What you need to know about naming, creating and maintaining a content hub
It’s definitely a small world.
I can’t remember how Cherie and I met on Instagram, but a few months ago, I shared an Instagram post talking about my favourite content hubs, one of which included Noteworthy by Officeworks.
Cherie commented on the post saying, “Glad to see OW finally picked up Noteworthy. After I helped them launch Work Wise and Work Style way back when I recommended Noteworthy for their EDM series”.
While I had been working in the SEO team at Officeworks, Cherie had been working with the marketing team!
As I said, small world.
In one of our previous blogs, ‘Tips you can take from the best content hubs‘, one of the first tips was starting with a great name.
“Pretty much every business has a blog on their website which means having one on yours isn’t anything special. But, most businesses just have the word ‘blog’ in their menu. If you want to get people clicking on your blog, you’ll need to call it something unique.”
So who better to interview than someone who has worked with some pretty amazing brands to build memorable content hubs?
Introduce yourself
I’m Cherie Donnellan – a marketing coach with a background in marketing and communications strategy and copywriting.
I empower business owners and leaders to create a purposeful brand voice, communications and marketing that build personable relationships with their customers and community.
I create practical strategies for businesses and not-for-profits to deliver consistent experiences across their marketing, communications and customer service channels.
So Cherie, what experience do you have with content/content hubs?
I’ve led content creation and strategy for several content hubs while working in digital marketing agencies and for brands such as Beyond Blue.
While working at an agency, I was the content lead for the Officeworks account and massively transformed their content marketing by creating two content hubs.
Before then, they had a blog that lacked purpose and quality content. The content was dictated by sales departments who wanted or needed to push a product rather than focusing on customers’ wants and needs.
Officeworks had an interesting approach to its customer segmentation. Customers were defined by their ‘need state’ – which refers to the reason/s why they’re buying during a single shopping event. This is because they serve audiences such as small business owners, students and people buying for their home office, and technically one person can be all three of those personas at once, and each persona will potentially need different types of products.
I realised that small business owners wanted quite different information from students and home office shoppers, so we created two content hubs with distinct audiences and an overarching content strategy for how content would be published on each site.
Now, I’m sick of hearing blogging is dead, but what do you think, Cherie?
No, I don’t, but I do think the term ‘blogging’ has been phased out.
Blogging is content marketing, and now more than ever, people realise that content is king. Brands are creating more content than they ever have in the hopes of standing out and connecting with customers on a personable and memorable level.
Personally, I’m not a fan of calling your blog “blog”. Do you think brands should call their blog another name?
When brand blogs have names, they’re brands in and of themselves, but they still need to be a sub-brand of a business’s overall brand. Sounds complicated, right?
Think of it like Nike Air Force 1 sneakers – Nike is the business brand, and Air Force 1 is the sub-brand. You can tell people that you have ‘Air Force 1s’, and they immediately know they’re made by Nike because the sneakers have been marketed as a complementary and sub-brand brand.
You need a clear strategy for developing your blog’s brand and why it’s even important to name it all.
Major brands are usually major content creators and want to house their content marketing in one place, so it makes sense for their blogs to have names.
Would I tell small business owners their blog needs a name to be successful? No. But if they have one and people recognise it, excellent!
I still remember sitting in a marketing meeting and being told Officeworks was going to be launching a new content hub called Noteworthy. How did you come up with that name?
Funny story – Noteworthy was a name I pitched to Officeworks when they decided they wanted a name for an email series they were sending home office shoppers.
The content hubs I mentioned earlier were called Work Wise (for business customers) and Work Style (for students and home office shoppers). Because there were two content hubs back then, Officeworks’ brief was that the two blogs should have complementary names.
Noteworthy seems to be the evolution of Work Style, and the name change for the hub happened a few years after I finished working with Officeworks.
The process of naming a content hub is equally fun and frustrating.
I usually start by thinking about the hub’s purpose and what value it offers customers. I brainstorm any words that align with those elements and write them down.
Then I use a thesaurus to come up with even more words. I also look at dictionary meanings of words and idioms. Add them to the list too. There are persuasive writing techniques, such as alliteration, that clients often love to have in their names, such as Mecca’s The Memo.
