I’m sure we’ve all faced creative burnout at one point or another in our lifetimes. But when your job relies on the consistent output of creative yet strategic content, it can feel especially disheartening. Digital marketers, social media managers, I’m talking to you! Now, this is where content pillars for social media come to the rescue…
This one-stop guide will spill the tea on why content pillars are burnout-busting and how they can help refine your social media strategy, giving you some examples along the way, so you can save valuable time on your content ideation, creation and execution. Let’s get to it!
Contents
What are content pillars?
If you’re coming to this completely fresh, here’s a quick definition of content pillars. Essentially, content pillars are a number of interconnected topics that a brand will focus on when creating content, whether that’s B2C or B2B digital marketing.
These topics or themes are also known as ‘buckets’ and will be specific to the brand, reflecting the wants and needs of its audience. The more well-researched they are, the more effective they will be in insuring your content remains popular and relevant to your audience.
Content pillars for social media
While the concept of content pillars is by no means unique to social media, it comes in particularly handy when it comes to brainstorming ideas for upcoming, posts, Stories and videos. Implement content pillars into your content creation strategy and you can maintain clarity in your area of expertise.
When it comes down to it, content pillars for social media should take into account brand identity, audience, social media platforms or channels, values as well as the buyer’s journey.
Content pillars vs brand pillars
Another thing worth mentioning: there’s a subtle difference between content pillars and brand pillars.
Whilst content pillars refer to the building blocks of your content marketing strategy, brand pillars are the touchstone of your company’s ‘personality’, look and feel. You’ll find them in a company’s brand guidelines and they should encapsulate its values, vision and public perception.
Why do content pillars matter for social media?
Content pillars are best practice for social media managers and content marketers alike, and have been adopted by professionals across the industry. They’re the lifeblood of a good, consistent social media campaign and here are a few reasons why.
The benefits of using content pillars for your digital strategy
1. Streamlining content creation
The most immediate benefit to observe from content pillars is that they save hell of a lot of time. If you’re sitting at your desk, feeling completely depleted of ideas and head-scratching, a cohesive list of your brand’s content pillars is a helpful way to get the ball rolling. You can even add tags to your scheduling tools and software in order to keep track of which you have borrowed from most recently.
This way you’ll have a backlog of repeatable content types to fall back on. Plus, you can check which post type has been missing from your feed for a while. Haven’t posted a product review or top tips post for some time? Get one scheduled.
2. Aligning the right content to the right audiences
Tired of ‘bumbling’ along? With content pillars in place for your social media campaigns, you can balance your output, so it’s not just one type of content taking centre stage. Pair this with your market segmentation efforts and you will have a library of specific content ideas for each segment of your audience right at your fingertips.
As certain demographics within your audience will favour certain types of content, you can ensure that you’re posting a variety of topics that cater to each whilst staying on brand.
Perhaps the 35-50-year-old slice of your audience responds particularly well to infographics, but your younger demographics engage more with short-form video content? Include both as core content pillars and ensure you meet each of their needs.
3. Keeping things consistent
You may have heard the words ‘consistency is king’ floating about in the digital marketing space, but it’s true. When you’re planning your social media campaigns you want to stay consistent – and referencing your brand’s social media content pillars will do just that.
Consistency can impact your bottom line and keep that follower count nice and healthy. Ideally, you should be posting regularly on each of your social media platforms with a rotation of topics and post types to keep things interesting. This will also ensure that you’re hitting the right TOV and niche every single time.
Regularly check your performance to learn from your audience and then you can tweak your strategy to fit their interests and boost engagement. While you don’t want your brand to be parroting the same topic, you can prioritise more popular content and post it strategically with the added insight of Google trends.
4. Warding off burnout and writer’s block
Remember when I mentioned that burnout is a content marketer’s worst nightmare? Well, using content pillars for social media can help with that. Sometimes a little inspiration can go a long way.
Instead of filling the gaps with meaningless or unwanted content for the sake of posting, you can plan your social media from a rich backlog of ideas. Think of something during the week? Log it in an ideas bank along with the pillar it belongs to, then you can come back to it when it’s time to produce more content.
6 Examples of content pillars for social media
While content pillars could be literally anything within your niche, here are some general
1. Product-focused content
When it comes to product-focused content, York Ghost Merchants do it so well. Showing off exclusive products with a minimalist, sleek presentation, they allow them to speak for themselves.
2. Behind-the-scenes or company culture posts
A fun example of behind-the-scenes or company culture content comes from York Gin. In this post, they share their company values of sustainability and community by spotlighting their employees serving customers at their shop’s refill station. This could come under content pillars such as “sustainability”, “behind-the-scenes” and “company ethos”.
3. Testimonials, user-generated and community content
Not only does user-generated content save precious time, but it builds on your sense of brand identity and a community ethos. Lucy and Yak are pros at this. With their weekly hashtag #YakMirrorSelfieMonday, they are able to blend their hashtag strategy and content pillars into one.
4. Informative content
A really great example of this type of content pillar can be seen in the feeds of charities such as Mind UK, which share information about specific issues related to their audience and provide tips on how to combat these issues. Take for instance this infographic about self-care and stress: it provides actionable tips for their followers that they can bookmark for later, boosting engagement in the long run.
5. News stories and press releases
For more corporate brands, news stories and press releases work particularly well. Whether that’s industry insights, a new product or service launch or a company announcement, providing ‘thought leadership’ for your clients will position your company as a reputable and knowledgeable voice within your sector. Take, for instance, this social responsibility report from Adobe.
6. Memes and other fun stuff!
This content pillar example is one of my favourites. I mean, who doesn’t love a good meme? For fun, quirky and personable brands this type of content works particularly well. For example, Waterstones were quick to jump on the Met Gala trend by sharing posts comparing “books to looks”, exploiting vertical communities and audiences with a joint love for fashion and reading. This could fall under a specific content pillar of “book covers and design”.
To sum it all up
So to summarise, content pillars for social media are one of the quickest ways to improve your output and build a social media presence. They are a set of brand-specific thematic categories that form the bedrock of content ideation, creation and execution – think of it as a boilerplate mould for repeatable content.
With this sturdy strategy in place, coming up with frequent posts that align with your brand identity and audience interests will prove simple and time-efficient. Using your social media analytics you can fine-tune them to perfection and work towards a harmonious feed that keeps audiences engaged with enough variety and enough on-brand, familiar content.
Enhance your approach to content creation
Now that you’ve levelled up your digital marketing knowledge, it’s time to explore how content pillars for social media fit into your wider strategy. With some brainstorming, research and refinement you can streamline the process, making for a stronger social presence.
Or if that sounds like a lot of work, you could leave it to our swarm of marketing professionals here at beefound.agency. Equipped with specialist know-how and the right software, we’ll work to deliver fresh social media strategies and campaigns that hit hard. We’ll even throw in free ad spend to help you cast out the net to a wider audience!
