What’s the Difference Between Hub Content & Episodic Content?

Content comes in a variety of different forms and is created for a number of different purposes. Depending on the purpose of the content, you might need to tailor your content to specific people, topics or subjects, for example. So when it comes to hub content and episodic content, there are some questions that need to be answered, including:

• What does each one involve?
• What’s the difference between them both?
• Which one should you choose?

What is hub content?

This is content that’s scheduled on a regular basis that gives the reader a reason, or persuades the reader, to subscribe to particular services or channels in order to ensure consumers keep coming back. Some of the best examples of hub content includes that which is used for:

• Webinars
• Vlogs
• Blogs
• Entertainment services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime
• Formatted interview series
• Newsletters
• Service providers, such as periodic flower deliveries, for example

The general purpose of producing hub content is to build and retain a loyal, captive audience and customer base. When they subscribe to one or more of the aforementioned things, then it keeps the consumer coming back for more and a company will then receive regular, almost guaranteed, payments periodically. Hub content should also be used to educate a target audience as well as persuade them to sign up to subscriptions and other things.

What is episodic content?

This is long-form content that’s broken down at appropriate points into smaller chunks of content that’s released periodically on a regular basis until it concludes. It should be thought more as a novel that’s split up into chapters. Each chapter has its own beginning, middle and end, but when they’re all put together, it makes an entire story that makes complete sense, but the novel itself has a beginning, middle and an end.

As the content is regularly released, it reveals more to the audience as time goes on. This format keeps audiences coming back for more. It also provides a talking point for your audience, with each person talking to another about the content they’re reading. This, in turn, ensures a captive, but connected, audience.

Episodic content can be used for both fiction and non-fiction content, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Infographics
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Articles
• Novels
• Short stories
• Blogs

What’s the difference between hub content & episodic content?

There are several differences between hub content and episodic content, despite them being somewhat similar in a number of ways. The discrepancies come when looking at organisation, suspense and continuity.

Organisation

Episodic content provides the reader with a storyline, with each instalment relating to the next in a way that still links together to, eventually, reveal the full story. This means that, if you miss a piece of content, you’ll be lost for the remainder of the series.

With this in mind, the writer has to plan out the content, in their own way, in order to ensure a full story is spun and understood by the reader. With episodic content, both the writer and the reader need to be organised. The writer so that the reader can follow the story and feel satisfied at the end and the reader so that they don’t miss anything.

Hub content, it can be argued, follows this structure as well, but instead of the writer planning and organising a robust storyline, they have to come up with a theme for their content instead.

For example, a marketing team might want to upload a series of videos on YouTube educating their audience about the importance of SEO, but the videos should be their own entity, offering specific advice and information about a certain aspect of SEO.

This way, if your audience misses one of those videos, they won’t have missed anything because they’ve viewed something that began and concluded seamlessly. If each video has a theme, then a viewer can switch between several different videos and still be provided with the information they’re looking for, but the principle theme is still very much prominent.

Continuity

This stems from organisation. When it comes to episodic content, content has to be looked at in a specific order and on a regular basis in order to understand the storyline. Therefore, the writer and publisher has to be continuous with writing the content and putting it out there for audiences to view. But then again, the viewer has to be continuous when it comes to looking at it, otherwise, important things will be missed and the storyline will no longer make sense. 

Hub content, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be viewed in a specific order for it to make sense to the audience, much like a series of YouTube videos, as previously mentioned. So continuity is less important with this specific content type when compared to episodic content.

Suspense

This is what keeps people coming back for more. This particular technique is more prominent when it comes to the creation of episodic content, but it can also be used for hub content, in a way. 

Episodic content, however, is an easier way in which to build suspense for an audience. Instalments can be broken up and ended on cliff-hangers, for example. This is one of the easiest ways in which to keep an audience coming back for more.

Another way in which you could do this with episodic content is to weave crucial elements of the story throughout different content pieces, that won’t make sense to begin with, which will come together at the end of the story to reveal something major, for example.

Should you write hub content or episodic content?

Either hub or episodic content can be used as a marketing tactic or strategy. However, it really does depend on two things: what you want to get out of it and the purpose of the content you’re producing.

Either one will require planning and organisation, almost on the same level as the other. If you’re trying to keep people coming back, then choose episodic content, but if you’re wanting to keep things structured, segmented and relevant simultaneously, then hub content creation would be more appropriate. 

Kumo has a team of digital marketing specialists at the helm of everything we do. From content creation and SEO services to website design and paid marketing, we’ll be able to take your business to the next level. For more information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our expert team today – we’re always happy to hear from you.