Everything You Need to Know About Social Media Content Pillars
Whether you’re an established brand in your niche or just starting out, incorporating content pillars into your social media strategy is a must to create high-quality, relevant, and on-brand content that ultimately helps grow your business. If you are not sure where to begin, continue reading below for everything you need to know about social media content pillars!
What are Content Pillars?
Content pillars are 3 to 5 topics, or key themes that your brand will regularly discuss, amplify and create content for on social media. They help lay the foundation for your overall content strategy, keep you centered on your brand’s purpose and are especially helpful for inspiration when you may not be sure what to post or share. Content pillars should address the needs and values of your business and your target audience. The more relevant your content is to your target audience, the more likely it will resonate with them and will build trust over time.
How to Create Content Pillars
Content pillars are a combination of bringing together your area of expertise and creating the type of content your audience wants and needs to hear. The best way to start building your content pillars is to make a list of the topic areas you would like to be known for in your industry. Then, you’ll need to define who your target audience is if you haven’t already. Remove any topics that your target audience does not want to hear about. Continue refining this list until you are left with only 3 to 5 key themes. Your content pillars should not be too specific and some time should be dedicated to building in at least one piece of bedrock content for each pillar. Bedrock, also known as macro content, is longer, more substantial content that can offer a lot of value for your target audience. Examples of this type of content include blog posts, articles and videos. Bedrock content can act as the foundation from which to build smaller pieces of content and provide the opportunity for further dialogue.
How to Use Content Pillars in Your Social Media Strategy
Once you have solidified your content pillars you are ready to incorporate them into your social media strategy. The best way to do this is to utilize a social media content calendar, which notates the day, time, platform, copy, edits, which content pillar is being used and any relevant notes for each post. Ideally, content should be planned out at least two weeks in advance. This minimizes the opportunity for mistakes by scrambling to create content at the last-minute. Make note of any important dates within your content calendar, such as product launches or promotions. From there, create a consistent posting schedule and determine which relevant hashtags will be used for each post. To ensure that your content is resonating with your target audience, take time on a regular basis to review what is performing well and what is not. For content that is performing well, make note of the captions, creative and hashtags used as a resource for future content creation. Continue to listen and gain feedback from your target audience so that content is always providing them value.
When used strategically, utilizing content pillars in your social media strategy will help keep you organized, consistent and on-brand. With patience and time, content pillars can elevate your marketing strategy and ultimately help grow your business!
Please note that Avenue has no affiliation with any products, services, or websites referenced in this blog post. Avenue is a digital marketing agency in Portland using business as a force for good. Our proprietary suite of paid advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) and social media services help brands and businesses of all sizes grow sustainably and successfully. For more information, we invite you to visit our services page.