Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
Multi-Modal Content is the concept of creating one overarching piece of content that can be repackaged into multiple different forms to reach different audiences. This differs from a multi-channel approach to content marketing, which consists of just reusing the same piece of content in the same format across multiple platforms.
Examples of the Multi-Model Approach
At Intelligency, we believe in the value of using a multi-model approach towards client content as audiences differ from platform to platform based on demographic, attention span and different types of content they want to consume. A piece of video content for a client can be posted on the website, YouTube and in an email campaign. However, it can also be clipped up in the form of a YouTube short and Instagram Reel. This means we can target younger audiences with shorter attention spans on platforms more relevant to them.
Benefits of the Multi-Model Approach
Using a multi-model approach is more time-consuming, and some marketers may be wondering if it’s a sensible approach to spend extra time repurposing content for different platforms when they can reuse existing content. I will lay out some of the benefits of the multi-model approach and why I believe it is a worthwhile time investment.
- Less Content Creation – While it’s true that repurposing content does take more time than just simply reusing content, take into account the fact that the lifespan of the content after it’s been repurposed has been dramatically increased. This, therefore, means that you don’t have to spend as much time making different content from scratch and coming up with new ideas as often, which frees up more time to focus on other areas.
- Reaching Different Audiences – As mentioned previously, different platforms attract different audience demographics with different attention states. Posting the same content in its original form across multiple platforms might seem like a good idea; however, the audience on each platform (while there is obviously some overlap) is different and consumes content in different ways. Someone who typically watches podcasts on YouTube and someone who prefers short-form content, such as TikTok and would never listen to a podcast because they believe it’s “too long” have wildly different attention spans and approaches to what good content is. However, creating long-form content for a podcast-style video and then repurposing it into short, digestible TikTok clips allows us to catch both types of users as opposed to the one we were initially targeting.
- SEO Benefits – Google still dominates the search market (Even with the rise of ChatGPT and even though Google is still largely focused on written content, the different types of content that appear on the SERP now are more than ever before. From standard written content to AI Overviews, Videos and Images. Making sure your content comes in different forms, such as having video content and imagery to support your content in its written form, can help you target the SERP from different angles and give you an improved chance of appearing higher on the SERP and improve SEO results by extension.
How to start your Multi-Modal Approach
If you want to undertake a multi-model approach in the future when looking at your content strategy, one of the ways to do this is by auditing your existing content. Some of the content you already have posted on your site or different platforms may have potential to be repurposed into different formats that boost engagement. Go through your content systematically and look for any gems that could work in your favour. Once all existing content has been audited, you can make sure to focus on creating specific content that can be repurposed when coming
