Transcript for Write Once, Promote Twice
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[00:02] Welcome to our Write Once, Promote Twice webinar. We’re going to get started right here now. There is a chat box over to the right of your screen, and if you do have any questions throughout this, definitely feel free to pop them in there. My colleague Jessica will get those answered for you right away, and we’ll go ahead and get started here.
[00:18] This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, as it goes over how to be the most efficient and effective, and get the most mileage out of your social updates. Our goal at Edgar is to help you get everything you can from each piece of content that you create. We believe that one of the most important parts of a solid content strategy is creating content that will last. So, content that necessarily isn’t tied to a fad or a trend, and that will be as meaningful if someone reads it in a year from now, as when they read it today.
[00:47] We call this stuff here at Edgar evergreen content, and it’s an extremely powerful tool for building traffic to your page. Those that go through this webinar, keep in mind, too, that when adding these types of updates and this type of evergreen content to Edgar, you’ll always want to think about how to cross-promote and not just cross-post these updates. The difference here is thinking about how to tailor an update for one social network over the others, and this can be curating different captions for a new blog post on Facebook, and a new one for Twitter using hashtags that are more specific to that network.
[01:19] And this really helps you speak the language of each social platform, so you’ll want to really focus on getting into the personality of each network. So for example, you wouldn’t want to post a really text heavy post on Instagram, or maybe a job listing is better suited for LinkedIn, than on Facebook. So just one thing to keep in mind as we do go throughout this webinar, and chat a little bit more about the types of content that work well.
[01:43] The second thing I’d love for you to keep in mind as we’re going through this is the value of getting to know what messaging works best for your audience. This is amazing knowledge, not just for you and your content team, but to take back into your whole business as well, and to share that. So, the types of language a product team could start to use, depending upon how people are commenting on your posts. This stuff can be really powerful in gaining customers, and really getting to know them, so start thinking about how your content can also create feedback loops within your own company.
[02:15] So, let’s jump right in and chat a little bit about how mastering the art of writing evergreen posts and repeating these on social media is the key to really increasing your reach, your engagement, your traffic, leads and sales, even. Something to get out of the way first is creating evergreen content really is no different than creating any other kind of quality content you want to share on social.
[02:36] It’s just a lot more valuable once you’ve actually created it. When you’re creating your evergreen content, you’ll really want to make sure that it provides value to your followers, no matter what time of year that they see it. One way to start this process of brainstorming evergreen content, is to start thinking big. Start brainstorming with these big topics that matter to your audience, the big topics that you know and that you love, and that you are personally passionate about. That’s what’s going to really help you write this.
[03:05] Why did you start your business? You really want to add value to the world, to your followers, so you want to share that value with your followers, and you’ll see great returns from this. As you’re starting to generate ideas for evergreen content, again, start thinking big. These macro level ideas of why you started, and then you can start drilling down a little bit further.
[03:25] This idea of starting big and staying organized during the brainstorming process is something that we value hugely here at Edgar. For example, we are experts in digital marketing and we do things with social media strategy, online advertising, small businesses, this content creation that we do, all stems from again, starting with these big topics. You get the idea of what this is about.
[03:48] So when developing our blog posts here at Edgar, we figure out the pieces that are going to connect to these big topics, and that’s what this slide is showing you here. This is one of our brainstorming trees that starts with these bigger topics, and then branches out from there. This really helps us stay on track for what our goals of a company are, but we also have our audience in mind, as we’re starting to piece these things together, and we’re always focusing on how to provide the most value for our readers.
[04:15] This is really one of the key things to remember. Always take your followers into consideration. Remember as you’re starting to make your own brainstorming tree, that your social feed, the things that you’re sharing on them, it’s for your followers, not for you, so creating this through the lens of what your followers want to see will really help you generate some powerful evergreen content.
[04:36] So, once you have these big name topics planned out on this awesome brainstorming session that you’ve had, other things that you really want to focus on, and that can help take these bigger macro level ideas you’ve generated, and drill them down a little bit to focus more and more on these specific blog posts that you’re writing, we’re going to go over these five things that we put through the lens of when we’re generating our blog posts.
