Content Pillars-Your Roadmap to Showing Up Online

“Ok, I know I’m supposed to be creating content and posting to social media, but what do I even post about?”

Thats a completely normal question that plagues most business owners, nonprofits, and side hustlers when they think about creating a consistent content schedule.

As a business owner, you know that social media is an important part of your marketing strategy. But creating content for social media can be overwhelming, especially if you're not sure where to start.

Coming up with post ideas can be hard.

And often times, we fall into one of two holes when we can’t make our way around this question:

Posting about everything.

Or posting about nothing.

Neither of these options are going to help you with your content marketing strategy, and neither of these feel good.

Nobody likes overwhelm.

So how do we fix this? How do we create a roadmap to success and begin showing up consistently for our audience?

We create and implement content pillars!

What are content pillars?

Content pillars are a framework that you can use to create a variety of content that engages and connects with your audience. This framework is going to help you create high-quality content that resonates with your ideal audience and drive engagement, ultimately leading to more sales, donations, consultations, and conversions! In this blog post, we'll go over the five content pillars (educational, entertaining, engaging, emotional, and promotional) and how you can implement them in your social media strategy.

How do we create content pillars?

We are going to take a deep dive into not only creating content pillars, but also using those pillars for a well-rounded content strategy.

So we are going to discuss the following things:

• Identifying your target audience.

• Creating your content pillars.

• Implementing those pillars on social media.

• Measuring your results and adjusting your strategy accordingly.

So let’s dive in!

Understanding your target audience is everything!

Knowing your target audience's preferences, interests, and pain points can help you create more engaging and relevant content that resonates with them.

When you know who you’re talking to, and you understand what they need to hear from you, the kind of content you need to create becomes clear.

So who is your ideal client?

How old are they?

What do they do for a living?

What does their family look like?

Where do they go for information?

What platforms do they visit online?

What questions do they ask about your business?

What are their pain points that you can solve?

What types of content do they find entertaining?

What types of content do they engage with?

Take a minute and really think about your ideal audience. Write these questions and their answers down, and stick them on your wall.

This is who you will be creating your content for.

These are the people who will show up for you if you show up for them consistently!

And once you know your audience's preferences and interests, you can create content that addresses their pain points, provides valuable information, and speaks their language.

Now, let’s create your content pillars.

Now that we’ve formed a good picture of your target audience and the things they tend to consume online, we’re ready to take a look and see how to pair that with information relevant to your business!

In order to create a well rounded content strategy, let’s think of the following pillars:

• Educational

• Entertaining

• Engaging

• Emotional

• Promotional

Now, let’s take a look at some topics that will fit into each of these pillars.

Educational content helps keep your audience informed.

Educational content is all about providing your audience with useful information that they can use to solve problems or learn something new.

This type of content is great for establishing yourself as an authority in your industry and building trust with your audience.

Examples of educational content include how-to videos, step-by-step tutorials, and blog posts that explain complex topics in simple terms.

To implement educational content in your social media strategy, start by identifying the questions that your audience has about your industry.

What are the common pain points or challenges that your customers face?

Once you have a list of these questions, create content that addresses them. For example, if you own a bakery, you could create a series of Instagram posts that show your audience how to make their own sourdough bread.

Entertaining content adds to their scrolling experience.

Entertaining content is all about making your audience laugh, smile, or feel inspired.

This type of content is essential for building a rapport with your target audience and creating a sense of community and loyalty around your brand.

Entertaining content can include things like memes, funny videos, and inspirational quotes.

One way to make your social media strategy more entertaining is by thinking about what makes your brand unique and how you can showcase that through fun and engaging content.

For example, if you own a pet store, you could create a series of TikTok videos that show your staff playing with the animals in the store, or you could give customers a tour of the store and introduce them to the animals.

Engaging content helps foster connection and builds relationships.

Engaging content is all about starting a conversation with your audience.

This type of content is great for building a relationship with your audience and getting them to interact with your brand.

It is also a fantastic way to get people talking about your company and product. Some examples of content that tends to engage users are polls, quizzes, and open-ended questions.

A great social media strategy involves creating content that is not only interesting to your target audience, but also encourages them to share their thoughts and opinions on the subject.

