As useful as social networks are for communication and marketing: You shouldn't rely on them alone. In this article, I will introduce you to the content hub model: a central point of contact for all your content - whether as a freelancer, agency or for other websites. This can be a simple landing page or an elaborate corporate magazine.

When it comes to acquiring customers or turning existing customers into fans, people usually talk about social media straight away. And that's perfectly fine: social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn offer great opportunities for this.

Independence from Facebook & Co.

But at the same time, you quickly become dependent on these providers. Because they decide:

• What you can do and achieve
• Which tools are available to you
• How you may use them
• Which of your followers and fans get to see your content at all

A concrete example: a few years ago, Facebook Pages were proclaimed in some places as the successor to the website. In the meantime, most companies are likely to be much more skeptical about this. This is because Facebook likes to change its rules frequently. Facebook Pages have almost always lost visibility and reach as a result. Of course, it can still be worthwhile for you to be present and active there. But I would never rely on that alone.

You can only rely on what is yours and where you set the rules yourself. And that is precisely the idea behind a "content hub".

Landing page as content hub

In short: a content hub is the place on the web where all your content threads come together. It can usually be found on your own website. In the simplest case, it is a landing page. You link to this page from your social media profiles. Users can also find your other profiles and offers here.

Don't have any free resources? Then simply link to your presence in the social networks and make it clear in one sentence what visitors can expect there. Ideally, you should at least give an automatically generated foretaste of your content there.

Tip: A lack of resources is the main reason why many content efforts by freelancers and agencies fail. Jan reveals how you can work more effectively and with less stress in his article Productivity hacks.

It is better to keep your content in a separate system. In other words, mirror your activities in the Content Hub. This gives your posts a much longer half-life and they will also be found in search engines. I'll explain which formats are available for this in a moment.

At the same time, you should offer your prospects and customers a way to stay in direct contact with you and your company - without any intermediaries such as Facebook. Email newsletters can still be a good way to do this, especially if you are dealing with companies as your target group. Because as old-fashioned as email may seem to some, it is still the lowest common denominator for all internet users. And last but not least, it is independent of a provider.

However, your content hub can be much more than a single page and even offer its own content. Then we are talking about a corporate blog or corporate magazine, a press area or a newsroom as well as a knowledge database, for example. As the terms are often confused or used incorrectly, I would like to explain them to you in more detail.

Corporate Blog

The target group of a corporate blog is your prospects and customers. Ideally, the content should come directly from your company. Or they should at least be created in close collaboration with you if you commission external service providers to help you.

A blog is personal and individual. This has to do with the origin of this format: Blogs started out as fairly simple websites where someone could share their personal thoughts, ideas, experiences and discoveries. In the golden age of blogs, they were highly interconnected. The comments under the posts were sometimes more extensive, more important and more interesting than the posts themselves. With the triumph of social networks such as Facebook, the importance of blogs has greatly diminished.

However, corporate blogs can still be successful and useful. There are different types to choose from: The employee blog lets as many people from the company as possible have their say about their specialist area. The CEO blog, on the other hand, is written by the boss. Individual entrepreneurs and freelancers will use a blog to present their expertise. The Raidboxes blog is another such expert channel. The list goes on and on.

Example: The Frosta blog is a classic in this area that continues to follow the original model. Another example is the Krones blog - also on the subject of recruiting specialists using blogs.

Corporate Magazine

A corporate magazine has the same target group as a corporate blog: your prospects and customers. The big difference is that it is organized like a journalistic medium. It will therefore usually have a permanent editorial team that is primarily responsible for the content. In this case, it may even be external. However, you should make sure that the design and content of the magazine matches your company, its brand image and the intended target group.

Tip: Corporate blogs and magazines need a strategic approach. Otherwise you will quickly be overwhelmed by the different target groups and content. You can achieve much more with a content strategy. See Jan's article Steps to a content strategy.

What makes a magazine stand out is how it selects and implements topics. Magazines are more independent of current affairs than a pure news website, for example. They "set the topics", as they say in journalism. At the same time, however, they are not as personal and unpolished as a classic blog.

It can be about your company, your agency or your offer as a freelancer. However, the content should primarily focus on your industry and related areas. Because don't forget: this content is designed to attract the right prospects and inspire your customers. You've probably heard the saying: the bait has to taste good to the fish, not the angler. Here you can also benefit from the experience of private bloggers. See the article by Daniela Sprung Earning money with blogs.