[05:00] First and foremost, remember to be selfless. What we just chatted about here. While occasionally self-promoting, it has its place on social media, you really want your content strategy to be reader centric. What are your problems? What are the problems that your readers are trying to solve when they’re coming to your site? What are their wants and needs and pain points? Through this, how do your blog posts or your videos, or your awesome infographics that you’re creating, how do they address these pain points that your followers have? And make sure you’re putting some of that into each blog post, or each status update that you’re writing.
[05:37] Next, always remember to be original. Resharing the same tips and tricks as everyone else on the web is really not the most awesome way to get noticed on social media. That doesn’t mean you can’t write about the same subjects as some of your competitors, or as other people are exploring, you just really want to put your own spin on it. Think about what makes you stand out. What’s your niche? What’s your particular voice on the topic? And really make sure you’re infiltrating that right into every piece of content that you’re generating.
[06:07] Never forget to be actionable with everything that you’re writing. Give your audience information that has some real life application. It’s going to be nice and targeted to address their needs, and communicate it clearly. When people are scrolling through their feed, there is so much noise out there, that the more actionable you can be, the more you can make it that they don’t have to think about what to do, the better.
[06:27] Make sure that when you’re reading the post, when you’re putting it out there, you’re really starting to think, “What would I do if I saw this?” And putting yourself in the shoes of some of your followers. One of the most important aspects I think, when you’re writing your posts, is to be really informed. Do your research and know your audience and their needs. Understand your competitors, even.
[06:48] Something we’re starting to do here at Edgar is to create audience personas to really make sure we’re targeting the people in our audience who might be small businesses versus social media managers, stuff like that, and how can we tailor our content to really start to speak to this whole audience that we do have? We really want to continually learn and adjust from our strategy.
[07:11] The last thing on here is just to be experimental, you know? Everything on social media can be an experiment to be learned from. Whether it’s testing the messaging or the content format, the visuals that you’re adding to your posts. Really wanting to understand what resonates best with your audience, and through this, we really want to get this idea across that you can fail sometimes with a status update. It might not get shared, you might not drive a lot of traffic through that.
[07:37] That doesn’t mean it’s an actual failure. Pick up and learn from what you’ve done, whether it’s from the time of day that you sent this out, the language that you’ve used, and just continue to iterate from there, and you’ll see great success with the posts that you’re putting out there.
[07:53] Experimenting isn’t just during this content creation stage, either. It works wonders to help inform your audience and your customers when you’re posting this, too. For example, experimenting with your audience by posting the same thing at drastically different times, including these times when you don’t necessarily expect it to succeed. You might learn that thanks to some different timezones, East Coast, West Coast, overseas, that your updates have a lot of potential around the clock, and remember to share that feedback with your team.
[08:21] Using a tool like Edgar really allows you to post at 2:00 a.m. if you want to check and see if you do have some followers who are online at that time. Again, just thinking about it as a way, how do you optimize this, not only for the content, but the time of day that you’re posting? Edgar can be a huge help in doing these types of experiments.
[08:42] So, as you’re creating this content and putting it out into the social networks, the next goal is really to get your readers to actually click through and read your post. Driving people to that landing page, driving people to that blog post. This goes back to being really unique and providing that emotional connection with your audience. Being in marketing, I’m sure you’ve all heard this phrase of being that purple cow content.
[09:05] This is just the idea that if you are driving past a field of cows, you’re probably not going to stop. You’ve seen those cows over and over again. However, if one of those cows is purple, you’ll probably take the time to stop and notice, and this goes for social updates, as well. There’s a lot of noise out there as we just chatted about, so when you’re coming up with your content, think how you can make your posts and updates stand out like a purple cow in a field of black and white cows.
[09:33] When people are scrolling through their feeds, are most of your competitors’ posts showing a lot of imagery that’s super colorful? Maybe you do post a picture that’s classy in black and white, just again, to make it pop and stand out in that way. Maybe do you have a different opinion or commentary on something that’s a commonly held opinion? Share it and reap the benefits of that purple cow. Something that’s really going to pop and stand out to your followers.
