Staying Creative during the Coronavirus outbreak 0 597

No social media strategy is complete without evergreen posts to help balance your content calendar. They are the posts that cover topics that will remain relevant for your readers, over time, even if they are new followers who have just found your social media channels.

For someone with a news background, like me, understanding the basics of evergreen articles has always come easily.  This is exactly what journalists frequently have to do: we have to create both contemporary, factual content and evergreen features that can be used when the contemporary content is lacking in quantity or quality.

Think of a fashion magazine, for example.

Every issue will explore articles focused on current trends or pop culture fads. You can expect an issue to almost certainly bring you features on the latest clothing collections, and maybe even a perfume launched by a singer or football player.

However, the content that makes you keep a magazine as you know you will read it again later, or lend it to a friend, are the articles with a much longer shelf life because good quality evergreen content has almost no expiry date.

Have you noticed how beauty tutorials, how-to lists, and DIY videos never seem to age?.

Maybe talking about Kylie Jenner’s lipstick range won’t add much to your content strategy for Instagram. However, it is possible for a very wide range of businesses to create evergreen content about family, saving money, careers, travel, or adopting a sustainable lifestyle – just to name five very relatable topics. The trick, when using topics with such broad appeal as the foundation of your evergreen content, is to deliver it in a unique way, is committed to your brand’s voice, and making it useful for as long as possible, so your posts don’t become rapidly disposable.

Remember a very important SEO rule: the longer your post is relevant, the longer it will keep bringing traffic to it.

Let’s look at some inspiring tips to create long-lasting content?

Leverage excerpts from previous content

“Reuse long-form items, such as blogs or videos, to create timeless pieces to be used in the future. From infographics to quotes, which can summarize or emphasize a relevant topic, there is always useful information you can lift, from already published long-form material, and turn it into evergreen content.”

Amy Hernandez – Public Relations Manager at ElectrIQ Marketing.

Tap into your brand’s core values

“Sharing your brand’s purpose or core values on social media is an effective way to promote long-lasting, evergreen content. In theory, your purpose and core values won’t change too much over time, so telling stories that bring what your company stands for to life will withstand the test of time. Establishing a core value theme on social media will not only help ensure you are regularly sharing this type of content, but will also educate prospective customers about your brand.”

Lisa Hirst Carnes – COO at www.arcstone.com

Use Google trends to find topics

“Since we started our business, we have focused on generating evergreen content for our blog and social media. In our experience, the most important step for creating evergreen content is to identify the good evergreen subject matter. A great way to do this is to use Google Trends to check the trend line of the subject matter. If Google Trends shows consistent interest in the subject matter over the course of months or years, you have likely found a good subject. Alternatively, if Google Trends shows peaks and valleys, the subject matter is likely more on the trendy side and may not be suitable for evergreen content. Once you have identified the right subject matter, make the content as complete and comprehensive as possible, so that it becomes the go-to content for anyone interested in that subject matter.”

Jessica Rose – Chief Executive Officer at www.copperh2o.com

Create useful DIY posts

“People love learning new things that are easy to understand, and almost every niche can find a relevant how-to to push out to their audience a few times a year. You can also add a caption to it, such as, “Back by popular demand!” to grab attention and acknowledge that you realize it has been posted before.

Another evergreen idea would be historical posts. A great example would be a “this day in” history article. Unless a big new discovery changes what we know about that historical event, it will still be applicable that day every year.”

Camille Chulick – Co-Founder at averraglow.com

Create a mind map to address essential points

“Focus on content related to the core issues of your niche and create a mind map to write approximately four essential points that will always be of concern. Then, for each essential point of interest in your niche, list as many spin-off article ideas as you can think of. Once you have your list of article ideas, go back and cross off anything that wouldn’t make sense a couple of years ago. If it would not make sense two years ago because it involved current events, it is likely that it won’t be relevant 24 months from now and shouldn’t be considered as evergreen content.”

Morgan Taylor – Chief Marketing Officer at www.letmebank.com

Research keywords for your industry

“One tip I have is to do some keyword research around some evergreen topics you have in mind for your industry. Look for keywords that have consistent search intent (e.g. are not seasonal or declining in search results). The idea here is to discover trends that people are searching for on a regular basis. Additionally, doing this research on keywords can lead you to find new inspiration from similar keywords you’re researching.
Even though keywords may not be super relevant for social media, it’s a great way to discover relevant topics to create evergreen content around.”

Katie Fellenz – Head of Marketing at www.trustandwill.com

Elevate your strategy with user-generated content

“By using UGC, be it testimonials, questions, staff contributions, stories, or images sent by customers, your users become brand advocates and will engage in positive word-of-mouth marketing.

Besides being cost-effective, user-generated content is the most authentic, trustworthy, and reliable form of content available across the digital space. It is driven by users’ real experiences and 90% of users trust UGC to influence their buying decisions.”

Daniel Thomas – Co-founder at www.tt-creative.com

Check the performance of previous content

“The best way to create quality evergreen content is to study previously published content that still makes a massive impact on your social media platform’s engagement metrics, despite being posted a long time ago.

When you find such posts, the chances are high that there are similar characteristics shared between these evergreen posts. Once you identify them, you can incorporate those elements into future posts to increase the frequency of evergreen content in your social media channels.”

Yaniv Masjedi – CMO at www.nextiva.com

Choose a topic that solves problems

“Evergreen content requires time but is worth every effort.
FAQ articles, videos, and posts are must-haves for your social media strategy. They are efficient evergreen content that helps guide users towards a more informed understanding of your product or service. If an instruction or feature changes, don’t forget to upgrade and ‘refresh’. Doing this will keep your content fresh and relevant and, besides your audience, search engines will also continue to value it.”

Supriya Agnihotri – Brand Communications Manager at www.surveysensum.com

#DigitalMarketing #ContentMarketing #EvergreenContent #SocialMedia #ContentCreation

Marcio Delgado

Marcio Delgado is a Journalist, speaker and a Content Producer working with brands and publications in the UK and Latin America.