Podcast:


Transcription:
Good morning internet fans, Ryan Perry here, Simple Biz Support. Today is Wednesday May 25th, therefore it is Social Media Wednesday. And as usual, I have the beautiful and talented Sarah Giometti, with Provaro Marketing. Good morning, Sarah.

Sarah Giometti: Good Morning, Ryan. How are you?

RP: I’m doing good, thank you. I see we’re both in Dodger Blue.

SG: We are, we are. We’re representing.

SG: We’ve going to support our team.

RP: We’ve won three games in a row, woo! Things are getting crazy around here.

SG: Nothing matters until after the All Star break.

RP: Yeah. Well, we’ll see what happens. I was glad they benched Puig in the seventh, for not running out that, what could have been a double. But anyhow, I guess this is social, this is social media, I guess we could just talk Dodger Baseball.

SG: Sure, why not?

RP: More specifically for the business owners out there who are interested in incorporating social media. One of the things that we talk about is being efficient as possible, we’ve talked about how to create content for Twitter in five minutes, how to post a week’s worth of content in Twitter in a short period of time, I think in like 15 minutes or so. And so on the realm of being efficient, we’re gonna talk about creating quality content upfront, specifically blog content, that can then be used ongoing. And because it’s ongoing, we call that, “Evergreen Content.” So it’s not what’s going on today, like we were just talking about the Dodgers, and Puig being benched in the seventh inning, that’s today. We don’t want to talk about that a week from now, or two weeks from now. At the same time, we could talk about Dodger Baseball, and how they continually frustrate us, and that’s been consistent since ’88.

SG: Right!

RP: Yeah, at this point I would say we could talk about how frustrated we are about the Dodgers, and that would now be considered evergreen content, because it’s been going on since ’88, however hopefully it’ll change. But let’s switch that into a context of social media, small business, marketing, blogging and all that kind of fun stuff.

SG: Right. So content is always the biggest hang-up that the people have in being consistent with their social media, and it’s what I hear all the time, “I don’t know what to post. I don’t know where to find what to post.” And one of the things business owners forget about is, you have all this blog content that you have written over the years, and a lot of times they’re like, “Well, I wrote that six months ago. I can’t use it again.” But if it’s still relevant, like we’ll use the Dodger example, they’ve been frustrating us since 1988. If you wrote an article in 1990 about how they frustrate you, you could probably use it again, now in 2016, sadly.

RP: Maybe just refresh it a little bit, to bring it up to modern terms.

SG: Right. And there’s no reason you can’t update an article. I was reading an article the other day where I was doing some research, and it said, it had the originally published date, and then it was updated a couple of months ago. If you’ve got statistics in there, you could update the stats so it becomes relevant again. And here you are, you just have to update a blog article. So now it’s modern and relevant again, and it’s another piece of content you can use on your social media, without having to dig up fresh content and go through writing a brand new article. Look back at the stuff that you’ve written in the last couple of years, and see what is so relevant that you can still use as part of your content strategy. Because that can solve half of your problem. You could probably find at least 10-15 articles that you can publish on your social media channels that you already have written. And so it takes a lot of the work out of it for you.

RP: Right, and you’re actually talking about taking an article that was written, and literally taking that content, putting it up on your computer screen, and then updating it with current information, tweaking it, so it’s still your content, but it’s not a 100% original, but it’s different enough that it would be considered unique and current.

SG: If it needs to be. So not every industry changes like ours does, every single day. It’s a little harder for us to just take it without editing it, and updating it, and reusing it today. But if your industry doesn’t change quite as often, if it’s an article that’s still relevant… Like I have a restaurant where we put a recipe out, that recipe probably isn’t changing. It’s probably still a really good recipe that we can reuse a year later. So first things first, is look at the article and make sure, if it’s still relevant, it doesn’t need editing, then you can just use it, and just incorporate it right into your strategy. Or if it does need updating, then do the update, a little bit of a tweak, so that it’s current, and then use the content. It’s still a lot less work.

RP: Yeah, and what you want to be careful with is obviously you don’t want to just do a run of re-purposing content. One of the people I follow has a weekly blog, and actually, I take, it’s a voice…

SG: Podcast?

RP: Podcast, thank you. Don’t know why I couldn’t think of it. Dr. Ivan Misner, who I know you’re familiar with, and so sometimes when he’s not in, they just grab an old one and replay it. That’s not the ideal situation, but that’s another way of filling gaps every now and then, where you can go, “Look, this is a replay from blah, blah, blah.” You just want to make sure that it is relevant content and information. And one of the things that we talk about is yeah, it’s really hard to come up with new content. One of my pushbacks all the time, it’s a pushback and it’s a how to look at things, is Cosmopolitan the magazine. It’s been around since the late 1800s, it’s obviously evolved quite a bit. But if you look at their front cover over the last 10 plus years, it’s really the same content, just whatever is currently going on, whoever the latest celebrity is, what the latest fashion color is, what the new styles are, the boyfriend and girlfriend, and how to engage and deal, and all this type of stuff. They basically, every single month, are having to regurgitate the same content, and it works.

SG: Right, so don’t over-think your content. And you’ve already spent time creating this content, or you paid somebody to create it for you, to have all this blog content or videos, whichever, or hopefully both you’re doing. And you’ve already taken the time to do it, so look at it and see if it’s something that you can use again, over and over and over again. Unless it’s super, super hyper-relevant to that moment in time, and it can never be used again, which is kind of rare, there’s no reason you can’t reuse that content over and over again. A lot of people think, “Well, I wrote it on December 1st, so its timeliness is over after the month of December.” And that’s not true if it’s still relevant. And so go ahead and repost it. Don’t take that one article and repost it every single month, but maybe three months later post it again, and then three months later, post it again. And so you’re posting it a couple of times over the course of the year, but not like you’re shoving it down your followers’ throats.

