Your Work is Rotting
I’m not saying that your writing stinks, just that most content fails as it ages. It needs a lifecycle process to keep it fresh.
Do a Google image search for “content lifecycle” and you’ll find a wall of diagrams, along the lines of this one.
Why a Lifecycle?
Stale content creates a major trust problem between creators and consumers of content. In a survey of business leaders, 1 out of 3 said that dated content was a “trust buster.” Wild guess: the other 2 would agree that trust takes a hit, even if it’s not busted.
The same study showed a clear link between content and perception.
85% — the percentage of respondents who believe high-quality B2B thought leadership content improves the perception of a brand.
Lifecycle processes may not apply to one-and-done content, best exemplified by social-media posts. But you might be surprised by how many different types of content it does apply to. If you write blog posts, for example, it’s highly unlikely they’ll stay “evergreen” (fresh, with good SEO and lots of views and shares) without having a lifecycle process in place.
Back to that wall of lifecycle diagrams. It’s not that one of them has to be right, it’s that you’ve got to choose a lifecycle that works for your content and your context.
Why so Complicated?
It’s only as complicated as your content and your goals. That complex lifecycle up above is ambitious, and you might need something like it. But honestly, the process could be simpler.
For example, updating older writing by adding a simple explanatory note at the top could be all the help it needs. Setting proper expectations can bring moldering content a long way toward freshness.
For example, I recently picked up a collection of travel writing by Jan Morris focused on cities she’d visited over the decades. Each chapter begins with a short author’s note written by an older, wiser Morris to give some perspective to the younger one’s thoughts. Decades after writing about a visit to Kyoto, Morris added this note to the beginning of the chapter:
I did not terribly like Kyoto, when I went there in 1957 to write about it for an American magazine … because I totally failed to understand it.
Check in with your long-lived writings on a regular basis and update the most egregious issues. That alone will put you ahead.
Whichever approach you choose, the 2 most important questions to answer are:
- What goals do I have for my content?
- Is my content lifecycle helping me reach those goals?
In another piece I’ll dive more deeply into the parts of a good content lifecycle process.