[09:58] Next, emotions. People are really, really attached to different brands and in an emotional way. You can think about how you can evoke a laughter in a status update, or even some sort of curiosity that they might disagree with. These both emotions on either side of the spectrum do really well to get your content to shine.
[10:19] Cool, so now let’s jump into how repeating these updates on social media is so powerful, and this comes from that kind of decay factor that we all know too well on social media. You share a post once, it gets seen by who’s online at the time, then it kind of disappears into the dark hole of the internet.
[10:36] So, repeating your posts, repeating this awesome content that you’ve created, really helps throughout the year to make sure it’s hitting different audience segments. Not only new followers, but those who didn’t see it the first time. Another way to think about this, for your promotions, is it’s kind of like an ice cream truck that circles the block. This works for discounts, and it works for blog posts, it works for memes, stuff like that, because even if your core audience stays mostly the same over time, the same people aren’t necessarily always going to be ready to buy. They’re not necessarily always going to have the time to read that post.
[11:11] They may be feeling really ready one day, or have the time one day, and not another. It’s like that ice cream truck that’s always going through the same neighborhood, but the first time around someone might buy. Some people might buy the second time around, and depending upon what you’re selling, some people might be every time around. Don’t be afraid to share these different kind of connections with your audience throughout the day.
[11:35] If you are nervous, thinking about one thing that you can do is making sure your posts have some variety in them. One strategy, for adding some variety, is to simply pull some quotes from the post itself, so you can share this on social media in a really nice [inaudible 00:11:51] fashion. If you think you don’t have enough content to do this, think about how you can upcycle the content that you do have.
[11:58] For example, this webinar was borne out of a blog post that we did on how to keep evergreen content really fresh while using Edgar. With Edgar’s category based system of posting, your categories can inform how to upcycle your content. For example, this right here is something that we’ve done at Edgar with every blog post. We generate about 20 different headlines for these blog posts, and you can see here, we’re trying to pick and choose the types of things that are not only going to present the information a really truthful way, so when people click through, they know what they’re going to get, but these status updates, these headlines, can also be repurposed into how you introduce this blog post throughout the year, providing value and variety of the posts.
[12:42] On this list, thinking about how you can provide intrigue, but being honest at the same time, is that main goal that you’re going to want to think about, as you are starting to generate different headlines for one blog post. Again, after these blog posts have gone out, these headlines can be really repurposed into status updates, where you can ask engaging questions to stir up a conversation about the link that you’re sharing.
[13:08] The next time that you add this, you can really cite a fact, something that’s really strong and engaging that you wrote in the blog post. The next time the blog post comes out, you can share just a funny quote from it, to grab people’s attention. You can add some intrigue when you’re writing a teaser message that grabs the attention, just being careful not to make it clickbaity. Again, always being really honest with what people are going to get when they click through.
[13:34] Cool. Again, if you think you don’t have enough content for this, we really want you to make sure that you’re upcycling the stuff you already do have, and getting the most mileage from it. With Edgar’s category based system of posting, this is really easy to help inform you on how to add this to Edgar. You can make a category for tips where you’re pulling out a line or two from the posts that can be sent as a text only update. When people are scrolling through their feed, they might not have enough time to read the whole blog post, but when you offer up a morsel or two of value to them as a standalone post, they’re reminded of your brand when they see that, and it’s going to help to increase that all important know, like, and trust factor, that these brands do offer on social media.
[14:19] We want you to think about being visual, too. You know? Video seems to be king on social media, and with these networks’ algorithms these days. Video let’s you get really personal, so if you write a great blog post, maybe make a video. Hop in front of your smartphone, or your webcam, and get really personal with your audience. Your followers can kind of see, along with that, really help them connect on a personal level. Again, it’s just getting the most out of one blog post that you’re writing, if you can turn it into a tip, if you can turn it into a video, if you can turn it into a funny meme, stuff like that. Just starting to brainstorm ways that you can really upcycle the stuff you’re spending so much time writing.
