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By Gini Dietrich

OK, OK. I’m finished with my experiment to repurpose content.

Everyone talks about repurposing content. Some people just re-share their content on the social networks, with no updates, while others give it additional legs through eBooks, Slideshare presentations, and more.

For my repurpose content experiment, though, I have spent the last week taking content from 2012 and 2013, updating it, giving it a 2015 refresh, and republishing it on the same URL.

As part of that, though, the comments and shares from the previous post came along with it.

Which meant two things:

1. If you saw the blog post in your RSS feed at 7:30 a.m., it showed there were already hundreds of comments. Which either made you stop and think or it created an urgency for you to stop by to see what you were missing (nothing…they’re old comments!).
2. People who commented on the post when it was first published got updates from Livefyre when someone new commented on it, which was more irritating to them than it was a fun reminder to stop by and see old friends.

Look, it’s August and no one is working. It’s always the slowest month of the year. So I figured a) it was a good time to experiment; and b) it would bring some of you stragglers out of the woodwork again (even if I had to shame you do it!).

It seemed kind of brilliant at first, but then some, uh, vocal friends started publicly giving me a hard time about it (see the note above about being irritating).

The Results of the Repurpose Content Test

Following are the six blog posts that I updated and republished.

Six Tips for Better Business Writing

• The first post was published on September 25, 2012 and the second on July 22, 2015.
• There were 1,851 visitors on the first and 489 on the second.
• There were 167 comments on the first and 43 on the second.
• There were two linkbacks on the first and zero on the second.

The 10 Commandments of Online Etiquette

• The first post was published on September 17, 2012 and the second on July 23, 2015.
• There were 2,437 visitors on the first and 595 on the second.
• There were 156 comments on the first and 35 on the second.
• There were seven linkbacks on the first and two on the second.

Caught in the Busy Trap

• The first post was published onJuly 9, 2012 and the second on July 28, 2015.
• There were 1,759 visitors on the first and 313 on the second.
• There were 155 comments on the first and eight on the second.
• There were seven linkbacks on the first and two on the second.

Four Ways to Keep Content Fresh

• The first post was published on February 27, 2013 and the second on July 29, 2015.
• There were 990 visitors on the first and 276 on the second.
• There were 99 comments on the first and 16 on the second.
• There were five linkbacks on the first and zero on the second.

Likable vs. Successful

• The first post was published on December 10, 2012 and the second on July 30, 2015.
• There were 1,455 visitors on the first and 490 on the second.
• There were 202 comments on the first and 29 on the second.
• There was one linkback on the first and zero on the second.

Increase Blog Traffic with These 12 Ideas

• The first post was published on June 12, 2013 and the second on August 4, 2015.
• There were 967 visitors on the first and 133 on the second.
• There were 132 comments on the first and 22 on the second.
• There were seven linkbacks on the first and two on the second.

What’s interesting is the previous six blog posts—that were original content— had 13 percent more visitors than the six that were repurposed.

What We Learned

This isn’t really what we learned from this experiment, but it’s clear people were much more engaged in 2012 versus today. We’ve seen that across the board—from our own blog posts to client content and news articles.

It’s really interesting that there aren’t as many linkbacks, which tells me not as many people are blogging anymore (many of the linkbacks on the above articles are to now-defunct blogs).

It does make me sad to see how much lower engagement and visitors and social shares are today compared to three years ago. I’d like to chalk it up to people being busier, but I don’t know if that’s the entire story.

Most of the people who commented and shared back then are still around today, in some fashion. They may not all do the same now as they did then, but they’re still on the Spin Sucks radar.

I don’t know what to make of it all. What I do know is it’s a heck of a lot easier to repurpose content than create new, particularly when everyone is busy with summer vacations and getting ready for back-to-school.

What do you think?