December 9, 2013 -- Gregg Blanchard

I love Throwback Thursday for two reasons.

First, as a sucker for all things ski history, it's fun to see the resorts dip into their archives and throw way back to the early days of lift-served skiing.

Second, I love that it comes with a little less pressure to create something new.

Quandary

December 9, 2013 -- Gregg Blanchard

I love Throwback Thursday for two reasons.

First, as a sucker for all things ski history, it's fun to see the resorts dip into their archives and throw way back to the early days of lift-served skiing.

Second, I love that it comes with a little less pressure to create something new.

Quandary

That's the trick, right? Keeping a constant flow of new, hot-off-the-press, high-quality content for your fans and followers.

What's tough is that this content may take significant work but often only have a life span of a matter of days. Sometimes it's only a matter of hours before a photo is buried by a thousand other voices doing the same thing.

On top of that, despite being very similar to old content, it's tough to reuse. Or is it?

The Secret Test

I'm not running a resort stream of content, but I do have a supply of my own stuff. So, I did a test and took five posts that I wrote and published last year and changed the date to be published again last week.

I wasn't trying to pull the wool over your eyes necessarily, I just wanted to see if content that has long since been buried would still be found relevant even if it had already been consumed.

Comments would have given away the date, so I had to choose slightly less engaging posts that didn't get content the first time around, but the results were very positive and not a single reader called me out.

What This Means

What this taught me was something I've been happy to see pop up among resorts: that old content can still be useful.

Not in a “ha-ha, tricked you” sort of way, but in a “big storm coming, check out footage of our favorite storm last year to get pumped” style. Like this:

We thought this was a good time for a powder video! Enjoy one of our favorite days from last year. #SkiSundance http://t.co/wBxWcgIz2j

— Sundance Resort (@SundanceResort) November 8, 2013

Here's a shot of last years opening day park! 24 features! We have WAY MORE SNOW to work with this year! We... http://t.co/9GNCNEqVSN

— skidagmar (@skidagmar) November 26, 2013

Registration for @thenorthface #PPOS comp is now open. Check out last year's teaser video - http://t.co/zc5W9ZTsDE - then join us Feb 20-22.

— Stratton Mountain (@StrattonResort) November 6, 2013

There is definitely a place, and need, for fresh content. But I think there are a lot of opportunities to reuse great content from the past…even if it's not a Thursday.

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