A caveat: I know it’s not summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Depending on where you live south of the equator, it’s hot, mild, or downright chilly. But because almost 90 percent of the world’s population lives on the other half of the planet, it makes sense that content around this time of the year often has a distinctly beachy feel.
I like it. We get reading lists and compilations, and content that’s lighter in tone but still deep in insights. There’s a very slight sense that the foot has eased off the accelerator, if only for a week or two or four. But, more than anything, it reminds me companies should do much, much more to deliver content whenever audiences want it—not only at the height of summer but also every day.
There’s long been an unwritten rule in the world of thought leadership that weekends are off-limits. Content lands every weekday—truckloads of it. But Saturday arrives and the insights disappear, resuming on Monday as if the kinds of problems leaders and organizations face pause for the weekend.
Like a lot of long-standing conventions in our industry, this used to make sense to me: Everyone needs a break. But what changed my mind was the actual performance of content when we published on those rare weekends or holiday periods. The data didn’t lie: There was a huge appetite for thought leadership in “quieter” times, and it didn’t need to be lighter content. (Data also shows users are more engaged with content on weekends.) Really gnarly articles and reports did just as well.
We often spend a lot of time debating when content should be published. There’s a logic to that, for sure—you want a coherent strategy in which content doesn’t compete for attention, and you don’t want your work overshadowed by predictable events. For instance, dropping a major report in the United States on November 5 this year is a bad idea, unless you think insights into supply chain optimization will overshadow the election of a new president.
But we also overthink timing, for four reasons. First, users are far from homogenous: Some people want a total intellectual break over the weekend, while others find it the ideal time to devote concentrated attention to something. The second is users can find content whenever they want—an email notification or social media blast is great, but they’ll also consume something a month later after a web search. (Note: This is a reminder of how vital thoughtful, best-in-class SEO is.)
Third, thought leadership is rarely timely, at least not in the way news is. Can it prove timely? Sure, and companies can and should be opportunistic about releasing—and rereleasing, especially—content to meet external moments. But there’s usually no harm in waiting if doing so will result in a better, more impactful final product.
The final reason? Timing doesn’t exist in a strategic vacuum. Our fundamental job is helping clients deliver insights people need in whatever format, through whatever channel, and at whatever time they want to consume it. Optimizing (or seeking to optimize) a single element such as timing just isn’t enough—all of the pieces need to fit together to maximize impact, both when content is first published and in the days, weeks, and months that follow.
This is another reason I often smile at the appearance of “summer” content—because it’s a time when companies do a much better job of repromoting existing content to give it another moment in the sun. I’m all for a journalistic mindset around the creation of content; thought leadership is really a form of explanatory journalism. But when it comes to optimizing impact, promotion is the critical factor, whether it’s at the point of publication or long after. After all, there’s a reason thought leadership published years ago continues to find an audience.
So enjoy the last days of summer (or winter, for my fellow Aussies). Enjoy the thought leadership that companies are publishing to maintain your attention as you laze on a banana lounger. But think about how summer can and should be stretched across the rest of the year, at least when it comes to your content strategy.
LEFF’s Content Innovation arm is dedicated to helping companies keep pace with new formats, products, and ways of doing things—so content can continually shift thinking, clarify complexity, and illuminate intelligence. We pursue excellence by asking what else an idea can be, how else it can be shared, and who else it can reach. You can find more posts specific to our Content Innovation work here.
