Nicola Balkind

Freelance Writer & Content Specialist

Evergreen Content: Why it’s Worth the Effort

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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.

 

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Keeping it Relevant on Social Media

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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.

 

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Advanced Techniques for Content Planning

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Last time we looked at why you should schedule your social media updates, and tools to do so.

Today, let’s look at some more advanced techniques for content planning.

 

Schedule The Time In!

Schedue-ception!

Make time in your diary to schedule your updates.

It gets the busy-work out of the way and frees you up for other tasks.

Then, midweek, all you have to do is check in for the fun stuff: mentions, replies and chat.

I also find that planning blog topics ahead of time breaks the barrier to entry for actually getting the blog post written.

 

Make a Calendar

 

An example of what my content calendar looks like.
An example of what my content calendar looks like.

 

My secret weapon in defining social media strategies, and for day-to-day activity, is the content calendar.

This can be a simple spreadsheet with the dates laid out in on one axis and the channels on another.

This gives a clear view of your content – long-form and short – and how these updates fit together.

For example, each blog post might need an immediate tweet and Facebook post, and a secondary tweet the next day. Plot these out on the calendar for a clear view.

Having a monthly schedule also gives you the opportunity to outline bigger events, like a holiday or industry day. You can also include seasonal content here.

See Twitter’s #OwnTheMoment calendar for examples.

You can download an example of my social media content calendar here.

 

Create a Note-Taking System

If you’re using an organisational tool like use it to save any links you want to share and to make note of any blog posts or other important updates you need to share on social media that week.

For example…

Evernote

A peek at my Reading Week link list notes on Evernote.
A peek at my Reading Week link list notes on Evernote.

Evernote is a great place to store all your internet bits and bobs.

Saw a link that you loved and want to refer back to? Stick in Evernote.

Got a blog post idea while on the go? Draft it up in Evernote.

Having a system for keeping all of this internet ephemera can make your content planning really easy.

 

Pocket

Screen Shot 2014-07-29 at 13.25.37
A peek at my Pocket Favourites – which I use as a link archive for content planning.

I do this using Pocket – which is my read it later app of choice.

When I like an article, I star it.

Then, when it comes to writing my Friday link list (it’s Reading Week – sign up here) I can jump into my favourites and quickly add them to the piece.

The same goes for sharing them via Buffer.

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&…

If you’re super organised, you can also write a comment as you save the note, to make quick work of slotting these items into your social media calendar.

Easy peasy!

 

Your Turn!

How do you organise your content? Are you a pro at content planning?

Leave me your tips or queries in a comment, tweet me @robotnic or email me with your thoughts/questions!

 

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