4 Ways To Create Content That Lives Forever
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The Internet has developed into a place where great content can live & thrive forever. For example, the recent rise of ‘Dance Challenges' has provided a perspective into how social and cultural trends can create an Internet phenomena through instant communication online.
No matter if you’re a writer, musician or content creator. Being in a position to capitalize off of human behavior is a great way to build a following and get your content in front of the right audience. Offering a unique perspective still holds value in today’s World of information overload.
A few key questions to ask yourself are:
What type of content speaks to my audience?
How does my audience connect to each other over the Internet?
If you want your content to live forever begin with solving a problem, addressing a need and — ultimately — help to create value.
Evergreen content is one of the most valuable facets of content marketing. No matter what content format you choose to distribute your message through (blog posts, images, videos, etc.). Evergreen content is a great way to connect with people through data-backed trends that have stood the test of time.
Creating Evergreen content does take a bit of effort, strategy and timing on the content creator’s part. Keyword research is a great way to connect your content to end users who are searching to solve a problem or fulfill a need.
Producing Evergreen content and utilizing keyword research can help you generate content that is sustainable, relevant and resonates long after it’s initial publication. The key is to craft Evergreen content around keywords that fit your demographic and target market.
The beauty of Evergreen content is that consumers will repeatedly come across your content over a prolonged period of time. This type of content marketing holds the most value because it plays off of SEO and Search. People are constantly searching the Internet to find solutions for problems and meet the needs of the moment.
Also, keep in mind that it is relevant to apply these strategies to your topic area or business. For example, what type of music and literature — continuously — stands the test of time?
- Love & Romance
- Inspiration, Success & Finances/Making money
- Instructional Knowledge & Life Lessons
If you study artists like Nipsey Hussle, Jay Z and most recently — the prolific run of — Benny The Butcher. You can start to pinpoint where they realized what type of content evoked the most emotion with their followings.
All three of these artists didn’t aim to be trendy, they aimed to be relevant.
I often advise the artists that I work with to:
“Make music to sell music.”
The goal is to get the end user to consume your content for a certain energy, feeling or for the value that is being created. That is the power behind Evergreen content. Human behavior naturally aids a repeat process that stretches across a prolonged period of time.
If you’re a writer, musician or content creator in general. All of these strategies can be applied across the board. Always remember that Evergreen content is a play on human nature.
A great question to ask yourself when it comes to Evergreen content is:
Will people be able to consume my content twenty years from now and take something from it?
Below, I am going to go over ‘4 Ways To Create Evergreen Content That Lives Forever’
1. Create A Marketing Funnel
Marketing funnels are one of the most valuable assets when it comes to Evergreen content. Marketing funnels provide the infrastructure to build a solid foundation under your brand and are one of the main pillars to success.
Gaining a deeper understanding of how marketing funnels work can help you to create growth strategies, build a community of loyal fans and support sustainable growth.
The essential function of a marketing funnel is to create a path towards a target action with your content and social media. From this path you can develop a number schemes that fit into your overall goals.
Lets check out the five stages marketing funnels are divided into:
First Stage — Awareness
Discovery: Social Media, SEO, Email, Paid Advertisements, Content Marketing, Word of Mouth, etc.
Second Stage — Consideration
Mastery Mode: Period of exploration, content consumption and develops a deeper desire.
Third Stage — Conversion
Deepen Commitment: Joins community on social media, makes a purchase (ticket sales, merchandise, etc.) and transitions to a loyal supporter.
Fourth Stage — Loyalty
Manage The Relationship: Cultivate a sense of community with branding and consistency. Continuously feed your supporters with content.
Fifth Stage — Advocacy
Word of Mouth: Loyal supporters transition to advocates of your brand. Offering recommendations and sharing your content with friends.
Assess The Re-Use Value & Share-Ability
A great way to ensure that your Evergreen content remains persistent is to access the re-use value and level of share-ability. For content creators, you have to focus on the psychology and not the technology surrounding your content.
A couple of questions to ask yourself when creating Evergreen content is:
- Who does this content speak to?
- Does this content speak to my target audience?
Re-use value can be accomplished through a number of factors. In Jonah Berger’s book ‘Contagious’, he discusses what makes content infectious and spread like an epidemic.
His ‘6 STEPPS are: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value and Stories’.
With social media, we live in a World where content lives and dies on the Internet. For content creators, you can increase your odds of being successful by placing your Evergreen content in an environment that is built for it to succeed.
In music streaming we most notably see artists and musicians utilizing triggers, emotion, stories and practical value. This goes back to the question I asked before, ‘Who does your content speak to?’
3. Grow A Fan Base/Online Community
Economics and studying consumer behavior can help cultivate a process around your brand that can help you grow a fan base. Using economics to build online communities speak to the recent rise of formulas and schemes concerning the consumption of content.
Overall, how can content creators use consumer behavior to boost revenue?
Consumer behavior is mostly about needs/wants and being able to present customers with an opportunity to fulfill those needs and wants. This factor should raise a number of questions:
- Is your brand affinity strong enough to get people to repeatedly buy in?
- What factors influence your target market and audience?
- Is your consumer and customer the same person or different?
The three factors that lead to segmentation and influence consumer behavior are:
Psychological factors: How does a person respond to your content? What is the messaging behind your content? Are you providing insight, inspiration, validation, etc.
Social factors: Education level, income, social media interests, family, friends, associates, etc.
Personal factors: Demographics influenced by age, gender and culture that determine an individual’s level of interests and shape opinions.
4. Re-Purpose Content & Presentation
Re-purposing content is great growth strategy and it allows you to present your Evergreen content from a number of different angles. Using this strategy can help you create content that is ready, accessible and viewable for your audiences.
To begin, what is a growth strategy & how does Evergreen content play a role?
A growth strategy is a combination of questions that need to be answered:
- How do you gain fans (engagement, advertising, brand association, etc.)?
- Where does your content live (YouTube, SoundCloud, Website, etc.)?
- How do you gauge growth? (engagement, streams, capital, etc.)
Growth strategies are about creating a formula and being able to quantify your results (scalability, repeatable schemes and sustainability). Cultivating an effective growth strategy can help you build a solid foundation for your Evergreen content.
The beauty of growth strategies is that no matter how many fans you gain — your creative process remains the same. This is focus and simplicity at its finest. This is why you have popular Evergreen content sites like:
‘This is what I create — This is how I get it to my fans — This is the value being created.’
The fact of the matter is that everyone’s path to success will be different. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to growing a fan base. This is why developing a growth strategy around Evergreen content has become a valuable asset in today’s attention-based economy.
How you present content plays a major role in how it’s received as well. For example, a speech from Eric Thomas ‘The Hip Hop Preacher’ originally garnered millions of views. Once the speech was repackaged by an athlete at ECU, it received close to 50 millions views on YouTube.
The lesson here is this: Evergreen content works both ways, it can uplift the content creator and also elevate the person who re-purposes the content. It’s a win-win because it adds to Eric Thomas’ ever-growing online community and also shines light on a mindset shared by millions of people.
Inspiration is powerful tool.
Before you go, check out the video below ‘How Bad Do You Want It’
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