We can all take marketing lessons from the Old Spice guy for years to come, but an Elvis sighting, now that's an urgent, bloggable matter. By the way, on the way to work this morning I saw him.. No kidding!
I learned a valuable blogging lesson yesterday. It might seem obvious, but here goes: topical blogs must be posted immediately, if not sooner.
There are two types of blog posts: timely and timeless. You should publish both kinds.
Here’s how:
1. Write about timely stuff as it occurs. Check your spelling, hit publish. As my good friend Pilcher says, “The ‘ship-it’ light is on.” These sensational kinds of posts may just widen your audience and bring in new visitors. They may not win you the Pulitzer Prize for journalism.
2. Keep an on-going library of drafts of timeless wonders in your blog. These posts should cut through the noise of the urgency of now and educate your audience for the long haul. Polish these timeless classics to a high gloss (as your readers will return to them again and again) and publish them when the “ship-it” light is off.
Here’s why:
We can all take marketing lessons from the Old Spice man for years to come, we may even see these lessons in college curricula, but the time to introduce the notion of learning from a ridiculously good look towel-clad man is as it happens, in the moment.
Once it hits NPR, it’s too late. Even as I watched his freshly published YouTube responses to a day of Tweets, I knew I had to blog about the Old Spice Man, but I had urgent client work. So my great smelling timing was off this week.
Your timeless classic posts, on the other hand, should showcase your depth of knowledge on your subject matter. Topics like how caffeine stimulates the blogosphere are classic; topics like how Google’s new index Caffeine should inform your SEO strategy are timely.
And, as always, keep it short and sweet. Have a great day.
