Ted Cox

How we'd employ content reuse:

• Using a string of text to insert a URL into an article. For example, let's say we have five articles that link to https://some-website.com/common-resource.
  
  With content reuse, that URL could be referenced with something like a shortcode:
  
  [common-resource-URL]
  
  We then drop the shortcode into all five articles. Guide parses the shortcode and then displays the URL in all five articles.
  
  
• Using a string of text to substitute for a definition. Let's say we have five articles that all include a short paragraph describing our product, Foobar. With content reuse, we drop in the shortcode [foobar-definition] into the article bodies. Guide would display an identical definition in each article body.
  
  
• Using a string of text to substitute for an ordered list. Let's say we have five articles that all include these steps:
  
  1. Update the foo.
  2. Select the bar.
  3. Save your changes.
  
  With content reuse, we can reference that ordered list with a shortcode: [foo-the-bar-procedure]. So anytime we drop that shortcode in an article, the ordered list generates automatically.

Now the why:

Without content reuse, we have to manually update those five articles whenever a URL, definition, or procedure changes. And with articles spanning multiple categories or sections, we have to hope that running a search on Zendesk tells us all the places where we need to update certain content.

With content reuse, all you have to do is update one piece of content and the changes are deployed across multiple articles. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_source_of_truth. 

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