It truly is a secret weapon most people are underutilizing
Too often, we obsess over content only to neglect distribution. So often, in fact, that we need to flip the commonly practiced 80/20 rule on its head. Instead of spending 80% of our time creating, let’s spend 80% of our time distributing. This truly is the only way to wring every bit of value you can out of the content you work so hard to produce.
Content is not King, Distribution is!
This is particularly relevant when it comes to evergreen content.
For the uninitiated, evergreen content is content considered relevant and fresh long past its publication date. Generally, this means anything not tied to one-time events, ever-changing statistics, current trends or specific holidays/ seasons.
Frankly, most content producers are awful at sharing their evergreen posts. They’re afraid they’ll alienate their followers, and rightfully so. But they’re worried about a non-existent problem.
The reality is that virtually none of your followers see every one of your posts.
Instead of looking at this as an issue, we’re going to look at how to take advantage of it. Below we’ll cover how to share evergreen content more, by using a predetermined approach, so that you can get additional mileage out of it without becoming an annoyance to your followers.
Here is a rough plan for sharing evergreen content on Twitter:
- The Day of Publication — Tweet the content 3 times: morning, midday and late night.
- The Day after Publication — Tweet the content 2 times using different verbiage in the post: midday and late night.
- The Month after Publication — Tweet the content 2 times per week: once during the day and once late night.
- The Year after Publication — Tweet the content 2 times per month: once during the day and once late night.
By following the plan above, you’re guaranteed to get more traction out of your content. How could you not?! You’ll be putting it in front of your followers at least 10x more than you are today. And, unlike most people, you’ll actually be tweeting in the wee hours of the night, tapping into a completely different audience than during the day. This truly is a secret weapon when it comes to doing more with less. Now it’s just a matter of writing something compelling enough to share.
Parting Tidbits
- Adjust the plan above based on the way the platform you’re using functions. Twitter is very forgiving due to the sheer volume of tweets sent every day. Facebook less so. LinkedIn even less so. You want to capitalize on the time you invested creating your post, but you need to walk a fine line while doing so.
- It’s OK that someone sees you’ve tweeted the same content when they dig through your feed the first day or two after publication. What they don’t want to see is redundant tweets from you in their feed. By adjusting the timing, frequency and verbiage of our posts, it shouldn’t be a problem.
- Only repost on platforms where some kind of timeline/ stream is in place. Facebook and Twitter are prime examples because posts and tweets continue to flow while we’re away. Some platforms, like LinkedIn Publishing and Medium, aren’t meant for reposting as they function more like a blog.
- Once you’re more than a month out from publication, reread your work and ask yourself if it’s truly evergreen. If you’re not sure, the answer is probably that it’s not. Once you make that decision, stop sharing the content and lay the piece to rest.