Video As An Evergreen Content Strategy
Evergreen content is continually relevant no matter when someone clicks on it or watches the video. It is simple, lasting and sustainable over a long period of time.
The new web is a hungry beast for content, and many organizations are having difficulty meeting the content demands of the media and staff/budget concerns.
Here are few good ways to develop “evergreen” content for video:
- Narrow the Topic: The more specific, the better for SEO. This leads to more attention-getting headlines, too.
- Tell a Real Story: This allows the story to live on for years because it is always true.
- Self-help or How-to Videos: These are relevant as long as the how-to is correct.
- Avoid Dates: Don’t make a 2016 holiday video, make a holiday video with a specific keyword so it is relevant each year.
- Don’t Feature Events: Events date videos too quickly. They make good videos, not good evergreen videos.
- Avoid Trendy Clothing and Styles: Nothing dates a video faster than clothing and hair styles. You can’t always control hair, but you can make recommendations for clothing. Avoid clothing with words, logos or other identifiable markings (other than your organization’s logo).
- Avoid Trendy Editing Techniques: Dissolves, cuts and simple graphics will tell a better story than funky new moves. They may look cool now (60-Minute interviews still stand up to day’s scrutiny) but watch a music video from the 90’s and you can see (and hear) the dating.
- Keep Music Simple: Content will date you if it is too trendy.
- Avoid “Trendy”: It is a trend, so it will shift into and out of style–your evergreen content is not a trend.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.