Frequently Asked Questions
Evergreen FAQ
Q: What is Evergreen?
A: Evergreen is a brand new social media tool that's unlike anything else on the market. It's like having 90% of the benefit of a full time social media manager for 1% of the cost. You simply set up a content library for yourself, pick a publishing schedule like "every 4 hours," and Evergreen takes care of the rest. Some of our customers have scheduled a year's worth of content in under 3 minutes. Sound impossible? Take the Evergreen challenge right now.
Q: How do I set up Evergreen to start publishing for me?
A: It's so easy even a U.S. President can do it! First, set up a folder in Dropbox anywhere you want. Then log in to Evergreen and authorize your dropbox account. After that, select your Facebook page on the settings page from the dropdown and click the "select dropbox folder" button to navigate to the Dropbox folder you set up in the first step. Finally, choose a time interval for Evergreen to publish and then click "save" and you're all set! Once you have images and videos in your Dropbox folder, Evergreen will start publishing!
Q: How does Evergreen know which media file to publish?
A: It's like a millennial: it's like, totally random. But seriously, when it’s time for Evergreen to publish, it will grab a random file from your Dropbox folder you’ve specified, publish it, and remove it from your library.
Q: Does Evergreen optimize publishing times and types of content?
A: No. We’ve done an extensive amount of research on this topic and haven’t found any publishing times to be definitively better than other times. What matters most is quality content posted very frequently. Facebook’s algorithms are now so advanced and so powerful, any time you share great content, it will reach a higher percentage of your audience (relative to your average). Conversely, if you publish subpar content at what is considered a “perfect” time, the News Feed algorithm simply won’t show it to as many of your fans.
Q: What does Evergreen use for the caption when it publishes?
A: If you’re like our other customers, you're going to love this. It uses the filename, excluding any file extension (like jpg, gif, png, avi, mp4, etc.). So when you’re setting up Evergreen, simply name your file with a caption you’d like to appear with the media.
Q: How often does Evergreen publish?
A: As often as you want! All of our paid plans have unlimited publishing included in the cost of your subscription. We have found almost everyone can benefit from posting at least every 4 hours (find out why). But remember, Evergreen ONLY publishes when you don’t. That is, if you’re publishing by other means (such as within Facebook’s native tools or with third party tools like Buffer), Evergreen will turn off. If you stop, Evergreen monitors your page and if you haven’t posted within your specified publishing schedule, it turns on and starts publishing for you. Pretty handy if your social media manager went on vacation or is non-existent :)
Q: What if Evergreen is publishing the same media over and over?
A: It won’t! Once Evergreen publishes a piece of media, it deletes the file from your library. It does this to prevent publishing the same thing over and over again. That said, we recommend you keep all of your Evergreen content in a separate folder for reuse later. So if your Evergreen content library should ever become exhausted, you can just copy and paste from your other folder and BOOM, just like that, you’re library is full again!
Q: Can Evergreen just share links for me?
A: Yes! Just put a url in the file name.
Q: Can I use hashtags for Evergreen?
A: Yep!
Q: What if I just want to share a link by itself?
A: Then we have to apologize :( Evergreen doesn’t support links right now, but this is a feature we are trying to implement very carefully as many of our customers want it.
Q: Evergreen is broken! What do I do?
A: Check out these frequent reasons Evergreen might not be publishing for you.
Q: Evergreen stopped publishing. What's wrong?
A: First, check your Evergreen Dropbox folder. Is it empty? If so, Evergreen has nothing to publish, so it's waiting for you to fill up your library! Second, try logging in to Evergreen. Sometimes Facebook logs you out of Evergreen and you need to renew your login, which is simple as a single click. If it still isn't working, remember that Evergreen only publishes when you haven't published anything for at least as long as your specified interval.
Q: I don't have anything to publish. What should I do?
A: First, check out our social media content creation guide. Once you understand why people engage with social media content, you can better create your own. If that sounds like too much work, we can supply the content for you! Just sign up for an annual plan and we'll give you 500 images to start!
Q: How often should I post?
A: We've found the half life of a Facebook post to be roughly one hour. That means a Facebook post will roughly 95% of it's audience within 4 hours of publication. Almost everyone can post every 4 hours to maximize their reach. Sound crazy? Read our in depth analysis on how often should I post on Facebook here.
Q: Won't publishing every 4 hours annoy my fans?
A: It might! But read our blog post about what you can learn about social media marketing from Jake from State Farm. Summary? The Jake from State Farm commercial has aired more than any other commercial in the past 6 years and it remains unchanged today. And it sells one of the least sexy products on the market: insurance! Lesson: if your fans are annoyed by your publishing schedule, it's a reflection of the quality of the content, not its frequency.
Q: How can I use Evergreen better?
A: We’re working on an amazing guide to walk you through everything, but for now, here’s a couple ideas:
Q: What are the 3 pillars of media?
A: 3 pillars of media: earned, owned, and paid.
