Simplify Your Content Strategy: Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Content Hub

Do you struggle with creating social media captions or newsletters? Maybe you have a podcast, blog, or even a course, but you’re unsure where all your content should live. Do you wish content creation could be more enjoyable and less chaotic??

If so, you're in luck! Let’s dive into how to "Simplify Your Content Strategy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Content Hub."

The Content Chaos Solution

Imagine walking into a chaotic bookstore where books are strewn everywhere with no clear organization. Frustrating, right? You'd probably leave without finding the book you wanted. Now, picture walking into a cozy, well-organized bookstore where books are neatly categorized by genre and author, making it easy to find what you need and enjoy your visit. This is the experience you want with your content—a feeling of calm and order, not overwhelm.

A content hub serves as your organized bookstore, a centralized location where all your content is stored, organized, and easily accessible. It’s your personal content sanctuary, helping you control the chaos and amplify your marketing efforts.

Why You Need a Content Hub

1. Time Savings: A content hub streamlines content creation and management, reducing the time you spend searching for, organizing, and planning your content. Instead of hunting through multiple platforms and files, everything you need is in one place, saving you valuable hours.
2. Simplified Repurposing: Repurposing content is a key strategy to maximize your content’s reach. With a content hub, you can easily find and repurpose your existing content into different formats. For example, turn a long-form blog post into a series of social media posts.
3. Reduced Overwhelm: A content hub reduces content chaos by providing a dedicated space for all your content. This is particularly beneficial during busy times, such as tax season for accountants. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, you can simply go to your hub, pick out pre-planned content, and keep your marketing efforts consistent.

Pro Tip: To save even more time, grab our FREE Simplified Content Hub template.

The Benefits of Using Airtable for Your Content Hub

While there are several tools you can use to create a content hub, we recommend Airtable for its versatility and ease of use. Here’s why:

1. Visual Organization: Airtable combines the simplicity of a spreadsheet with the functionality of a database, allowing you to organize and visualize your content in multiple ways. You can switch between grid, calendar, gallery, and Kanban views to see your content from different perspectives.
2. Integration and Collaboration: Airtable integrates with tools like Google Drive and Slack, streamlining workflows. For example, once your social media content is ready, a click in Airtable can notify your team via Slack. It also supports collaboration, allowing team members and clients to review and approve content directly on the platform.
3. Flexibility: Airtable is highly customizable. You can tailor it to fit your specific content needs and processes, making it an ideal choice for creating a comprehensive content hub.

Example: Our agency uses Airtable to manage content for our clients. We create different views for each type of content—blog posts, social media updates, podcasts, and more—making it easy for the team to find and manage content efficiently.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Content Hub

Step 1: Gather Your Existing Content

Objective: Centralize all your existing content in one place to start organizing and managing it effectively.

1. Identify All Content Sources: List all the places where your content currently resides: your website (blogs), social media profiles, podcast platforms, newsletters, and offline content like documents or spreadsheets.
2. Collect and Consolidate: Download or copy your content into a single location. Start with a basic spreadsheet or directly into Airtable.
3. Organize Attachments:Upload images, videos, or documents directly into Airtable’s attachment fields, ensuring all components of your content are stored together and easily accessible.

Example: Jess, an accountant and entrepreneur, gathers her blog posts from her website, compiles her social media updates from LinkedIn and Facebook, and includes her podcast episodes into this central Airtable table, attaching all related content directly within Airtable.

Step 2: Categorize and Organize

Objective: Create a structured system to categorize and organize your content, making it easier to manage and retrieve.

1. Define Categories and Tags: Determine the main categories that represent your content, such as broad topics or themes relevant to your industry.
2. Create Category Fields in Airtable: Add a new field for “Category” in your Airtable table and use drop-down options to list your defined categories. Consider subcategories for more detailed organization.
3. Utilize Views for Organization: Create different views in Airtable to visualize your content by category. Set up a view to show only “Tax Tips” or display content created in the last month. This helps in quickly accessing specific content types or seeing your content from different organizational perspectives.

Example: Jess categorizes her blog on “Maximizing Tax Deductions” under both “Tax Tips” and “Financial Planning” and tags it with subcategories like “Small Business” and “Individual Taxes”.

Step 3: Create Content Pillars

Objective: Establish key themes or pillars around which your content will revolve, ensuring consistency and alignment with your business goals.

