Skip to main content
Marketing

What Is Evergreen Content and Why Do I Need It?

By Emily Neal15/11/2022No Comments
What Is Evergreen content and Why Do I Need It?

If you work in marketing, you’ve probably heard the phrase ‘evergreen content’ thrown around. 

Today we’re going to break down what evergreen content is, how to maintain your evergreen content, and give you a bunch of ideas to get started!

Plus, find out why evergreen content is essential for leveling up your employee advocacy program. 

Conan what is that gif

What Is Evergreen Content?

First up, let’s define evergreen content.

It comes from trees! (Kind of) 🤣

An evergreen is a plant that remains green all year round.

Now apply that to your content.

Evergreen content is timeless. ⏰

It’s relevant all year, and can be shared on social media at any time.

No matter the time or day, your evergreen content is relevant to your target audience.

Think about the last time you googled a ‘how to’ question. An in-depth article or YouTube tutorial likely gave you the advice you needed.

That’s evergreen content. 🌱

In contrast, if you’re looking for Black Friday sales, that’s the opposite of evergreen content. It’s time-sensitive, and therefore has a shorter shelf-life.

Evergreen content is usually created with a long-term view in mind.

Content marketers want to get their content seen by the most people possible, and creating content that stays relevant for a long time is a great way to do that.

man learning gif

What Are The Benefits of Evergreen Content?

There are so many benefits of evergreen content!

We’ve already mentioned that it’s relevant year-round.

So what does this mean for your social media team?

They can re-share and re-purpose the content throughout the year. 👏

As you build your brand online, your audience will grow.

Not everyone will have seen that ‘ultimate guide’ you created 6 months ago.

So share it again!

Work smarter, not harder. 💪

Evergreen content is essential for SEO growth too.

Think about it: which topic will have consistent searches on Google?

  1. The Ultimate Guide To Influencer Marketing
  2. The 5 Best Influencer Marketing Ads from November 2022

The 2nd option could grab attention on social media, and a spike in organic traffic… but the results will be short-lived. 📉

The first option can drive steady, long-term traffic, reaching new people for months or years to come! 📈

Key Takeaway:

Evergreen content enables you and your brand to maintain relevancy all year.

Social media and marketing is fast-paced and ever-changing, but evergreen content is consistent and reliable!

svg+xml;charset=utf

Why Is Evergreen Content Important for Marketing?

So, evergreen content is great for both SEO and your social media team.

How does it help marketing in general?

Here are 3 reasons:

  1. It requires less output.
  2. It’s self-sustaining.
  3. Maintains brand relevancy and authority.

Let’s dive in… 🤿

With a pandemic, an expected recession, and many lay-offs in tech, you might be facing marketing cutbacks. 

You’re probably thinking about ways to get results with fewer employees, and a lower budget.

Evergreen content is a good place to start. 

So is employee advocacy, but we’ll get onto that later…

Evergreen content works harder for you than news articles or short-form video because it doesn’t go out-of-date quickly. 

It requires minimal updating, giving your marketing team time to focus on other areas, like distribution on social media. 🙌

Evergreen marketing strategies are so effective because they are built on a foundation of quality content that will live on for years to come.

It’s timeless and can be shared, linked to, and used over and over again without losing its relevance or effectiveness.

amazing content gif

How To Create Evergreen Content

Okay, okay, you get the drift.

Make. Evergreen. Content. ✍️

But how?

A good example of evergreen content would be a blog post about the best classic literature books to read in your lifetime, or a blog post about the top 10 landmarks to see in London. 

There are many types of evergreen content, including recipes, expert advice, how-to guides, listicles and infographics.

Here are three pillars to focus on when creating evergreen content:

1) Informational Content about your chosen topic.

2) Inspirational Content, e.g. timeless wisdom, career progression, self-improvement.

3) Educational Content, e.g. how-to articles, practical tips for solving a problem, or ultimate guides.

It’s important to remember that creating evergreen content isn’t about writing something that never changes. 

It’s about writing something with a timeless message, and then finding the best way to present it so that it stays relevant for years to come.

It’s important to make sure that your writing is clear and concise. You want it to be able to stand on its own with minimal context from the reader.

