On sustainable content.
As the future of content and especially sustainable content was the central topic of our last present day of our Master’s in Content Strategy at the FH Joanneum, I haven’t really stopped thinking about it.
“Is your content sustainable?”
Having this question in mind is a really good reminder for creating great content. However, it may not lead to a development of something that is still worth someone’s time next week, next month or even next year.
The world wide web continually gets filled to the brim with information as everyone nowadays creates and shares new youtube videos, tiktoks, posts or infographics every day. Standing out in all of this is tough enough as it is, let alone continuing to stand out months from now. A piece of information is worth its weight in gold if you can figure out what will make it last.
But what is it that makes content sustainable?
A lot of people/companies manage to throw some things together every single day or week, but it most definitely won’t be worth showing to the world — ergo isn’t really sustainable. It will be lost within the huge mass of content produced every day, very soon.
Sustainable content manages to withstand the junk that flows through the web, and it might just last forever by continuing to perform long past the publishing date.
How can I produce sustainable content?
There are a lot of factors that play in the sustainability factor of a content piece from the timing to the search engine optimisation, but the one factor I want to focus on today is the substance.
Basing the piece of content on data from research studies and other scientifically based information is an easy way to provide added value to the recipients. In this way attention can be drawn to a specific subject the users maybe wouldn’t inform themselves on their own. A lot of time these content pieces turn out to be pretty timeless too. (That, obviously, doesn’t work with every subject!) A great option to create interesting and shareable content about a piece of data are infographics. (which I dedicated a previous blogposts to!)
A very simple, yet effective way of added value and form of “teaching” something to their customers, is the way the Austrian Fair Fashion Brand The Slow Label are Posting their #slowfacts on Instagram.
Through their Stories they try to transport important information about their chosen fibers and their ways of production, but also raise awareness about important issues within the fashion industry. Within their posts they also keep mentioning the sources and being very transparent about the research the piece of content is based on, which not only makes them more trustworthy, but also adds to the sustainability of their content pieces.
It makes me really happy when companies that preach a sustainable way of working also try to implement it online and in their content production.
If you are up to reading more about digital waste and gain some very interesting insights in what SEO actually is and how it works, head over to my colleague Polina’s article.