1. Understand Content Pillars: Content pillars are broad themes reflecting your core business focus and addressing your audience’s needs. They guide content creation to align with these themes.
2. Identify Your Content Pillars: Determine your main pillars by reviewing existing content and business objectives. Ensure each pillar resonates with your audience's needs, such as small business owners looking for tax help or individuals seeking financial planning advice.
3. Document Pillars in Airtable: Add a “Pillars” field in your Airtable table and classify each piece of content under one or more of your defined pillars. Create a new table dedicated to content planning around these pillars, detailing ideas and future content pieces.

Example: Jess sets up content pillars like “Educational Content” for financial planning blog posts, “Client Testimonials” for sharing success stories, “Industry News” for updates on accounting regulations, and “How-to Guides” for tutorials on accounting software.

Step 4: Plan Your Content Calendar

Objective: Develop a strategic content calendar to plan and schedule your content effectively, ensuring consistency and preparedness.

1. Set Up a Calendar View in Airtable: Use Airtable’s calendar view to map out your content schedule. Add a field for “Publish Date” linked to a calendar view. This visual representation helps you see your content timeline and plan ahead.
2. Schedule Content Creation Sessions: Dedicate specific times each month to plan and create content. Aim for 1-2 focused sessions to batch-create or plan content for upcoming weeks. This method is particularly useful during busy periods (like tax season) when your time is limited.
3. Plan Content Around Your Pillars: Use your content pillars to guide your calendar. Ensure each pillar is represented regularly, maintaining a balanced content mix. Plan for special dates, events, or seasons relevant to your audience, such as year-end tax planning tips or quarterly financial reviews.
4. Prepare for Busy Seasons: Identify peak times when you’ll be busier and plan content accordingly. Utilize your hub to find and repurpose existing content during these periods, such as reposting popular blogs or updating old posts with new insights.

Example: Jess schedules content creation days at the beginning of each month, using the calendar view to plan her posts around busy seasons, ensuring she always has content ready to go, even during peak accounting periods.

Step 5: Create a Bank of Content Ideas

Objective: Maintain a bank of content ideas to ensure a steady flow of engaging material, avoiding the last-minute scramble.

1. Brainstorm Regularly: Set aside time each month for brainstorming new content ideas. This can be part of your content creation sessions or a separate dedicated time. Think about new trends, client questions, or upcoming events that could inspire content.
2. Log Ideas in Airtable: Create a new table or tab in your Airtable content hub to store these ideas. Include fields for “Title,” “Description,” “Pillar,” and “Status” (e.g., idea, in progress, completed). This running list serves as your go-to source for content inspiration and planning.
3. Evergreen Content: Maintain a buffer of evergreen content—posts that are always relevant and can be used anytime. Include these evergreen pieces in your content bank to fill gaps in your schedule or during busy times.

Example: Jess logs ideas like “Top 5 Tax Deductions for Small Businesses” and “How to Prepare for Year-End Financial Reviews” into her Airtable idea bank, ensuring she always has a pool of content ready to develop.

Step 6: Use Your Content Hub Regularly

Objective: Integrate the content hub into your daily workflow to maximize its benefits and maintain content organization.

1. Daily Reviews: Spend a few minutes each day reviewing your content hub. Check for upcoming deadlines, content status, and new content ideas that need to be logged. This habit helps keep your content strategy on track and ensures nothing slips through the cracks.
2. Update Content Status: Regularly update the status of your content pieces in Airtable. Move items from “idea” to “in progress” to “completed” as they advance through your content creation process. Keep all team members and stakeholders informed about the status of content projects.
3. Engage with Your Team: Encourage your team to use the hub actively. They can add new content, leave notes, or update progress, fostering collaboration and efficiency. Clients can also use the hub to approve content or provide feedback, streamlining the review process.

Example: Jess and her team check their Airtable hub daily to review upcoming deadlines, add new ideas, and update the status of ongoing content projects, ensuring a smooth and efficient content workflow.

Simplify Your Marketing with a Content Hub

Building a content hub might seem like a daunting task, but it’s a short-term project with long-term benefits. By centralizing and organizing your content, you’ll simplify your marketing efforts, save time, and reduce overwhelm.

Ready to get started? Grab our FREE Simplified Content Hub template. This template provides a head start in setting up your content hub, complete with pre-built structures and fields to streamline your process.

And if it all still feels overwhelming, don’t worry—we can build it out for you. Reach out to at [email protected]. We’re here to help!

Want to listen to this article? Listen to this episode on the Simplified Marketing Podcast.