The Social Web is a fire hose. How do you stay current as a content creator and anticipate the Internet’s next move? Is anything you wrote last week even relevant?
Yes!
There’s a subset of your content that remains valuable over time. How much of your “old content” (for some that would anything posted 2 weeks ago!) falls into this category of so-called evergreen content? For example, if you have a catering business that regularly posts tips on hosting a party and providing exciting recipes for your audience, I imagine those recipes will still be great tasting next week….or so I’d hope…
Many businesses feel pretty strange about posting “old” content, and so they ignore it. You need to view this differently….creating this great stuff was an investment and is an asset for your company. If you bought a new truck for your plumbing business, you wouldn’t just let it sit around not being used after that first delivery, would you? Investment in content is no different.
This doesn’t mean that you take the next 2 months off and recycle everything, though! While there are no hard and fast rules about frequency, a general rule of thumb across the web (by those who leverage this strategy…) is that every other month seems about right. If you have enough of a back catalog of this old content, you could build out a particular promotion schedule alongside your existing content calendar.
So now, you’ve gone through your past couple of years of posts and identified a solid body for revival. Sweet! Now it’s time to turn that thought on its side and think beyond re-posting and consider re-purposing some of the work. How can you take this workhorse content and create new information forms for your customers? The list is really only limited by your imagination and some understanding about how your audience consumes content. Here’s a non-comprehensive list of some ways you might put your work to work:
- Compile, edit, and offer a series of posts as an in-depth special report.
- Turn them into a speech.
- Create a webinar.
- Produce a series of short videos.
- Convert some research into an infographic.
- Take the infograpic and create a video.
- Turn the video into a podcast.
- Turn the transcript of the podcast into a blog post (or a series of blog posts!).
- Create a colorful presentation and post it to SlideShare.
- Narrate existing presentations and turn them into videos.
- Assemble posts into themes and create valuable ebooks and customer guides.
- Use posts as starter content for book chapters.
Those are just a few ideas. You have more.
What has been your most successful piece of evergreen content? In which form has it had the most impact? Please share in the comments below!
Authentic Voice 
A few years ago, I asked myself a similar question. It was something like, “What are the most important things I’ve talked to my coaching clients about?” I had just read one of Seth Godin’s manifestos, and wondered if I might share my thoughts in such a compact form. The result? “The Winning CEO’s Marketing Handbook.” It’s a bit out of date, but I though of it as I read your post. Thanks, Jeff.
Thanks, Ken! This is a great example.