RP: Yeah, and I think one of the things you have to be careful, is because it’s not just gonna be one piece of content, you should have multiple pieces of evergreen content that again, your industry hasn’t changed, so it’s okay to reuse. Especially on Twitter, because if you’re gonna be active on Twitter, you going to create a lot of content in there, while you’re actually engaging with your audience. Also, having a marketing calendar is really important at that time, because if you have all the pieces of content that you know you need to publish on Twitter and on Facebook, wherever you happen to live, pick your social media channel, if you’re gonna reuse this content, it’s good to have a clear overview of all your content.

RP: If you’re making your calendar for the rest of the year, maybe even start planning for next year. All you have are a bunch of empty spots, “Alright, I’m going to plug this content in.” The other thing is, is any of your content seasonal? So if you have seasonal content, make sure you’re plugging it in at the appropriate time. Planning ahead now is going to benefit you when the time comes, because it’s gonna be, “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, it’s almost June, it’s Father’s Day coming up. I’ve going to start talking about Father’s Day.” If that’s relevant to your industry.

SG: Right. And having some sort of system or content calendar. The content calendar I use, and I think you use are both Excel spreadsheets. Super basic, simple, you can have a separate tab that just lists all of your blog articles. Lists the title and the link, and that way you can look at it and go, “Okay.” Figure out a way that works for you but number it, one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four five. And so you do it kind of in an ordered rotation, that way you make sure that you’re not using it too often.

RP: Yeah, very true, very true. Other types of content doesn’t necessarily need to be blog content, but there’s a lot of people who are big coffee drinkers. And so it’s that morning AM rah, rah, rah about coffee, so having other relevant content, maybe images, video, podcasts, all of that product that you’ve created. It’s not just throw it away. We’re in a recycled world these days, you want to recycle that content, it’s okay. And I think a lot of people feel guilty that, “Well, if I’m not creating something new, why should I create it?” or, “It’s already been said.” If you’re a dentist, as an example. Oh my gosh, how many times do you have to explain to people how to brush their teeth? The reality is, there’s a lot of people that grew up and didn’t know how to brush their teeth, and so they need to be told how to brush their teeth. And they would like to hear it from you, versus some random other person that they don’t know about. So even as a dentist, going through a lot of what you would consider mundane, probably, content is really important. How do you brush your teeth? How do you floss your teeth? All of that. You can’t just assume that people know everything about your industry. You’ve been in your industry for a long time, you should know everything. I always take it back, second grade level, if we can comprehend it at a second grade level, that’s what we want to talk about to the audience.

SG: Well, newspapers are written for, I think it’s a third grade… Or eighth grade, it’s written for an eighth grade level. And there’s a reason for that. And so you want to make sure, you going to take the terminology out, don’t be too industry-speak. But you took the time to create this content, and hopefully in your social media, it’s consistently growing. You’ve got new followers coming in, so new people might not have seen that content. And even the existing ones, they might not have seen it. Maybe they weren’t on that social media channel during that week that you posted it originally, or they forgot about it. Not everybody saw it, so you don’t have to worry about, “Oh, everybody saw it and they’ll know I’m gonna repeat it.” That’s not really an issue, especially on Facebook. We all have, on average there’s 1,500 pieces of content that can be loaded every time we log into our Facebook wall. And you can see with your reach, not all your followers see every post unless you boost it. So it’s okay to repurpose the content, just don’t do the same article too often, spread it out. You sounded mute there.

[chuckle] So you want to make sure, yeah if you’re the dentist, it’s a brushing your teeth blog, or a video, like I said, every three or four months, you can repurpose that article, and you don’t have to worry about it looking like you’re just regurgitating stuff you’ve already done.

RP: Right. Alright, perfect. Just to wrap up then, I think the key thing is, is realize that you do not need to create new content all the time. And again, it has to be relevant to your industry. You do want to create content that is evergreen, that will be consistent today as it is six months, two years from now. And you also need to create relevant content, what’s happening now in your industry that’s one off. But like you said, Sarah, I think the smart thing, especially if you’re struggling and you need to get something out, maybe it’s one of those days, you didn’t have your coffee, go back six months to a year, check out your blog roll, and see what you posted it, what’s evergreen in there that you can plug in today, get that marketing calendar in place, and then start filling those blanks with relative content. And I love the fact that sometimes you can take old content, and like you said, maybe the stats are from 2012, but the message is still great, why not update the actual statistics within that article and then link back to the old article? I love that, too.

SG: Right, so don’t over-think it. But yeah, it’s definitely great for filler content, to help you round out what you’re doing. And yeah, look back, update the stats and it still is a great message. And now you’ve got basically a new blog article.

RP: Alright, perfect. Any last minute thoughts?

SG: Just don’t over-think it and don’t overdo it with the reusing of the content. But feel free, it’s called evergreen content for a reason, it’s relevant for a long period of time. And feel free to go back, look at it, and use it without worrying that your audience will be upset with you for reusing old content, it’ll be okay.

RP: Alright, perfect. With that, that is the end of the show. We will be back next week, same time, same computer screen, 9:45 Pacific Coast, with a new episode of social media content. Sarah, as always, I appreciate the time and energy that you put into the show.

SG: Thanks, Ryan. It’s always a pleasure.

RP: Alright, everybody, that’s it for today’s show. Thank you very much, and we look forward to speaking with you, to you, for you, in servitude of you, I guess next week. Alright, take care.