What Are Content Pillars for Social Media?

Today I am breaking down, step by step, exactly what are content pillars for social media and why content pillars are important. Trying to grow your social media account of any kind, whether for a business or personal brand, is extremely tricky and frustrating if you don’t have a solid social media strategy set into motion.

By the end of this article, you will be 100% confident in understanding what they are, why you need content pillars, and how to create content pillars for your small business!

So let’s dive right into how content pillars for social media play such an important role and will make your life and job a whole lot easier!

What are Content Pillars

Content pillars are specific topics or categories that your brand uses to help you create content and write copy for social media. Your topics should be centered around what your audience wants to see more of, tell a story about the products and/or services you offer, and relate to your industry’s niche.

You may have heard a lot about content pillars in marketing for quite some time now, but still on the fence about if they can help your business.

Here’s why content pillars are important:

The whole point of posting on social media is to build a community presence, increase brand awareness, and generate leads for your small business, right? Exactly! So in order to see these positive and life changing results, you need a personalized social media strategy tailored to your business or brand. And content pillars help you do exactly that!

The categories you choose to be your pillars are topics your audience craves, provides solutions to their problems, and generates a personal connection with your followers and potential consumers. And if you’ve been following along with us here at the Elevated Education Co. then you know we are BIG believers in providing LOT and LOTS of value for your audience.

Now listen to this. Do you ever feel like you spend HOURS trying to create content for your social media accounts? Maybe you feel like no matter how hard you try, you simply have just run out of ideas for what to post? If you’re currently nodding your head or sulking in your chair because you don’t want to admit it… fear not because you my friend are definitely not alone!

One of the MAJOR pros to creating content pillars for social media is that it makes content creating 10x easier, saves you a BUTT LOAD of time, and establishes consistency across your platforms! Now does that sound too good to be true or what?

How to Create Content Pillars

Now let’s get into the meat and potatoes of this article… how to create content pillars for your small business! First things first, we need to start from the beginning. I always suggest every business owner to keep a document of their mission statement and core brand values on hand to refer back to when it comes time to creating content for each of your topics. But for now, let’s dive right into how to choose content pillars that are right for your brand!

For all my visual learners out there, below is a chart I made that will help you better understand how to choose content pillars:

As you can see by the chart above, your content pillars should be centered around 3 main things:

• showcasing a feature or benefit about what your business offers
• providing solutions and answers to your audience’s problems and questions
• sharing more about your brand “why” for a particular topic

Content Pillars Examples

Let’s say you run a local coffee shop in your area. You specialize in offering healthy and locally sourced ingredients for your customers so you sustainably source your coffee beans, make your own syrups and baked goods from scratch, and you sell cool products from local small businesses. Your mission statement is centered around providing your community with a hands on approach to changing the game of coffee. You strive to play an important role in your consumers’ daily routines, provide them with the ‘pick me up’ they need to get through the day, and most importantly to spread kindness.

Here are some content pillar examples your coffee shop could create for it’s social media strategy:

• PRODUCT QUALITY: where each bean comes from with more info on the flavor and notes
• COMMUNITY: local projects & events the shop is involved in in the community
• MENU FEATURES: sharing BTS of the coffee process & the shop’s menu items
• LOCAL INVENTORY: showcase the local products the shop sells to support other small businesses
• FUN MEMES: sharing coffee memes that relate to the shop

As you can see, the each content pillar was centered around the values and features the shop wants to be known for by its consumers. Each of those content pillars examples showcased features & benefits of their products, sharing info about their products people may have questions about, and gave insight on the “why” behind the brand.

To Wrap Everything Up…

Content pillars in marketing are INSANELY important for saving your business time and to efficiently market your small business! Adjusting your content pillars as time goes on and the algorithms change are definitely essential for staying up to date with providing the highest quality of value for your consumers.

If you’re looking for even more resources to elevate your small business so you can make more money & work less, check out Elevated Education Co. and don’t forget to sign up for our email list to receive exclusive tips for scaling your business to the next level!