A year in review is as an overview of events, milestones or accomplishments summarising the year that has just passed. With this blog post, as the title suggests, I thought it would be interesting to write about the reasons you might want to consider writing a year in review blog post for your business.
You may be familiar with the term ‘year in review’ from watching BBC News — at the end of the year the organisation looks back at stories that hit the headlines for example the Royal Year, the Year in Sport and the Year in Politics. Brands such as Google, Spotify and Apple also review their years and former US President Barack Obama has an annual tradition of sharing an end of year playlist.
A year in review. while looking back, also allows you to see what you have achieved over the past year so you can make a plan for the next twelve months. Depending on the organisation it could include a look at a company’s ups and downs, business and employee news or showcase statistics and trends. There is no right or wrong way to complete a year in review — it may take the form of an infographic, email, newsletter, report or video, you could refer to emails and text messages, go back through your calendar or diary, notes, photos or social media posts, look at favourite projects you have worked on or consider events and training you have attended, professional relationships you have formed or meaningful things you accomplished say working in your community.
A year in review blog post could encompass all or some of the above, it also gives a business the opportunity to summarise top performing blog posts and highlight ones that may not have got as much engagement as you would have liked. Writing a year in review blog is an easy way to showcase your year on your website and the format is easily linked to on your social media pages.
Reach new readers
A regularly updated blog shows customers you are up to speed with changes in your industry and that you recognise the content that is important to your audience. By consistently blogging about topics of interest to them, you will create trust and your audience will come to believe what you have to say about the topics that are important to them. A strength of a year in review blog post is it enables you to show a range of topics in a single post, giving you an opportunity to display all the advice you have given during the previous twelve months and to show potential customers that you consistently provide good advice.
Remember what you have done
A year in review gives you a chance to see if there are holes in your blog content. Maybe there are topics you meant to write about but did not get around to. Ask yourself, what guides are you missing that might be most helpful to your customers? Or maybe there is something you would like to write about to aid your own understanding of a topic. Articles can be both long and short word counts and a mix of content, for example this year I have written some informative guides such as questions to ask web designers and the difference between Microsoft Word and Google Docs, lighter style posts such as ones about screen time and emoji history and commentary style posts for example sharing my views on digital poverty.
Bring it on back
A year in review blog post gives people who may have missed a blog the first time around the chance to read your work. And as search engines enjoy fresh, regular content, a year in review blog post will also help improve your search engine result rankings, while providing an opportunity to create internal links to your website and drive traffic to some of your older posts.
A year in review blog post is an easy way to repurpose content while offering a fresh perspective by re-packaging work you have already created and can be used as your final piece of marketing material for the year.
A time to reflect
Undertaking a review of the year takes time and patience but if it can be very satisfying to look back on all you have done and it sets you up for the year ahead, informing the way forward and how you might do things differently. Writing a year in review gives you permission to recognise and celebrate all you have achieved, whether that was something you intentionally aimed for or something unexpected.
If it sounds like a lot of work, don’t think you have to wait for the end of the year to begin, you can pull it together throughout the year as you go along but do aim to start work on it a couple of months before you want to share it with your customers to avoid a mad end of year panic.
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