Question: We keep hearing that we should strive to create “Evergreen” content. What is Evergreen content and how can we create it?
Viral is the word of the day these days. Marketers want to create content that will get picked up fast and then “Go Viral.”
This concept is great for visibility as content that truly does go viral will be shared thousands if not millions of times in a really short period of time.
Want to know something interesting about viral content. Many of the best viral pieces of the past year didn’t necessarily lead to a sharp increase in sales.
For instance, the Van Damme video that saw 57 million views in short order. How will this help Volvo sell more trucks?
I digress, but there is a point to what I am saying here.
Evergreen content is sort of the distant and perhaps more sales friendly cousin to viral content.
As a quick definition, evergreen content is made up of posts that are not only relevant when they are posted, but they stay relevant for the time to come.
The great thing about the timeless nature of evergreen content is its potential to connect and engage to your audience for the long term.
For a B2B, an evergreen piece of content may be a “How To” or a “Best Practice Guide.”
Realistically speaking there is very little content that will truly stay relevant in perpetuity, however, good “Evergreen” content can often stay relevant for months or even years beyond its original posting date.
Whereas, right now many companies are posting new year and holiday related content that has to be quickly absorbed in a matter of days or it loses relevancy.
How To Create Evergreen Content
Unfortunately there is no post entitled “follow these 3 steps to create a piece of content that your audience will love forever.” (Perhaps there should be)
However, when creating content there are a few things to consider to give it a greater chance of extending its lifespan.
Here are a few things to consider.
- Don’t time stamp the content if you don’t have to. For instance Learn Twitter in 2014 could be a title, but what about Learn Twitter Now? (The latter is more evergreen friendly)
- Focus on answering questions that many of your customers/clients have about your products/services.
- Tie your content around timeless lessons and morals (if applicable).
- Continue to promote your content through Social Channels for new readers to see it for the first time.
Lastly…Why Create Evergreen Content? It is This Simple!
Image courtesy of Business2Community – All Rights Reserved
Creating Evergreen content that will continue to be read, valued and engaged with is a terrific way to get a better return on your content creation investment!
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Daniel Newman is the co-founder of V3*Broadsuite and is an experienced C-level executive, serving as a strategy consultant for small and mid-sized businesses. He’s also an insight/analyst partner to four Fortune 50 enterprises and previously served as the co-founder and CEO of EC3, a hosted IT and communications services provider. Prior to that, he served as the CEO of United Visual, Inc. in Chicago Illinois.
He is a widely published writer who contributes weekly to Forbes, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post and industry publications such as Commercial Integrator, Sound & Communication and Corporate Tech Decisions. He’s also author of three best-selling business books including The New Rules of Customer Engagement, The Millennial CEO, and just recently Evolve: Marketing (^as we know it) is Doomed.
Daniel has established a reputation as a leading thinker in topics such as Social, Big Data, Cloud and Mobile. He has been named to many top influencer lists in all of these areas, including recognition by the Huffington Post as one of the 100 business and leadership accounts to follow on Twitter. He is also an adjunct professor of management at North Central College.
