Everyone continues an unhealthy obsession with flirting at the edge. And most of the people doing so probably have no business being there (yet) in the first place.
Getting to the point your brand is sophisticated enough to use stream-based platforms is great, but there are a lot of things you need to lock down first. Not the least of which is in some way, shape or form being timeless.
Timeless in the sense of producing evergreen content that attracts 10,000 visitors a day and gets continued organic shares across platforms whether you produce something new or not.
Timeless in the sense that you’ve created a community users have been conditioned to visit weekly because they know something new that will make them smarter will be there.
Timeless in the sense you’ve built a useful web app that might not be the prettiest thing in the world, but your entire category has it bookmarked because it’s so useful they need it as part of their processes.
Once you’ve done something timeless, you then gain far more leverage than those who just flirt at the edge. Normal people don’t refresh their browsers to see what’s new, or are even so plugged in they see everything. And even those who live at the edge still can’t possibly catch it all.
If you can do something timeless, you can exist outside the ever-quickening churn of the real-time web yet continue to pull organic links, traffic social shares and ultimately outcomes. Being timeless puts you outside the noise and positions you as signal.
If you’re an experienced online marketer, stop and think about the returns brought by engaging in timeless tactics. For example, remember when we used to flesh out robust FAQs on our own sites? They would net high demand, high quality traffic that would convert like crazy. Smart marketers still do this, while a new generation might only answer that question in Quora or LinkedIn where visitors might never make a connection back to the company and miss out on organic conversions. I’m not saying don’t answer questions there. What I am saying is you need to complete the timeless tactics, those that work for you while you sleep first. The order here matters.
My favorite artists create timeless works. I return to them years later and they bring the same level of inspiration they originally did because they put their passion and soul into them. I’m excited to hear what they’re doing next, because I know they are less concerned with being first – instead they are focused on doing something that matters.