How to Choose Your Content Pillars: Ideate, Refine and Focus!

Welcome back to "LinkedIn Playbook for Leaders "! This week, I'm addressing the question: How do I choose my Content Pillars? A content pillar is a theme or topic you focus on in your communication – and your audience associates specifically with you. Establishing the right content pillars accelerates building a clear and impactful LinkedIn presence.

Invest the Time to Give These Focus

Selecting your content pillars takes consideration, introspection and strategic planning. These pillars guide your content creation and help you stay focused on delivering value to your audience. Taking the time now to organize your ideas and topics will win efficiency in the future. With clear content pillars you have the strategic focus to know what you post about, and what you don’t.??

Ideate in These Three Categories

When I work with clients, we start by brainstorming topics in each of the following three categories below. I recommend ideating and sorting your topic ideas on a Miro Board where you have plenty of room. We then evaluate which topics intersect across all three categories: this is your content sweet spot— the area where you can provide the most value and engagement.

?? What are my customers' pain points?

Identify the challenges and problems your customers face. Content addressing these pain points will resonate deeply and attract engagement from your target audience. To start, think about the questions and complaints you frequently hear. Be clear on who your customer is—if you are selling, your customer is the decision-maker who pays you. If your goal is to increase trust with a particular audience, your "customer" is the person you want to win over as a believer in your vision. Common pain points might include scaling organizations, managing teams or budgets, or adopting new technologies.

?? What are my areas of unique experience and expertise?

Reflect on your unique skills, experiences, and knowledge. This is not restricted to your current role or professional life. Consider the achievements you're proud of—list three professionally and three personally—and the skills and experiences connected to each. Sometimes, the skills that make us exceptional in our work are actually ones we developed when we were kids. Like with superheroes, our superpowers often emerge early. Sharing insights from these areas establishes you as a thought leader and differentiates you from others.

?? What are my own personal passions?

Your passions drive authentic and engaging content. If you aren't passionate about a topic, you probably won't post about it. And even if you do, if you're not excited about the topic, your audience won't be either. When you share topics you are passionate about, your enthusiasm shines through, making your content more compelling. This might include themes like environmental sustainability, personal productivity, or balancing work and family life.

Establish Your Content Pillars

From the topics that make it into your content sweet, select the three strongest to be your content Pillars. Why three? More can be too complicated for your audience to understand quickly, and fewer can be too narrow for your own interests. Let’s look at a recent exercise with one of my clients as an example. We identified the following in our ideation work:

• Customer Pain Points: Issues like scaling their organization, managing remote work, and adopting new technologies.
• Unique Expertise: Areas such as business process optimization, psychology, and technology integration.
• Personal Passions: Topics like environmental sustainability, productivity, and balancing work and family.

From these, we identified the following three Content Pillars. Each were relevant for his customers, highlighted his unique expertise, and were personal passions. My client could communicate quickly and clearly on all three, building a credible personal brand as an expert in running companies with fully remote teams.

1. Blueprint for Fully Remote Organizations
2. Leading a Remote Startup: How to Build Trust for Better Collaboration
3. The Remote Startup Tool Kit

Ready to give it a try? Have fun ideating and refining your thoughts. If you have questions as you work the steps, send me a DM and let me know.

By investing time to define and focus on your content pillars, you'll create a strong and consistent LinkedIn presence that attracts and engages your target audience. For at least three months, focus exclusively on your pillars to establish strong positioning and brand recognition. Your pillars should form the foundation of all your content — posts, comments and articles on LinkedIn as well as podcasts and speaking topics. The more you focus, the faster you will build a credible and impactful personal brand.

"Trust yourself, trust your power” – Dr. Strange