Nicola Balkind

Freelance Writer & Content Specialist

Evergreen Content: Why it’s Worth the Effort

By

Evergreen Content
Image via http://blogs.constantcontact.com/

 

So, we’ve already discussed how to plan your content.

Now it’s time to talk about what content to plan.

 

Why go evergreen?

When I talk to clients about the benefits of content marketing and how to get started, they ask a few key questions:

Question 1. What should we blog about?
Question 2. How frequently should we post?

Naturally, the first answer will vary by industry, and the second by availability of time.

 

To cover both of these bases, though, there are 2 hard-and-fast rules.

Answer 1. Cover timely topics, and evergreen ones.
Answer 2. Short answer: consistently!

Adding evergreen content to your editorial calendar can help immensely in both arenas. First, it vastly increases the amount of content topics you can pursue. Second, it means you’ll always have something to write about to publish on a slow news day.

 

News goes out of fashion — Evergreen content doesn’t

Evergreen content could be anything from instructional like how-to guides to information rich entries about your industry. These blog posts should be detailed and relevant to your audience.

The key way this helps readers find you is through search. How often have you begun a search query with “How to…”? These are the posts that add the most value to your users, over a long period of time.

When you solve a reader’s problem they are far more likely to share the answer, and by garnering reputation through these shares you’ll be more visible in social and in search.

As an added bonus, curated content can also go a long way. Why write a big post someone else has already covered when you can pick 5 of the best and share those instead? Be a curator as well as a creator for an even spread of the evergreen.

 

An evergreen checklist

How do you know a piece of content is evergreen? It should be…

High quality – If you’re going to spend a great deal of time on one piece, make it an evergreen one.

Informative or instructive – This is your chance to go big and get detailed.

Relevant to your audience – What does your audience really need from you? What are your frequently asked questions? Start by answering those.

Keyword rich – Especially in the headline. Again, keep your audience in mind. Get in their head. How would you search for the piece of information you are providing?

Shareable – Keep your writing snappy and break up the text with relevant headings, images, and illustrate any important data.

Long-lasting – While a piece on how to tie a winchester tie knot will be around for as long as ties are, a post about how best to update Facebook will not. Aim for topics that will last a year or more to take advantage of the SEO benefits.

 

Are you ready to invest in a content strategy with evergreen content built in? Get in touch.

 

––

Fancy receiving a free monthly newsletter from nicolabalkind.com? Sign up here.

Keeping it Relevant on Social Media

By

Spot the Difference

What’s the difference between a traditional marketing strategy and organic social media marketing?

It’s not about who people are. It’s not their age, their hobby, their married mommy or single teen demographics. Not anymore.

Organic social media marketing is about connecting with what your audience is talking about. It’s also about keeping it relevant.

 

What Are They Talking About?

When you’re running a year-round social media presence, you’re looking for daily content to post everywhere and anywhere.

Let’s be honest, it can get pretty draining.

The best social media content connects with relevant topics and relates to people – ideally those in your target audience – through shared discussions. It’s the community part of community management.

Whether someone is a gardener or a hairdresser doesn’t matter. If they’re watching The Real Housewives of Wherever together and simultaneously live-tweeting jokes about the Teresa’s poor landscaping job, what matters is that they’re engaging with the event as it happens.

So how do we leverage this for our own purposes without over- or under-estimating our audiences?

 

Know Your Audience

Look at what your followers and fans are posting about. Are they live-tweeting about the political events in Ferguson, or are they having a collective fangasm over the latest episode of Doctor Who?

While there may be some overlap, taking the temperature will tune you into what your audience knows and cares about beyond your brand.

This is the part where your social media content planning calendar comes into play. When you know what your audience cares about and how it relates to your brand and larger offering, you can plan ahead and work your content around upcoming events.

 

Planning Ahead

Social media platforms know these strategies work. That’s why Google has its famous daily Google Doodle. Those don’t happen in a day – they’re planned out months in advance.

It’s also why Twitter has its own event planner – #OwntheMoment. Bookmark it and keep it on hand – but, as I said above, don’t go too crazy. Stick to the topics most relevant to your brand.

These examples should gives you plenty of ammunition for shareable upcoming events that you might want to tweet, blog, and create content around – but it’s up to you to select the holidays and events that are most relevant to your audience.

Some other great tools for this are On This Day calendars (here are 2 great ones from Wikipedia and BBC). While these may take some time to comb through, you’ll quickly know what you’re looking for.

For example, when I worked at Quotables, we had a Google Calendar filled with key dates like famous authors birthdays, momentous quotable occasions (like the dates of famous speeches); writing and reading holidays like NaNoWriMo, Banned Books Week and Roald Dahl Day, and so on.

