If you’re going to nab someone else’s approach to content strategy, then snaffle it from someone who has had clear success with their approach to date.
YouTube might not be your first thought. They don’t produce their own content after all. Everyone else does. But Google and YouTube have long been preaching to those who publish on their platforms about what they dubbed the ‘hub, hero and hygiene’ theory of content. And it’s something organisations could think about when they’re putting together their own content plans.
The hub/hero/hygiene labels may be nice and alliterative but they don’t give away much, but it does make sense as a way of giving purpose to your content production - it’s a way of defining the purpose of each strand of content you produce so that you know what the intent is, and what you need to put into it:
Hygiene
Hygiene is the workhorse of the approach. The content which forms the bulk of your website content, the descriptions of your company and its services and products. It’s the core of the search engine optimisation strategy, making sure that when users are searching for products and services like yours, it is, in fact, yours that they find.
And once they are on your site, it’s also the content which will, hopefully, convert them to actual purchases or to ring you up to get that meeting. It’s the parts of your website which describe what you do and how it can help. It tells people the difference you can make to their lives or their companies.
In short, it’s the ‘timeless’ copy that is indexed by Google and, even if you produce no other content, a customer will know who you are, what you do and what your company or brand is about. From product to values, it’s the whole lot. Each page with a purpose, each one driving the customer forward.
Hub
Hub content, on the other hand, is the stuff you publish more regularly. It’s the content that you use to try and get attention. It might be newsy - if you want to announce your new CEO perhaps, but more likely it’ll be blogs, articles, podcasts and the like which draw attention to your expertise, your values or your people.
It is, without being too meta about it, something like this very piece of writing. Often designed to be shared on social media, it’s meant to give potential clients a sense of the company’s approach and, in this case, the unrivalled combination of expertise, experience, skill and sheer magnetism that Disquiet Dog has.
Hub content builds the brand profile, and gives users a reason to engage with the organisation. It’s content marketing by another name and, when done well, it involves a regular publishing schedule and editorial strategies which create content that will interest and intrigue potential customers.
That means that a company needs some robust content processes, in whatever format they prefer, but it is also rewarded by better SEO, since Google’s search algorithm rewards sites which publish regularly, and need indexing more. It’s worth plotting how you’d manage such a process. You know where we are.
Hero
Hero content is the glory stuff - the content where you can talk about your values, your brand’s mission and the great vision you have for humanity and how your organisation can save it (more modest ambitions are also available). This sort of content might be part of a one-off (or occasional) campaign - and it’s often quite a commitment.
It needs aligning with your strategy and it needs high end delivery. You can’t stand in a (metaphorical) corner and mumble your dreams. They might need video, or bold graphics, or at the very least, some pretty lengthy posts to explain just why.
They are often multi-channel affairs across website, social media, third party media and perhaps a paid-for campaign. It needs to be seen. The whole idea is to create impact. To get people aware of your brand, what you do, how great your products are and get a sense of why they’d choose you, rather than a similar competitor. It takes a bit of commitment. Imagine doing all that work and no-one seeing it…
Getting your editorial strategy aligned with those three content types is part of the battle. We can help with that - and with the rest. Feel free to get in touch.