A: Evergreen is a brand new social media tool that's unlike anything else on the market. It's like having 90% of the benefit of a full time social media manager for 1% of the cost. You simply set up a content library for yourself, pick a publishing schedule like "every 4 hours," and Evergreen takes care of the rest. Some of our customers have scheduled a year's worth of content in under 3 minutes. Sound impossible? Take the Evergreen challenge right now.
Q: How do I set up Evergreen to start publishing for me?
A: It's so easy even a U.S. President can do it! First, set up a folder in Dropbox anywhere you want. Then log in to Evergreen and authorize your dropbox account. After that, select your Facebook page on the settings page from the dropdown and click the "select dropbox folder" button to navigate to the Dropbox folder you set up in the first step. Finally, choose a time interval for Evergreen to publish and then click "save" and you're all set! Once you have images and videos in your Dropbox folder, Evergreen will start publishing!
Q: How does Evergreen know which media file to publish?
A: It's like a millennial: it's like, totally random. But seriously, when it’s time for Evergreen to publish, it will grab a random file from your Dropbox folder you’ve specified, publish it, and remove it from your library.
Q: Does Evergreen optimize publishing times and types of content?
A: No. We’ve done an extensive amount of research on this topic and haven’t found any publishing times to be definitively better than other times. What matters most is quality content posted very frequently. Facebook’s algorithms are now so advanced and so powerful, any time you share great content, it will reach a higher percentage of your audience (relative to your average). Conversely, if you publish subpar content at what is considered a “perfect” time, the News Feed algorithm simply won’t show it to as many of your fans.
Q: What does Evergreen use for the caption when it publishes?
A: If you’re like our other customers, you're going to love this. It uses the filename, excluding any file extension (like jpg, gif, png, avi, mp4, etc.). So when you’re setting up Evergreen, simply name your file with a caption you’d like to appear with the media.
Q: How often does Evergreen publish?
A: As often as you want! All of our paid plans have unlimited publishing included in the cost of your subscription. We have found almost everyone can benefit from posting at least every 4 hours (find out why). But remember, Evergreen ONLY publishes when you don’t. That is, if you’re publishing by other means (such as within Facebook’s native tools or with third party tools like Buffer), Evergreen will turn off. If you stop, Evergreen monitors your page and if you haven’t posted within your specified publishing schedule, it turns on and starts publishing for you. Pretty handy if your social media manager went on vacation or is non-existent :)
Q: What if Evergreen is publishing the same media over and over?
A: It won’t! Once Evergreen publishes a piece of media, it deletes the file from your library. It does this to prevent publishing the same thing over and over again. That said, we recommend you keep all of your Evergreen content in a separate folder for reuse later. So if your Evergreen content library should ever become exhausted, you can just copy and paste from your other folder and BOOM, just like that, you’re library is full again!
Q: Can Evergreen just share links for me?
A: Yes! Just put a url in the file name.
Q: Can I use hashtags for Evergreen?
A: Yep!
Q: What if I just want to share a link by itself?
A: Then we have to apologize :( Evergreen doesn’t support links right now, but this is a feature we are trying to implement very carefully as many of our customers want it.
Q: Evergreen is broken! What do I do?
A: Check out these frequent reasons Evergreen might not be publishing for you.
Q: Evergreen stopped publishing. What's wrong?
A: First, check your Evergreen Dropbox folder. Is it empty? If so, Evergreen has nothing to publish, so it's waiting for you to fill up your library! Second, try logging in to Evergreen. Sometimes Facebook logs you out of Evergreen and you need to renew your login, which is simple as a single click. If it still isn't working, remember that Evergreen only publishes when you haven't published anything for at least as long as your specified interval.
Q: I don't have anything to publish. What should I do?
A: First, check out our social media content creation guide. Once you understand why people engage with social media content, you can better create your own. If that sounds like too much work, we can supply the content for you! Just sign up for an annual plan and we'll give you 500 images to start!
Q: How often should I post?
A: We've found the half life of a Facebook post to be roughly one hour. That means a Facebook post will roughly 95% of it's audience within 4 hours of publication. Almost everyone can post every 4 hours to maximize their reach. Sound crazy? Read our in depth analysis on how often should I post on Facebook here.
Q: Won't publishing every 4 hours annoy my fans?
A: It might! But read our blog post about what you can learn about social media marketing from Jake from State Farm. Summary? The Jake from State Farm commercial has aired more than any other commercial in the past 6 years and it remains unchanged today. And it sells one of the least sexy products on the market: insurance! Lesson: if your fans are annoyed by your publishing schedule, it's a reflection of the quality of the content, not its frequency.
Q: How can I use Evergreen better?
A: We’re working on an amazing guide to walk you through everything, but for now, here’s a couple ideas:
- Make sure you’re publishing every 4 hours
- Try using content that engages your audience asking if your media has 1 or more of the following characteristics: inspirational, educational, or entertaining. Hit all 3 and you might just go viral!
- Boost your very best Evergreen posts! Look back at the past month and see if one or more posts performed a lot better than all the rest. Don’t simply try to boost posts you think your audience needs to hear. Boost posts you know your fans already love! This will reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of the paid media spend you have.
Q: What are the 3 pillars of media?
A: 3 pillars of media: earned, owned, and paid.