 

For Example…

Here are a few guideline categories to help you think about how to approach holidays and events:

  1. The no-brainer. Let’s say you are Starbucks. It’s August. The dog days of summer, at last. What are you gonna talk about? Probably your infamous fall treat the Pumpkin Spice Latte!
  2. Think twice. Let’s say you’re a beauty company. It’s January. Are you going to talk about the Superbowl? Likely not – unless your (probably largely female) audience is chatting about the event. Don’t go crazy with those gifs without doing your research first.
  3. The no-go. Let’s say you’re a web design agency that specialises in conceptual sites for artists. Are your audience going to appreciate your tweets about the latest cricket match? Likely not. (Unless conceptual artists are really into that shit.)

 

Current Events

While you’re able to plan ahead for holidays, relevant events, and any other specific dates, topics will also pop up that you can’t have anticipated.

My Current Events tweeting mantra is simple: Keep It Relevant, Keep it Light.

Unless you’re an investigative journalist, you probably want to keep your event tweeting light-hearted. Stick to entertainment and avoid current events. (Unless, of course, you particularly want to be like Belvedere or Kenneth Cole. In which case I probably can’t help you.)

 

Get Going!

The best way to start is to get moving with that social media calendar!

What are they key dates that your fans and followers care about? Even if they’re months in advance, plug them into your calendar now and start thinking about what relevant content you can create around them. You’ll be amazed how much it will flesh out your content planner and fuel your ideas for dates closer to today.

 

How do you plan your relevant, shareable content?

Can I help you with your content planning? If so, get in touch.

 

––

Fancy receiving a free monthly newsletter from nicolabalkind.com? Sign up here.

How To Schedule Your Social Media Updates

By

Did you know that you can automate your social media updates?

If yes, are you doing it effectively?

Here are some of my tips for how to make the most of scheduling your tweets, Facebook posts, and other social updates.

 

Why Schedule Social Media Updates?

1. Scheduling your social media updates saves time.

Many of the projects I work on involve social media strategy and community management.

Why do those clients need me?

Well, it’s two-fold. One reason is that they don’t have the skills to establish their social media presence and grow an online community around their brand. Another reason is that they don’t have the time.

 

2. Scheduling your content makes it better.

Plotting out your social media updates gives you a clearer picture of what you’re putting out there.

Posting on a day-to-day basis is fine, but dipping in and out of your channels can become disorienting. You might forget to post an all-important reminder before a deadline passes, or you could be pushing your self-promotion activity ad nauseum.

Planning out your activity ahead will help you to clear up these issues, share content at the optimal times, and save time overall.

 

3. Scheduling = Optimising

Only about 46% of Twitter users log on at least once per day – and only 39% log in twice or more per day. (Source: Laura Roeder.)

You need to catch them while they’re online. More on this below.

 

 

Social Media Scheduling Tools

buffer-schedule

So now that you’re convinced that you should schedule your updates, and have a content calendar in place, it’s time to think  about scheduling tools.

There are tons out there from full-scale decks like HootSuite (online) and TweetDeck (for desktop) to drag-and-drops like Buffer. I’d point you towards Buffer.

Buffer is a simple and easy-to-use client which defines a number of pre-determined times to disseminate your Tweets or other social media updates. As you add updates to your Buffer, it drops them into these time slots and pushes them out automatically.

You can also schedule specific times for updates to go out.

 

Bonus Tip:

buffer-extension

My favourite aspect of Buffer – as with most apps I use – is the Chrome Extension.

This extension allows you to click a button on the page you are visiting, and it will automatically build an update with the page title and link.

I use this daily to share articles.

Click here to learn more about the Buffer Extension for Chrome.

 

Optimising Your Social Media Schedule

 

Tweriod Analysis form my own Twitter account
Tweriod Analysis form my own Twitter account

 

Once you have your social media calendar in place, and you’ve found a scheduling tool that works for you, the next step is optimising those scheduled time slots.

Optimising your social media updates ensures that you are sending information out into the world while your audience is listening.

While Buffer and HootSuite have in-built features which select the optimal times for your posts, services like Tweriod do one better: they analyse when your audience is online and active.

The best part? You can have Tweriod analyse your results and integrate them back into Buffer.

 

Need a Hand?

How do you handle your social media updates?

Are you sticking to a schedule, or is your content awry?

Learn more about my community management services, or get in touch to find out how I can help.

Follow Me

Sign up for my newsletter

Contact Me

Email: nicola@nicolabalkind.com

Subscribe to my newsletter

Categories

Testimonials

Nicola has been my number one go-to for freelance community management. She is incredibly efficient, she is clear with costs, time estimates and invoicing and completely reliable. She is a breath of fresh air in an industry which is plagued by self-promoting “gurus”: her range of skills and experience is broad and authentic. I really appreciate the way Nicola is uncomplicated to work with: she asks quick, straightforward questions about what’s required then sits down and gets the job done without fuss. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Nicola and would certainly work with her again.
Annie MacfarlaneTOMS Europe