Quick List of Evergreen Content Ideas

  • How-To Posts / Tutorials.
  • Solving a Problem in your Industry.
  • Product Reviews.
  • Listicles.
  • Explain Industry Terms or Concepts.
  • Answer frequently asked questions from your customers.
  • ‘Ultimate Guide To…’ – an in-depth blog post covering everything a reader would need to know about a particular subject.
  • Timeless Concepts, e.g. improving wellbeing or productivity.
  • Case Studies.
  • Original Research.
  • A Glossary of Key Terms.
  • Round-up posts of the best books / resources / documentaries about your topic.

Evergreen Content Examples

Here are a few examples of our own evergreen content if you need a bit of inspiration! 💡

The Employee Advocacy Resources Hub

  • Features all of our best content, from podcasts to ebooks.
  • Doesn’t need to be regularly updated, because the content remains relevant for anyone interested in employee advocacy.

The Employee Advocacy Glossary

  • Covers every key term, phrase or acronym someone would need to know when getting involved in an employee advocacy program.

Employee Advocacy vs Employee Engagement

  • An article explaining two key terms in our industry, and how they relate to each other.

Employee Advocacy Templates Page

  • A round-up page featuring templates from around the web to help with employee advocacy.
what do we do from here gif (1)

Do I Need To Update Evergreen Content?

Absolutely.

But not frequently! ❌

Some evergreen content will always be relevant, like a list of classic horror movies to watch.

But others might need a bit of updating from time-to-time.

Take our Employee Advocacy Glossary as an example.

It’s likely to remain relevant for a long period of time, but we all know that in marketing, new phrases and terms can appear, especially in the digital space!

So our Glossary might need a little refresh in a few months.

Other ways to update your evergreen content:

  • Remove any broken links.
  • If any data or information is no longer relevant, update it.
  • Add new media to make it more engaging, e.g. videos, infographics, change the images.
floyd what else gif

What Content Isn’t Evergreen?

By now, you’ve got a pretty strong idea of what content is considered ‘evergreen’. 

But let’s briefly clarify what content isn’t evergreen:

  • Anything time-sensitive, e.g. Christmas sales or any seasonal content
  • News!
  • Trends, e.g. fashion or memes.
  • Events, e.g. Formula 1 race results.
  • Viral topics, e.g. ‘quiet quitting’.

Essentially, content that is not evergreen will only be relevant for a certain period of time.

Don’t Just Make Evergreen Content!

While evergreen content is important, it shouldn’t make up 100% of your content.

Trends are popular for a reason. Don’t think you can’t cover them – just balance it with your evergreen content!

If there’s a new innovation within your industry, get one of your thought leaders to share some insights on it.

I like to plan a strategy

Why Evergreen Content is Essential for Employee Advocacy Programs

We’ve talked about how evergreen content can really help out your marketing and social media teams, especially when facing cutbacks.

But why is it important for employee advocacy? 🤔

Well, if you’re already running an employee advocacy program, you know that the key is consistency. Your employees want content to share, and lots of it.

But if you’re a small marketing team, you might not have enough content to really make a splash with employee advocacy.

This is where evergreen content comes in. 🌲

As the content will always be relevant, employees can re-share it with their followers every few months.

You can switch up the graphics or post captions to make it seem fresh, but the actual content remains the same.

It’s a win-win. 🏆

More content for your employees to share, with less output from your marketing team.

A marketing strategy that pairs evergreen content with employee advocacy for distribution on social media will position your company (and employees) as an authority within your industry. ⭐️

Having a group of active employees on social media promotes your company culture, and gets more eyes on your evergreen content.

Want to learn more about Employee Advocacy?

We can help with that! 👋

Join our weekly webinar on Mondays at 2pm UK time.

Prefer to jump straight in? Book a demo of our all-in-one Employee Influencer platform.

b2bd7fadba12e1505b88eac89e15a1b5?s=150&d=mp&r=g

Emily Neal

SEO and Content Specialist at DSMN8. Emily has 10 years experience blogging, and is a pro at Pinterest Marketing, reaching 1 million monthly views. She’s all about empowering employees to grow their personal brands and become influencers.