How to Revive your Content Graveyard

The urge to archive or go on a deletion spree of underperforming content is very strong.

If you're a digital creator - and even if you're not - you are probably familiar with the vulnerability and/or cringe hangovers that come with publishing your views, voice, and face on the internet.

Many creators I've spoken to can't even face watching their own content once it's been posted.

Luckily, the non-stop rhythm of content production and posting is very forgiving when it comes to burying "bad" ideas: the flops we'd all rather forget.

Flop to Top

Avoiding your old content isn't actually all that wise, however. Reframing the way you think about this failed content can help enormously.

Rather than writing it off as "bad", it can help top view this "content graveyard" as an untapped resource for refining your work and assuaging the constant pressure to make something new.

Amanda Cross describes reviving your content graveyard as a deliberate practice: keeping underperforming content so you can return to it later, when you’re calmer, wiser, and no longer emotionally attached to the outcome.

That distance matters more than we like to admit. Underperforming content frequently arrives at the wrong moment in the trend cycle and isn't a personal indictment of creator talents.

One of the more inconvenient truths of content work is that performance is rarely a clean verdict on quality.

Good Enough, not Brilliant

A solid idea is enough - really! Look back at an old post months later and, chances are, you'll hear yourself say, "Oh, this was actually fine." Not brilliant, but fit for purpose.

Public-facing work goes hand-in-hand with perfectionism, but it's totally okay when not every idea is executed perfectly.

Plus, if you write off ideas too quickly, you're in danger of ignoring the 50% that did work. Low numbers can feel like a personal rejection. Once that happens, it’s hard to look at the work clearly.

The Cost of Starting Fresh

If every new campaign requires a brand-new idea, a fresh design, and a clean slate, you're constantly spending creative energy and you miss out on the compounding effect of progress.

It's at this point that content production starts to feel like an exercise in sheer output.

Depending on your niche, content volume can be important, but you are far more likely to keep on creating if you experience even an ounce of creative satisfaction or growth in the process.

Revisiting your Work

How you re-work content is very individual and will depend on your creative process. Nonetheless, starting with a few pointers won't hurt.

Here are the 3 top tips shared by our social media insiders:

1. Leave it alone long enough to forget why you made it

Revisit your work only once you’ve lost the emotional memory of creating it.

Return to it too soon, and you'll approach it defensively, overly critically, or sentimentally.

Give it time and you'll notice where your point starts to drift, where the beginning takes too long to get going, or where you were too self-conscious in front of the camera.

2. Reframe your ideas

Reframing your ideas can help you discover more persuasive ways of communicating.

You may find that a spontaneous snapshot - a picture or video clip - suits a previous tagline much better than the original, polished or stock image.

Adding a real-life moment to support your marketing strengthens the message and makes it more entertaining.

When you revisit old work, resist the temptation to overhaul everything. Instead, ask, "What was I really trying to say here?" Then say only that.

3. Break a rule

If well-behaved content didn’t work, give yourself permission to do the “wrong” thing with it next time.

Make it shorter than feels polite, start halfway through the thought, turn a serious idea into something slightly irreverent - you get the picture!

Old, underperforming content is the safest place to experiment, because the stakes are already low.

Revamp Old Designs in Storrito

Thinking about revisiting old content is one thing; actually committing to doing it is another. Where were those files, again?

Storrito allows you to store, edit and re-publish your content easily.

Instead of rebuilding Stories from scratch, you can re-use and re-design Stories you've already posted to Instagram from your Storrito account, adjusting what didn’t work while keeping what did.

If you’re sitting on a backlog of “nearly good” Stories, this is one of the simplest ways to put them back into circulation without racking your brain to remember a workflow from six months ago.

Honour your Previous Efforts

Move away from simply judging your content - and, let's be honest, yourself - and you can start asking, "What can I learn from this?"

The goal isn’t resurrecting content for the sake of it, but refinement. Taking something serviceable and making it sharper, clearer, more relevant now than it was then.

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