On Seasonal Posts

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Happy New Year!

This post is going up just before midnight in our local time zone (EST), and we wish you all the best! We’re far from the first to say it, but: here’s hoping that 2021 is a vast improvement over 2020!

Our specific topic today is related not just to the New Year holiday but to all holidays. At this time of year—stretching from around Labor Day and the first day of school in the fall and continuing to New Year’s Day—it’s not uncommon to field questions or have discussions regarding seasonal posts. (There are other important holidays throughout the year, but holidays are not evenly distributed on the American calendar; they’re overrepresented in the final third of the year.)

A seasonal post (as we define it) is a post that explicitly references a current or upcoming holiday. When a content client raises this topic, the primary concern is whether or not they should publish seasonal posts.

That is: Is it a useful or effective thing to do? Should they post content of this type, or should they avoid it—or land somewhere in between?

Our answer is: It depends.

We don’t give that answer to be flip or noncommittal, only to note that there’s a little more that we need to know.

To be more specific, it depends on what the goal of a post is, as well as the overall goals for a client’s content.

Deciding whether or not a seasonal post is a good, bad, or indifferent idea should be based on how it fits into the rest of your content. There are more things to consider than this short list, but in most cases understanding these three things about the post and the site’s overall content goals will be enough to answer the question:

• What is the specific content of the post?
• What is the context of the post, as a single item as well as in relation to the site’s overall goal?
• Is the post meant to have longevity?

That first question, of content, might be the easiest to answer. What is this post about? Some topics are naturally suited to be used in a seasonal way: a reminder about traffic safety just before Halloween, or a warning about drunk drivers on New Year’s Eve. Others can make a logical if less obvious connection. But other topics might have little or no reasonable and sensible connection to a holiday, and trying to make one can seem awkward and forced.

The context is also usually not difficult to address. The examples above (Halloween and New Year’s Eve) connect on the topic level (traffic safety), but do they also fit in the general and larger picture of the site’s content? If your content regularly covers safety issues, or car crashes, or it occasionally or regularly features specific incidents (especially if tied to a seasonal holiday), then the answer is probably “yes.” If, on the other hand, the portfolio of material on your site steers away from specifics—it instead is pitched to provide general information without a tight connection to specific incidents or events—then seasonal posts might be something to avoid because they’ll break character with the site’s established presentation.

Addressing these first two questions can often be enough to make a good decision, but we like to include one more factor in most discussions: the longevity or reusability of a post.

Understanding the longevity of a post might take slightly more effort. That’s especially true since it involves some prediction of the unknowable future: Will this post still be useful in the future? Is it meant to appear for a single day and then be forgotten forever? Is it meant to reference a holiday, but make a more general point and continue to be useful? Is it meant to be part of a larger strategy within your site content—one in a number of posts tied to various holidays, demonstrating that your content isn’t simply useful for general knowledge, but is also timely and specifically applicable?

Since we can’t reliably predict the future, a better approach might be to ask—if the information is available to you—How have past posts like this one held up over time? It’s a simple enough task to scan back across your past content for similar posts. Reading them again today—weeks, months, or years after they were first published—how well did they do their job at the time they were posted? And how well are they still doing it today? That question isn’t necessarily a function of search results (although it can be). It’s an issue of the usefulness of the material: a well-structured post on a well-chosen topic, even if it was written five years ago, can sometimes be just as effective as a similar post written yesterday. Both will contribute to the overall quality and success of your site by demonstrating the depth of your expertise, as well your commitment over time.

As you move into the new year and continue to think about your future content, seasonal posts are something to consider. They might fit very well into your content strategy and be very useful. It depends on how you use them.

Whether you want to use seasonal posts or work to make all of your content timeless, Waltham WordWorks can help. We can assist you as you develop a library of content that showcases your business’ expertise. Get in touch with us today to get started.