[14:59] If this idea makes you nervous about recycling that, let’s get one thing out of the way. The reality is that no one really notices if they see the same update twice on social media. If they do, the worst that can happen is probably nothing. You’ve probably seen the same commercial on TV a couple of times in your life and it’s not anything that you’ve been made about.
[15:19] One brand that does this really well is your BuzzFeed or your Upworthy brands. They recycle their content so often, I know I’ve personally seen the same story go out multiple times, and it’s never something that I think really makes me think less of the brand. Really start to get comfortable with this idea, and with the way that Facebook and Twitter really wants to serve up content that’s going to matter to you, they often don’t share with your audience the same posts over and over again. So rest assured, that posting multiple times to the same network is definitely something that your followers are not going to get angry about.
[15:54] Your followers aren’t like RSS subscribers who see and read every post that you write. In fact, sharing more than once is really an essential part of making sure your audience knows that you do value them. You’ve promised them a lot of value in what your product is, so don’t be afraid to share that. And if you share a link a few times, they might not see it every time, so you really want to make sure that you’re putting your own spin on that update, and really providing the value that you’re promising to your customers.
[16:23] When coming up with this content, remember the strategies that you’re using really help to make sure that this content is getting into Edgar, as well. Planning and scheduling your updates really helps provide a lot of consistency to your followers. However, we do want to stress that it doesn’t take the place of live engagement. People want to connect with other people on social media. You want to sound like a human talking about your business, and along with that comes that live engagement piece.
[16:52] Automation is really meant to make live engagement a lot easier, not to replace it. Never forget that. The most important thing is really connecting on a human level with your followers, so as you’re sharing this, make sure you leave space for live updates. Make sure you leave space for comments, stuff like that.
[17:10] Cool. So, after you’ve come up with these awesome updates, it’s time to actually get them into Edgar. You know how Edgar works, it’s that last in, first out order, that we’re always favoring that fresh content that you’re adding into each category. So, if you are starting to think about ideas on how you can add different headlines, different status updates to the same link, we also want to point out that we do have a start date and expiration date that you could add to these posts.
[17:37] You know how this works, is if you populate that, if you go into Edgar and you click on to add new content, if you wanted to add the same status update five times then and there, you can go ahead and put that link in, introduce it in a couple of ways. If you scroll down on your add new content screen, you’ll always notice a little dropdown menu that says, “Scheduled settings” here.
[17:59] This “Send at a specific time” feature, checkbox that you see, is actually kind of like putting a start date on these posts. If you populate the “Send out a specific time” checkbox here, and you put the day and time when you want it to send out, Edgar’s actually going to hold this content out of the rotation until he reaches the day and time you populate. He’ll then post it, and put it to the end of the line in that category.
[18:23] This is an awesome strategy. If you did want to have a blog update that you wanted to send in between a few of the other ones in a category, remember that “Send at a specific time” feature allows you to get outside of your normal schedule, and allows you to add that same link over and over, but not have it go out back-to-back.
[18:45] This other option here is for expiring content. This is awesome if you do a promotion, or if you wanted to introduce a blog post in a really seasonal way and mention something about summer or winter. You can have that in your blog post rotating category, and tell Edgar when to stop sending it. At that time, he’ll just take it out of the rotation. It’ll, of course, still live in your library, so you can always remove that expiration date or edit it at a different time, but these are really awesome ways that you can get into the habit of adding all of these multiple times to Edgar and also knowing he’s going to reshare them in a really awesome way for you.
[19:23] Cool. We also want to stress that you can think about day specific posts even with automation like Edgar. If you build up this routine of doing something like, “Hey, I’m going to always send a motivation Monday tip out, or a tips Tuesday out,” you can build a certain degree of loyalty amongst your followers on social media. They’re going to know what to expect, and they’re going to rely on these great updates.
[19:45] With Edgar, you can also accomplish this. Through doing this, our category based system is really awesome. If you have a post that you want to update, like, “Happy Friday,” or “Throwback Thursday,” or a daily prompt that you want to send out to your followers, you can head over to the categories tab in Edgar and create a new category that’s going to be specific. You can see here, something like motivation Monday, tips Tuesday, stuff like that, that’s going to be a little more time or day specific.
