How To Use Content Pillars to Structure Your Social Media
Are you looking for a way to structure your social media content? Do you feel like you're posting all over the place, and not getting very good results? A content pillar strategy might be the answer. In this article, we'll discuss what content pillars are, and how you can use them to create a cohesive social media plan. Let's get started!
What are content pillars?
A content pillar is a central topic or theme that can be used as the basis for many different types of content. This allows content creators to focus on creating high-quality content that is well-researched and engaging, while also ensuring that all content created around a specific topic is aligned with a central theme or goal. As such, content pillars are an essential component of any effective and comprehensive content strategy.
How can you determine your content pillars?
Most businesses have multiple topics they can discuss. For example, if you're a fashion blogger, your content pillars might be style, beauty, and fashion trends. Once you've determined your content pillars, you can create a content strategy around them. Basically, you will structure all of your blog posts, social media posts, and any other media on one of these topics. By narrowing your topics to 3-5 main themes, your content strategy will be more cohesive, and make more sense to your audience. By thinking strategically about your content pillars, you can ensure that your audience always has something new and exciting to consume.
Why are content pillars useful?
The products or services you provide aren’t going to be suitable for everyone. Having content pillars in place keeps you focused on creating content for your target audience. By specializing in key areas, you’ll spend less time catering to an audience with a smaller likelihood of converting. Having these core pillars in place also makes developing content easier as it streamlines what you’ll be talking about vs. picking random things that will take more time to research.
How can I determine if I picked the right content pillars?
Determining the effectiveness of your content pillars is fairly easy. Go to the data! Social media makes this a simple task. After deploying your content pillar strategy, go back for a few months and see which pieces of content are getting the most love (and which ones aren’t). Maybe you’ll start with five pillars, but then the data tells you that two of them are duds. It’s perfectly ok to refine, and decide that you’ll only focus on three pillars now. Or, maybe one of the pillars is doing so well you’ve noticed you could split it further into two topics. That’s ok too. The important part is reviewing the data and improving as you go!
Quick and easy steps for creating content pillars
1) Determine your target audience
2) Identify your audience’s pain points (what can you talk about that addresses these pains?)
3) Think about keyword phrases your audience might search for and implement those keywords in your content
4) Create a spreadsheet of the different keyword phrases and see how they fall into content pillars
5) Create a content calendar that divvies up your content based on your pillars. You can even separate pillars into days of the week if that’s easier.
6) Start creating your content!
An effective social media strategy is not built overnight. It takes research, planning, and skill. However, starting your journey with content pillars can give you the foundation to set you up for success!
