Cultivating Evergreen Thought Leadership: Insights from Jennifer Burke’s 2024 AIIP Symposium Session

By Aaron Harvey

At the recent AIIP conference, I had the pleasure of attending Jennifer Burke’s keynote “Cultivating Evergreen Thought Leadership.” Jennifer’s insightful presentation drew a compelling analogy between gardening and content creation, emphasizing the importance of diverse, sustainable, and strategic content practices. Her “Content Gardening” approach highlighted the need for a balanced mix of content to establish and maintain thought leadership. Here’s a look into her innovative content strategy.

Introduction: A Personal Perspective

Writing and maintaining a blog or other marketing material has always caused me anxiety. The thought of it truly stresses me out. Despite knowing for quite some time that I need to bite the bullet and get started, I’ve always avoided it. Jennifer’s presentation was a game-changer for me, providing handles for just getting started. Her presentation style was energetic, humorous, and empathetic to those of us who dread creating content. By relating content creation to gardening, she helped me understand the “why” behind thought leadership, not just the marketing strategy.

Understanding Evergreen Content

Jennifer began by explaining the concept of evergreen content, likening it to the resilient, enduring nature of evergreen plants. Just as these plants provide steady benefits to their ecosystem throughout all seasons, evergreen content offers long-lasting value to a brand or individual. This type of content is characterized by its durability, timelessness, and minimal maintenance requirements.

Examples of Evergreen Content:

• Origin Stories: Sharing your journey and background not only builds credibility but also connects you with your audience on a personal level.
• Books: Publishing a book can solidify your authority and provide a lasting resource for your audience.
• Content Pillars: These are the core topics that define your expertise and brand, forming the foundation of your content strategy.
• Interviews, Speeches, TEDx Talks: Leveraging public appearances can provide continuous value and reinforce your thought leadership over time.

Exploring Perennial Content

Next, Jennifer introduced the concept of perennial content, which she compared to perennial plants that bring color and variety to a garden with less frequent maintenance than annuals. Perennial content is efficient, diverse, and long-lasting, making it an essential component of a robust content strategy.

Types of Perennial Content:

Blog Posts: Creating various types of enduring posts:

• Epic posts: Comprehensive, authoritative articles (3,000+ words) on key topics.
• Cornerstone content: Foundational pieces (2,500+ words) covering core subjects.
• Guide posts: Step-by-step instructional content.
• Roundup posts: Compilations of expert opinions or curated resources.

Reviews: Balanced evaluations of products or services. These can be periodically updated to maintain relevance and SEO value.

White Papers: Developing in-depth documents presenting original research, industry insights, or best practices. These often serve as lead magnets for email list building.

Email Marketing: Create a series of automated, informative messages to welcome and guide new subscribers or customers over time. These messages can introduce your business, share helpful tips, and build relationships, keeping your brand in mind and encouraging engagement with your products or services.

Tutorials, Demos, Webinars, Masterclasses: Providing educational content in various formats to build authority and offer value. These can often be repurposed across multiple platforms.

The Role of Annual Content

Jennifer then discussed annual content, likening it to the bright, showy nature and brief lifespan of annual plants. While annual content captures immediate attention, it is not meant to be the sole focus of a content strategy. Instead, it should complement evergreen and perennial content to create a dynamic and engaging content mix.

Types of Annual Content:

• Social Media: Utilizing platforms like Reels, Stories, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts for quick, engaging updates.
• Platforms: Leveraging Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram for timely content.
• Email Marketing: Sending quick updates, promotions, and snackable content (bite-sized, easily digestible pieces of content designed for quick consumption and immediate engagement).
• Direct Engagement: Conducting 1:1 calls, outreach, and follow-ups to maintain personal connections.

Crafting a Balanced Content Strategy

Jennifer emphasized the importance of integrating evergreen, perennial, and annual content to create a successful content strategy. This balanced approach is a key tool in supporting sustained engagement, long-term value, and dynamic interaction with your audience.

Practical Tips for Implementation:

• Content Calendar: Develop a content calendar that includes a mix of evergreen, perennial, and annual content to ensure a well-rounded strategy.
• Share Again: Don’t be shy about reposting updated pieces. It’s like giving them a second life!
• Engagement: Use annual content to drive immediate engagement and capture your audience’s attention such as in these examples:
  • Eye-catching social media graphics paired with thought-provoking questions designed to spark instant conversation, and encourage resharing.
  • Bite-sized video clips, concise data visualizations for quick consumption and effortless sharing across platforms.
  • Engaging mini-surveys, rapid-fire trivia challenges, or “this or that” polls that prompt immediate audience interaction.
  • Real-time updates on emerging stories or viral trends, presented in a concise, easily digestible format for immediate relevance.
  • Sneak peeks or eye-catching previews of upcoming in-depth content, crafted to spark curiosity and grab attention right away.

Conclusion

Jennifer Burke’s “Content Gardening” keynote provided invaluable insights into cultivating a diverse and sustainable content strategy. By incorporating evergreen, perennial, and annual content, you can establish and maintain thought leadership to build and maintain long-term success and engagement with your audience. Her empathetic and humorous presentation style, combined with practical advice, made it clear why thought leadership is essential and how to achieve it. If you’re like me and have been avoiding content creation, I encourage you to take Jennifer’s advice and start cultivating your own content garden today. Your business will thank you later.

Founded by Aaron Harvey in 2022, King’s Rook specializes in strategic IT leadership and technology management for small businesses. In addition, Aaron offers customized consulting and coaching to boost operational efficiency and secure critical data. Learn more at www.kingsrook.co or contact us at aaron@kingsrook.co or +1 912-676-0428.