Did you have an Instagram post that got tons of comments? Or a blog post that was quoted in the media? Or an email campaign that pumped up your web traffic?
Good news: You can get more mileage out of this previously-popular content with a few tips for developing a content strategy. Here’s how to leverage top-performing content and get more out of it.
Identify Your All-Time Biggest Hits
Start by thinking back on the past few years and jotting down a list of your best pieces of content. Include it all: blog posts, social media posts, email campaigns, ebooks, infographics, and any other content that made a splash.
Of course, it’s hard to remember every itty bitty piece of content you generated. To refresh your memory, look at the data. Scroll back through your social media posts, or even better, work with 11outof11 to do a full content marketing analysis and social media scan.
Take a tally. What was your most-liked post on Facebook? Which of your Tweets quickly zipped around the globe? Which email had the best performance statistics? What was your most-downloaded whitepaper?
Create Categories and Look for Trends
When you look at the numbers, you might be surprised to see that certain pieces of content did much better or much worse than you expected. Take this as an opportunity to expand and revise your content strategy.
If you haven’t done so already, divide your content into categories and sort your blog posts into searchable topics. Review your keywords and SEO. Examine your social posts by topic. Which keywords and content topics are getting the most traction?
Remember that the focus of this effort is to see what people like and give them more of it. So if you usually do a huge promotional push around the winter holidays but your most popular posts last year were about summertime activities, take this to heart. By categorizing your content, you’ll see important trends emerge.
Review, Refresh, and Re-share
Decide which pieces of content could feel fresh again with a minor facelift. Focus on your most popular content and think about each piece from a new point of view. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Fun Facts Become Top 10 Lists
Any blog post or social media post that had an interesting fact can be updated with the latest stats. You can even build a list from several previous pieces of content and call it something like “Our 5 Best Ideas for X.”
Inject New Info Into Infographics
Is there an infographic that lots of your fans viewed but is now outdated? Use the same eye-catching format but add the latest info. Brain research shows that at least 50% of human perception is visual and we form visual connections within 1/10 of a second.
Turn a Series into a Whitepaper
Maybe your most-read content was all about saving money. Lean into it! Gather a series of your money-saving blog posts and turn them into a whitepaper with the help of a content writer.
Reconsider Your Content Development Workflow
Of course, if you’re already busy with a million other things, you might be reading this and thinking, “Sounds great, but I don’t have the time.” We get that.
11outof11 can help you revamp your content development workflow and relieve you of key tasks that are sucking up your time. In fact, we invite you to check out How to Create Content on a Regular Basis (Without Crushing Your Schedule) to save valuable hours every week.
In the meantime, is there anything we can do to help you re-publish your top-performing content? Let’s talk about bringing back your biggest hits.