article has a beginning, middle, and end. A clear problem and solution. It includes figures, percentages, facts, sources, and sometimes frameworks, lists, tips… you name it.
This means it already provides a solid foundation for something else.
Pull out the main takeaways and turn it into an email – or better yet, a short series. One email per insight. Bonus points if you tailor versions by audience segment. This means the same idea, framed slightly differently for each segment (a specific role, industry, or challenge) – making it feel more relevant.
Words on a white “sheet of paper” (more like a Word document or simply your website's background) can only do so much. Attention spans are shortening, and sometimes we just need something more engaging to grab our attention.
This means you can expand an article’s life by turning it into a LinkedIn carousel, an infographic, or a visual summary slide. Visual formats are easier to skim, share, and remember. They also travel well: embed them in emails, place them on landing pages, or reuse them in sales decks.
If you’re recording a webinar or podcast and only publishing the full episode, you’re leaving a lot on the table.
Cut the recording into short clips – 10-30 seconds –, each with a clear hook and a focused idea. One recording session can easily turn into five or six standalone posts. And yes, this only works if you’re recording video as well, but it’s worth it.
Short clips meet people where they already are: scrolling.
No, we don’t mean only emailing the link or recording, and calling it a day. We mean, squeeze the juice out of the recording, and deliver the key message in written form. Explain why it matters and what to do with it.
If the message resonates, people will naturally want to watch or listen to the full thing, which you have linked at the end.
Break those long reads into more manageable chunks.
Instead of one dense PDF, break it into a three-part blog series. Start with the problem and why it matters. Follow with real-world examples or patterns you observed. End with tangible outcomes, lessons learned, or implications for the reader.
If you’re emailing a case study to prospects who likely won’t read past page two, condense it into a one-pager or infographic – needless to say that it is great for socials as well.
You already have the script. Use it.
Turn that case study or whitepaper into a podcast episode or webinar. Have the people who worked on it talk through the thinking behind the work, and end with a Q&A.
You get more reach, your audience gets context, and you often end up with warmer, better-qualified leads.
We are in 2026 afterall, the peak of AI (so far), where there are tools for basically anything – even housechores, so turning text into shorter text is, as they say, peanuts!
Some AI tools we recommend to turn:
Have you ever written an article for your blog and done nothing else with that resource or knowledge?
It doesn’t have to be that way.
When you treat content as a reusable asset instead of a one-off deliverable, it works harder for you. It reaches more people, reinforces your message, and saves your team from constantly starting from scratch.
If you want help turning one piece of content into many – or building a smarter, more sustainable content system – you know where to find us!