One example is the US store B&H. Here you will find both up-to-date content and lots of useful guides. In this respect, there are overlaps with a knowledge database (see below). Red Bull's Red Bulletin, H&M Magazine and the brand new Daimler Magazine should also be included in such a list.

What all these content examples have in common is that they are presented more like a journalistic medium - and not like an announcement page for company news. The company appears more indirectly. In the spirit of content marketing.

Press area and newsroom

As the name suggests, a press area is intended for journalists. Nowadays, however, you should also think of multipliers outside the long-established press landscape: Influencers. And I don't just mean the now frequently satirized Instagram and YouTube influencers. There are influential people in every sector who should know about you and your products or offers.

However, the needs of professional journalists differ from those of other multipliers. A press area is therefore rather sober and factual. The aim here is to quickly provide a stressed editor with the important information and content that he or she needs. You can find an example of such a classic press area at Bauknecht, on a separate project page.

The target group of a newsroom page are multipliers of all kinds. The content here is prepared more like a magazine - in contrast to the mostly factual press area. And instead of primarily disseminating facts and figures, it also contains stories about the company. It is not least about presenting the values of the organization. In this respect, such a newsroom can be part of an employer branding strategy: Your company then presents itself as a (hopefully) interesting employer.

Ideally, a newsroom can also set topics, as is the case with the magazine. An example: You want to be perceived as an environmentally friendly entrepreneur. So you use various posts and stories to make it clear how you make "green" decisions, why this is important and what impact it has.

Tip: We at Raidboxes also regularly report on our core topic of green hosting for WordPress. We also shed light on how the community deals with it. See this article. Here, however, you should remain authentic and stick to the facts. Fortunately, you can't "greenwash" your company purely out of calculation.

Ultimately, you can view your newsroom as a corporate magazine, but one that does not primarily focus on (potential) customers as readers. And where the focus is on the company itself. Another example: the Otto newsroom. Here, the company wants to promote its image and focus on its own topics such as environmental protection.

It also presents itself as an employer. Samsung Germany, on the other hand, straddles both worlds with its newsroom: While more colorful topics can also be found on the homepage, the pure press materials are available on a subpage.

Knowledge base & FAQ

Depending on your industry and target group, you may have a lot of content that describes, advertises and explains your services. This usually results in articles, white papers, e-books, infographics, videos and much more. You often create this content yourself. Or in very close collaboration with an external service provider.

For your (content) marketing and other purposes, you use this content to

• To draw attention to yourself
• Prove your expertise
• Gaining trust
• Helping your customers

A knowledge database brings all of this together. It increases the chance that this valuable and helpful content will be found. In the simplest case, you link all the relevant content in a meaningful and visually appealing way. Frequently asked questions (FAQ) and contact details for sales and support can also be found there.

Your knowledge database should therefore reach both prospective and existing customers and help both target groups.
Example: Clickmeeting's offering. It brings together e-books, infographics, videos, articles and help texts in one place, which are otherwise used for content marketing, the purchasing process and customer support. The specialist store Thomann, on the other hand, has built up an extensive collection of guides over the years. The Shopgate Resources also fit into this category.

Mixed forms are possible

Incidentally, the point of all this is not to choose one of these content hub models. Some companies will have a magazine and a newsroom at the same time. Another will concentrate solely on a classic press section. And there are always mixed forms where the formats overlap.

Important basic rule: less is more

Perhaps you are a freelancer or owner of a small agency and are thinking to yourself: I don't possibly have the time to implement something like this. I would like to counter that: The goal is not to compete with offers from companies like H&M, Daimler or Otto. My personal favorite motto when it comes to content is: less is more.

A practical example: You don't have to offer a daily newsletter. Once a month is enough. The most important thing is that your content is relevant and has substance. That's what you should focus on. The same applies to other activities. For example, your blog doesn't have to offer something new every day, not even every week. Once a month can be perfectly adequate. Just make sure that the content is well done and interests your target group and customers.

As a sole trader, agency, freelancer, start-up or small company, you have one big advantage in all of this: you are very close to your customers. Use this to come up with ideas for topics. Corporations have to spend a lot of money to get this information. If in doubt, you can simply send an e-mail or pick up the phone.