I spent a day recently researching, writing and editing blog posts.

I plan for four types of content for my blog:

• Date-specific
• Evergreen
• Breaking
• Repurposed

Date-specific: I keep a content calendar for the year and pepper it with dates that are known and that I will likely write about. For example, I almost always write something related to New Year’s Day and the idea of resolutions and/or goal setting. Sunshine Week is in March and I often write about the topic.

Evergreen content is not tied to a specific day and can be used any time during the year. This post is an example of evergreen content. If I attend a conference, I frequently write about the workshops I attend and the speakers I meet. If I want to be timely (date-specific) then I will run a post during or immediately following the conference; otherwise, the content becomes evergreen.

Breaking content is tied to a story that has traction in the news. I can write a post related to the breaking news. This is known as “newsjacking,” and PR pros do it all the time. If they have a subject matter expert related to the topic, they will pitch, or work to connect, the expert with the reporters covering the story. For my blog, I’ll write a post related to the content. For example, I wrote about office success lessons learned from watching the latest James Bond movie or how people connected while watching a Royal Wedding (not Harry and Meghan, the other one).

Repurposed content: Review your most popular stories and posts and then tweak the headline or update the statistics. You can also take the content and use it on a different platform. I expect to do more of that in 2019 as I work to finish my travelogue book and complete a mystery. For me to do that, I will need to spend less time writing original content for the blog, but I hope you will still find inspiration in the posts.

When it comes to content, I am seldom at a loss for copy. I simply need to plan and identify my content opportunities.