I play around with all the words and phrases on my long list until I have three finalists and decide from there. When I’m working with a client, this involves pitching the finalists to clients, so I always have to provide a rationale for why the names I’m presenting are a great fit.
Noteworthy was such a great name for a couple of reasons:
Noteworthy means ‘worth paying attention to; interesting or significant’; of course, you want customers to think your content marketing (and products by association) are worth paying attention to.
Officeworks sells products you write notes on, so it becomes a play on words regarding product association.
So, what makes a great content hub?
If you want a blog/content hub to resonate with your target audience, you need a content marketing strategy. It doesn’t have to be an 80-page document with 100 rules, but you do need a few key things.
Know your audience and their problems, knowledge gaps, wants and needs
Create content that addresses those
An editor
You need someone who will be the custodian of the blog’s brand and make sure the blog always serves customers with quality content.
Good writers
You don’t necessarily need to work as a copywriter/content writer, but you do need to know how to write interesting and valuable content. Writers also need to know how to write using simple, clear and jargon-free language.
Quality photos, infographics and videos
If you’re going to use stock imagery or videography, make sure they show a diversity of people, that people in them are naturally posed, and that they actually show your customers’ experiences. For example, in Australia, Christmas is in summer, but I still see Australian brands posting photos of winter Christmases because stock image sites are largely US-owned.
Editorial guidelines
Your guidelines should answer:
How will you keep the tone of voice of each post consistent with your brand voice?
What are the content pillars – the key topics of content you want to cover that demonstrate to your customers what your business sells and why your business is a market leader
Are there words you should always or never use to showcase your brand voice and show respect to your audience? For example, Beyond Blue wouldn’t call someone “a depressed person”; they might say “a person who has experienced depression” or “a person who lives with depression” because it shows respect to their audience.
NO JARGON – this is a big one for any content creator. Jargon alienates your brand from your audience. If you need to use technical terms, explain them the first time you use them in each piece of content.
Systems and processes for distribution, audience growth and content optimisation
You need to answer:
How often will you publish content?
Which of your marketing channels will you use to promote it (such as social media and emails)?
Should you distribute certain types of content only on certain marketing channels rather than all of them? For example, if you have customers who range from 18 – 60, you might distribute content directed at people under 25 on Tik Tok and content that addresses people aged 45 – 60 on Facebook.
How can you cross-promote content with other brands, publishers and influencers to reach new audiences?
How can you cross-promote content with similarly-aligned brands to reach your existing audience when they’re not thinking about your brand?
Will you pay to promote the content?
What are you learning from the data about your audience, and how can you use that information to edit content to provide greater value and create new valuable content?
How often will you archive content that is no longer relevant to your audience?
Thank you for these amazing tips! Now, what are your favourite content hubs?
Personal Best by Beyond Blue – I’m a little biased because I worked at Beyond Blue as part of the editorial board when Personal Best launched.
There are many honest personal stories from people who’ve experienced mental health issues and conditions and helpful and simple advice about maintaining your best possible mental health.
Beauty IQ by Adore Beauty – A lot of the content is written by Adore Beauty’s staff, who provide their personal reviews of products they’ve tested. They take photos and videos of themselves using the products. Here is a great example.
The Go-To Guide by Go-To Skincare – I’m obsessed with anything Zoe Foster Blake has created. The brand voice she’s created for Go-To – and now complementary brands Gro-To and Bro-To – is masterful.
Her team’s approach to marketing is to provide education about how to use beauty products in a way that is simple and entertaining. So much of Go-To’s marketing includes humour, which resonates so well with their audience.
When I worked as a copywriter, one of the most common requests I got from female clients was to write like Go-To.
Ok, so Cherie gave some amazing tips. Here’s what I took away.
Your blog/content hub should be used to stand out and connect with customers on a personable and memorable level.
Your blog doesn’t need a unique name to be successful. But it’s great to have one that people recognise!
When choosing a name for your content hub, think about the hub’s purpose and what value it offers customers and then start brainstorming words that align with those elements.
A content marketing strategy is key!
Create content that your audience will resonate with. Beyond Blue shares, personal stories, Adore Beauty has staff review products, and Go-To uses humour.
If you think your business could benefit from turning your regular old blog into a thriving content hub your audience can’t get enough of, check out our content strategy and content writing services.
Remi, Sunday Best Digital founder
