How To Create Content Pillars For Social Media

What Are Content Pillars?

Story Chief Insights defines social media content pillars as:

" ... key themes that a brand wants to focus on and communicate to its audience through social media channels. These themes, sometimes called “buckets”, form the foundation of your social media strategy, ensuring consistency and coherence in your messaging."

In other words, content pillars are topics your brand will consistently discuss, amplify and create content for. They are the foundation of what you will post.

The topics you can approach usually fall under four categories:

• Educational content
• Promotional content
• Entertaining content
• Inspirational content

Some blogs like Sendible talk about a fifth category which is community. For each one, you need to research what are your audience’s interests, then come up with relevant topics or themes. This will also help your brand gain authority in the field and increase your chances of being viewed as a go-to-expert.

Here is an example of how an educational content pillar could look like for P+ Studios Egypt :?

Content Pillars vs. Brand Pillars

Some blogs, such as Planable, remind us about the difference between content pillars and brand pillars. Although some articles use these two concepts interchangeably, they’re not the same thing.?Content pillars represent the structural skeleton of your social media content strategy.

On the other hand, brand pillars are the touch points of a business, the personality and values that a brand communicates and how the public perceives it. Of course, the way a brand is perceived can be influenced by the content it puts out. And that content’s effectiveness can be, in turn, decided by how sturdy the content pillars are. Even so, it is important to keep in mind that they work together, but they are not the same.

Why Are Content Pillars Important?

Content pillars help you create relevant topics for your target audience. They provide a strategic framework for your social media marketing efforts. By establishing clear content pillars, you can ensure that your social media content is consistent, focused and aligned with your business goals.

Content pillars are essential for SEO, increasing brand awareness, driving engagement and conversions. When you create high-quality and compelling content around your core themes, you can attract more followers, boost your reach and bring more potential customers to your website.

How To Identify Your Brand’s Content Pillars?

1. Identify your target audience and their needs

To develop effective content pillars, you must first pinpoint your target audience. This involves understanding who your ideal audience is and what they are looking for. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

• What topics, products or services are your potential audience interested in? Understanding their preferences will guide you in creating content that appeals to them.
• What are the challenges they face? Your content should offer solutions and valuable insights to address these issues.
• Where does your target audience spend their time online? Are they active on specific social media platforms, forums or websites? Knowing their online behavior helps you choose the right channels for your content distribution.
• What are their aspirations? Your content should align with what they aim to achieve or become.

By addressing these points, you can create content pillars that are precisely tailored to your target audience, ensuring that your content is relevant and valuable to the people you want to reach.

1. Conduct keyword research

Paying attention to what's happening in your industry and keeping an eye on trends can be a massive help in defining your content pillars for social media. To do this, prioritize keyword research to see what's growing in popularity, what content gaps exist and where you can showcase your expertise. Plus, it's great for helping out your SEO strategy in the long-run as you can get more easily discovered using certain keywords in your captions.

Are you curious how to find keywords on the rise? Here are a few recommendations:

• Keyword research tools —? previous research on your core topic is a good starting point for your further research. Google Trends — shows you what people are searching for on Google with the option of narrowing the results down to certain categories, countries and even length of time, Answer the Public — gives you insights in your audience's pain points and what they're searching for and Ahrefs — for researching keywords, exploring matching terms and discovering what you can rank for.

• Related queries on Google — type your core keyword in Google and scroll the search page. At the bottom, you will see some other phrases that people type together with your core word. Here is an example of the keyword “photography”.

• Quora — this is a great tool to understand what kind of questions people usually ask and to which you can effectively answer with your content. Just type your core keyword in the search bar and browse the results.?

1. Analyze existing content and its performance

Before you start creating content pillars and writing new content, take a look at the content you already have by conducting a content audit. According to Story Chief Insights, a content audit is:

" ... a comprehensive examination of the existing content on a website to determine its performance, relevance, impact and user engagement. It provides valuable insights that guide you in making better marketing decisions. Reviewing your website content ensures your marketing strategy can be as effective as possible. Assessing existing content helps identify opportunities for improvement and simplifies the development process.”

Looking at your analytics is a great way to find out what content performs well, what engages the most and resonates with your audience. Make note of high-performing social media posts, their captions, the visuals you used and any hashtags (or keywords) you added.?

Check this page from Curata if you want to find out how to conduct a content audit. It also gives you access to a free template.

1. Research your competitors

Before starting your content creation journey, it's essential to conduct a thorough assessment of your competitors' content. Understanding what's already out there and which content formats your competitors have employed can provide valuable insights.

By closely analyzing the existing content landscape, you can identify gaps in your competitors' strategies. It's possible that they haven't addressed a crucial subtopic or their content's description lacks depth and detail. Recognizing these opportunities, you can step in to enhance the quality and presentation of that content, giving you a strategic advantage.

1. Check your audience’s FAQs

One effective strategy is to focus on question-based content topics like who, what, when and where. These questions can help you produce valuable content that resonates with your social media followers. To discover which questions to target, you can start by checking your customer support (CS) tickets, feedback forms and email inquiries. This valuable information often contains questions that your audience is genuinely interested in.?

However, when you're working with email inquiries, it's important to prioritize email security. Use a DKIM checker to safeguard sensitive information and prevent unauthorized access or interception of communications.

To take your content strategy a step further, don’t forget to explore the “People also ask” and “Related searches” sections on Google's search engine results page. These sections provide a wealth of frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to the key phrases your business is targeting. By incorporating these into your content, you can address the exact questions your audience is asking, making your content even more relevant and engaging.

Conclusion

With your content pillars clearly defined, the next step is to implement them and create content that engages your audience and supports your business objectives. This targeted approach will help you build a solid social media strategy that will increase your brand awareness and boost your reach because you're speaking directly to what matters the most to your audience.

Key Reminders

• Be consistent, not repetitive.
• Align your content pillars with your business goals.
• Stay on schedule.
• Revisit your content pillars every month to make sure they're still aligned with your overall vision. It's okay if they change — as your brand evolves, so does your content.
• Experiment and adapt.
• Use hashtags.