In today's digital age, social media has become an integral part of our lives. Whether we want to share our thoughts, connect with friends, or promote our business, social media is the go-to platform.
Social media is highly popular online, with 4.26 billion users worldwide in 2021. This number is expected to rise to almost 6 billion by 2027.
However, creating a strong social media presence is easier said than done. With so many platforms and content types, it's easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus. This is where social media content pillars come into play.
What are Social Media Content Pillars?
Social media content pillars are key themes that a brand wants to focus on and communicate to its audience through its social media channels. These themes form the foundation of your social media strategy, ensuring consistency and coherence in your messaging.
By identifying content pillars, you can create a roadmap for the type of content you want to create and share. This makes it easier to plan and execute social media campaigns, while maintaining a consistent brand voice across all platforms.
A content pillar is generally high-quality, evergreen content that drives traffic to your website and positions you as an authority in your industry. Content pillars are crucial for SEO, building brand awareness, increasing engagement, and driving conversions.
Why Are Social Media Content Pillars Important?
Social media content pillars 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.
This not only helps to build brand awareness and engagement with your target audience but can also help you establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
By creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content around your content pillars, you can attract more followers, increase your reach and influence, and ultimately drive more traffic and leads to your website.
If you want to succeed on social media, it's essential to establish clear content pillars that align with your business objectives. So, without further ado, let's dive into the step-by-step process of creating these pillars.
How to Create Social Media Content Pillars?
The very first thing to consider, even before creating social media content pillars, is to make sure that you are managing your team members efficiently and that everyone is on the same page. To ensure this, you can use free agile project management tools and social media management tools to automate your social media publishing.
Now we’re ready to move on to the steps you need to take to create social media content pillars.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Before you start creating any content, it's essential to identify your target audience. Who are you trying to reach? What are their interests, pain points, and needs? Understanding your audience's persona is crucial to creating content that resonates with them and drives engagement.
For example, if you're a fitness coach targeting women between the ages of 25-35, your social media content pillars might include blog posts on:
- "10-minute workouts for busy moms"
- "Healthy meal prep ideas for workdays"
- "Tips for staying motivated during the winter"
2. Choose Your Platform
Once you know your target audience, you need to choose the most suitable content distribution channels that are most relevant to them.
Each platform has its unique strengths and limitations, and your content should align with the platform's best practices and user behavior.
For example, if your target audience is mainly on Instagram, your social media content pillars might include visually appealing posts, behind-the-scenes footage, and user-generated content. On the other hand, if you're targeting professionals, LinkedIn is more suitable for sharing thought-leadership articles and industry insights.
3. Brainstorm Topics and Keywords
Once you have identified your target audience and chosen your platform, it's time to brainstorm topics and keywords.
Your content on social media should be focused on evergreen topics that are relevant to your industry and provide value.
You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or Moz to identify high-volume, low-competition keywords that you can target.
For example, if you're a marketing agency targeting small businesses, your social media content pillars might include topics like:
- "How to create a winning marketing strategy"
- "10 cost-effective marketing ideas for startups"
- "The ultimate guide to social media advertising for small businesses"
4. Create High-Quality Content
Now that you have your topics and keywords, it's time to create high-quality, engaging content. Your content on social media should be informative, entertaining, and shareable. It should also be visually appealing and easy to consume.
For example, if you're creating a blog post, you can use eye-catching images, videos, and infographics to break up the text and make it more engaging. You can also use storytelling techniques to make the content more relatable and memorable.
5. Promote Your Content
Creating great content is only half the battle. To maximize your reach and engagement, you need to promote your content through various channels. You can share your content on your social media profiles, in email newsletters, or through influencer marketing.
For example, if you're promoting a blog post, you can share it on your social media profiles and tag relevant influencers or brands to increase its reach. You can also use paid social media advertising to boost your content's visibility and reach a wider audience.
6. Repurpose Content for Different Platforms
When creating a social media content pillar, it's important to consider the different platforms on which you'll be sharing your content.
Different social media platforms have different requirements and limitations, so you may need to adapt and repurpose your content for each platform.
For example, you might create a long-form blog post as your main piece of content pillar, but then repurpose it into shorter, more visual formats such as infographics, videos, or social media posts.
This allows you to reach different audiences on different platforms and maximize your content's reach and impact.
7. Create Content Themes
In addition to creating a central content pillar, you can also consider creating content themes that are related to your pillar topic. These themes can help you to create a more diverse range of content and appeal to different segments of your audience.
For example, if your content pillar is focused on social media marketing, you might create content themes around specific topics such as Facebook advertising, Instagram marketing, or Twitter best practices.
By creating content around these themes, you can cater to the interests of different audience segments and keep your content fresh and engaging.
8. Partner with Influencers
Partnering with influencers in your industry can be a powerful way to amplify your social media content pillar and reach a wider audience.
Influencers have built-in audiences that trust their recommendations, so if you can get an influencer to share your content with their followers, it can have a significant impact on your reach and engagement.
When partnering with influencers, it's important to choose influencers that are relevant to your industry and have an audience that aligns with your target audience.
You should also provide influencers with high-quality content that are aligned with their interests and values, and make it easy for them to share your content with their followers.
9. Measure and Analyze Your Results
It's essential to measure and analyze your social media content pillar's performance to refine your strategy and optimize your results. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Hootsuite to track your engagement, traffic, and conversions.
For example, if you notice that a particular topic or platform is driving more engagement and traffic than others, you can double down on that strategy and create more content around it.
10. Measure and Analyze Your Results
It's essential to measure and analyze your social media content pillar's performance to refine your strategy and optimize your results. You can use tools like Google Analytics or StoryChief to track your engagement, traffic, or conversions.
For example, if you notice that a particular topic or platform is driving more engagement and traffic than others, you can double down on that strategy and create more content around it.
Examples of Social Media Content Pillars
Let's take a look at some real-life examples to inspire your strategy:
Hubspot
Hubspot's social media content pillars include blog posts, e-books, webinars, and courses on topics like inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. Their content is informative, data-driven, and visually appealing, making it shareable and engaging.
Salesforce
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) software company. Their social media content pillars include digital transformation, customer success stories, and thought leadership on the future of business technology.
Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed's social media content pillars include viral quizzes, listicles, and videos on pop culture, news, and entertainment. Their content is highly shareable and appeals to a wide range of audiences, making them one of the most popular social media brands.
Conclusion
Creating social media content pillars is essential to building a strong social media presence and driving traffic to your website.
By identifying your target audience, choosing the right platform, brainstorming topics and keywords, creating high-quality content, promoting your content, and measuring your results, you can create a winning social media strategy that positions you as an authority in your industry.
Remember, building social media content pillars is not a one-time effort but a continuous process of refining and optimizing your strategy to achieve your business goals.
With creativity, consistency, and data-driven insights, you can create social media content pillars that drive engagement, build brand awareness, and generate leads and conversions. I wish you the best of luck!