This way, you can create a more engaged community around your brand.

For example, if you own a coffee shop, you could create a poll on Instagram asking your audience what their favorite type of coffee is, and then use that information to inform your ordering or make more targeted ads.

Emotional content shows your audience that you truly understand them.

Emotional content is all about creating an emotional connection with your audience.

This type of content is great for building a relationship with your audience and making them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

Examples of emotional content include stories, testimonials, speaking to the pain points of your audience, and sharing your “why” and your inspiration.

To create emotionally engaging content for your social media strategy, consider the stories that make your brand unique and develop content that highlights those stories.

For example, if you own a fashion boutique, you could create a video that tells the story of how you got started in the fashion industry and how your boutique has become successful.

Promotional content helps you move the needle.

Promotional content is all about promoting your products or services.

This type of content is great for driving sales and getting your audience to take action. Examples of promotional content include product demos, limited-time offers, and customer reviews.

When you're thinking about what promotional content to include in your social media strategy, consider which products or services you want to promote and create content that highlights their benefits.

For example, if you own a gym, you could create a series of Facebook ads that offer a free trial membership to new customers in order to increase your client base.

Keep in mind that people don’t tend to enjoy getting on social media and seeing a bunch of salesy content. So keep this pillar as one of your smaller categories of content, and only post promotional content when it feels natural and valuable for your audience.

Let’s use these pillars to create a month of content!

When it comes to creating a month's worth of social media content, the key is to be organized and plan ahead. This might sound daunting, but it can actually be a lot of fun once you get the hang of it!

To start, think about the different types of content you want to create.

Those content pillars we’ve worked hard to create? This is where they come in handy.

I want you to focus on spreading those pillars out throughout the month. So if you’re going to post 3 times a week, it’s a good idea to pick 3 pillars to work from that week.

This will help you stay on track and ensure that you're providing a variety of content to your audience.

Time to brainstorm.

Next, it's time to brainstorm content ideas. This is where you can get creative and think outside the box.

Consider what topics are relevant to your audience and what type of content will be most engaging. Underneath your pillars you’ve written down, I want you to start making lists of relevant post topics.

Sometimes, it’s easier to just set a timer for a few minutes and let yourself “brain dump” with no judgement or expectations. That’s where you can work through any creative blocks, and the time aspect can bring out some of that creativity just below the surface!

Put those great ideas on the calendar!

Once you have your content ideas, it's time to create a content calendar!

This is just a fancy way of saying that you need to plan out your content schedule for the month. Use a tool like Google Sheets or Trello to keep track of your content ideas and schedule.

This will help you stay organized and ensure that you don't forget to post anything.

Gather your media.

Now it’s time to make sure you have all the relevant media you need. This might include images, videos, or text for your posts. Gather everything together in one place so that you're ready to start creating.

Let’s write your captions!

Once you have your content ideas, it's time to write your captions! Make sure they align with your brand's tone of voice. Use humor or storytelling techniques to make your captions more engaging and memorable.

Remember, the goal of your captions is to engage your audience and encourage them to take action, whether that's clicking a link, sharing your post, or simply liking it.

After you've written your captions, take some time to edit and refine them. Check for typos, grammatical errors, or anything else that might detract from the effectiveness of your message.

Schedule your posts!

Finally, it's time to schedule your posts.

Depending on your platform, you can either schedule posts directly into the platform (like Business Suite for Facebook and Instagram), or you can download an app to help you schedule posts.

Plug in your media, captions, any relevant hashtags, and you’re set to schedule!

You’ve just created a months worth of content!

Congratulations!

Measuring your results.

Now, you’re job isn’t over quite yet.

Now that you’ve made sure you’re going to be showing up consistently for en entire month, it’s time to get familiar with the analytics of your platforms.

This is going to help you make data driven decisions about what kinds of posts are working for you, and which ones didn’t do as well as you’d hoped.

You definitely don’t need to check on the data every single day. But make it a habit to check in at the end of the month, or a few times a month to understand the type of content you want to create for the next month!

This way, you ensure you’re creating content that not only helps your business, but resonates with your target audience!