[20:14] You’ll go to your category and create this category. When you’re adding this, be sure to uncheck the box that says, “Include in random” before you save that category. Next, you’re going to add the weekly post to that new category, so go ahead and create your new content and add in those tips or motivational posts, stuff like that.
[20:34] Then, you’re going to go to your schedule tab in Edgar. From there, when you’re creating time slots, you can see you can make this motivational Monday post appear just on Mondays. If that category appears nowhere else on your schedule, you’ll know that these types of updates are going to go out only on Mondays, or your throwback Thursdays will only go out on Thursdays. Again, just a really great way to build consistency into your automation, and make sure you’re getting the most out of this. Even with these simple updates, that might not just be quotes or photos or memes, and not necessarily blogs, you want to be really original all the time. But good business sense is just about trying something once and hoping for the best. It’s about making progress, too. Something we stress throughout this whole webinar is learning from what you’ve done in the past.
[21:20] Learn from the shares and the comments that your posts are receiving to really help you inform what categories are doing well in Edgar, and tailor your content from there. And remember how you can connect in a really authentic way. People can tell when you’re not being genuine, and they’re there to connect with friends and family, so ask what your content is really providing them, and how you can entice them to share it to their own pages.
[21:43] What does reading your content and connecting with your content do for your audience? Look at these status updates through your followers and think if someone shared this on their page, why are they sharing this? What type of emotion is it evoking in them to really prompt them to take this action? And try to learn, again, from each status update that you’re seeing shares come from, and emulate more of that in your others.
[22:08] Don’t overthink it, either. You want to always make sure that the posts you’re putting out there are nice, short, causal, informal. Again, a really conversational tone on social media does the best. And a successful business promotion, or a social strategy isn’t like an amazing meal that you only get to enjoy once and never again. It’s really like that recipe you can make over and over again, so you want to make sure that you’re really repeating these promotions, and you’re repeating these posts that you see do so well, to really grab the attention.
[22:39] These killer status updates can really make sure that it’s leading to those clickthroughs that you want. Easy to consume when people get there, so that the next time they see you post an article, they’re like, “Great, this is worth clicking through. It’s a great read.” It’s going to be something that’ll provide them with that every time they see your brand name come up on social, they want to click on it. It’s really something that we do here at Edgar through adding a lot of white space to our blogs, to make it really easy and quick to read. Adding a lot of photos and funny gifs to make sure again, when you do get to the site, after you’ve clicked through from that status update, that you’re being provided content that’s providing not only value, but that emotional response of, “Great, this is easy, this is wonderful. I’m learning so much from it.” Try to think about those things as well.
[23:28] Cool. So last but not least, we never want you to be overwhelmed here at Edgar. You can always reach out to our support team and we can help develop a strategy with you. Something I like to throw out there, as we’re wrapping up here, is just some easy math motivation. Say if you wanted to send six updates a day out to your followers, every day of the weekdays, that math breaks down to sending 120 updates out a month. Seems like a big number. Again, hold your horses and don’t get too overwhelmed here.
[23:58] If you log into Edgar, you’ll notice you do have six predetermined categories that are already there for you, just based upon our own posting schedule here at Edgar. If you take these six predetermined categories, or if you rename them to match your own strategy here, when you think about it, that’s really only adding 20 updates per category, per month, to get all new fresh content. Again, we’ve just gone over this whole time about how repeating your content is so, so valuable.
[24:27] As you’re first starting to come into Edgar, maybe make that goal of adding 20 updates per category, knowing you’ll have all of that really great fresh content go out. The next month you might just have that repeat again, and you don’t have to spend the time to update it all the time, and you can slowly but surely start building up your library and getting these great status updates again and again, to get your followers’ attention.
[24:53] Cool. So that is it for our Write Once, Promote Twice webinar today. Definitely let us know if you do have any questions. After this webinar and here, definitely go ahead and feel free to email us too, at [email protected]. We’re always super interested in knowing what you guys want to know about, how we can make your life easier in this social media marketing world.
[25:14] Thanks for taking some time out of your day today, and like I said, keep in touch. We love hearing from the community.
