Many people prefer publishing their content only on a social media channel. This is an excellent time-saver and usually free to begin, as you can connect directly with your audience. However, do remember that the social media heroes keep changing, you have no control over the channel being shut down entirely, or your account being suspended. Instead of spending energy on setting something up that’s not sustainable, consider a hub and spoke model for your content.
The only thing in your control is the Hub, your own website. The name is yours for keeps. Publish high quality content on your own website first. Publish it as videos, graphics, insights posts such as this article. Research and upload PDF whitepapers for download (complete with you branding). Remember that it has to be relevant for your target audience, and compelling enough for them to recommend it or contact you for your services.
Spokes are your ways to reach your target customers. Keep repackaging and republishing content periodically on spokes as long as its relevant. Many years ago, popular spokes in the digital world could have included MySpace, Ryze and Orkut. Today, preferred options would be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, … Your choice of spokes will depend on your business objective and your target customers. Choice of spokes keeps changing. Names that were relevant a few years ago may no longer be relevant. Similarly, spokes that may be the best ones to ride to reach your customers after a few years may not even be in the top ten list today. In the offline world, this would include newspapers and publications. Use these spokes to drive traffic to your hub, your professional website. For example, you can take portions of your blog posts and publish them as a series on Facebook. You can create graphics from your articles that are easily shareable. Spokes will drive business to your website. Your posts on spokes can be unpaid or paid. If you have the ability to generate high quality content, you should spend money to drive your business.
