Social Media Strategy Basics: Content Pillars 101

It’s Sunday night and you realize you have no posts planned for your social media for the week ahead. You start scrambling for ideas and pick something randomly that happened over the weekend and create some content. It’s good enough, you guess.

Monday morning comes and you post it to get a decent amount of engagement but no profile traffic and zero website taps. You repeat this cycle to similar results for weeks or months, or worse… years.

This is a common trap that a lot of entrepreneurs and creators fall into. Posting without structure is planning to fail when it comes to content creation and social media. And yet, there is a simple solution that many coaches and experts are teaching incorrectly and incompletely.

Content Pillars: The Structure of Your Social Media Strategy

If your social media strategy is a house, your business goals are the foundation and your content pillars are the beams that support everything else.

Content pillars give your content ideas structure and clarity by providing categories or topics that are aligned with your overarching goals and values and can be broken down into subtopics. And you can (and should) return to your content pillars consistently, so you don’t have to guess what to post anymore.

A Common Mistake: Content Pillars ≠ Content Intentions

I’ve seen this mistake more times than I can count. A client will submit their form to work with me. Under “Do you already have content pillars?” they check “yes”. In response to the next question, “If you answered yes, please list your content pillars below,” I read the same four words: educate, inspire, entertain, promote.

These are content intentions, not content pillars. Each of these intentions can be paired with a content pillar or content topic. For example, I can post about social media engagement as a reel where I’m lipsyncing to a funny soundbite. That would pair my content pillar subtopic (engagement) with an intention (to entertain).

My 3-step content pillar Framework

Different coaches and social media strategists will create content pillars differently. I’ve formulated this method over the last nine years managing 40 accounts in 20 different industries and have proven it with over 350 coaching and strategy clients. It is unique to the work I do with clients and has helped my clients generate $50,000-revenue months (and more).

STEP ONE: Identify 4-6 core topics. Your core topics are overarching areas of expertise, experience, passion, and purpose. These should be directly related to how you work with clients or customers and should reflect the ways you support them through their transformation. Below are some examples of content pillars:

For a health coach:

1. Food science

2. Healthy recipes

3. Mindset

4. Exercise

5. Personal philosophy

6. Social proof

For an art teacher:

1. Color theory

2. Products and tools

3. Techniques

4. Art history

5. The business of art

6. Personal philosophy

For a fashion & beauty creator:

1. Style & fashion

2. Lifestyle

3. Beauty tips & products

4. Self-expression

5. Personal philosophy

STEP TWO: Break each topic down into several sub-topics. This stage helps you get into the specifics or the nuance of each content pillar.

Eg. If my content pillar is “Food Science”, I can break that down into vitamins and minerals, macros, dietary restrictions, food sensitivities, hormones, etc.

NOTE: If you can’t break down a content pillar into subtopics, it’s probably not a content pillar (and is likely actually a subtopic). See if you can fit it under one of your larger content pillars, or go high-level and see if you can conceptualize the pillar you’re missing entirely.

STEP THREE: You need to go one step further (this is the step most people never make it to). Your content pillars should also align with your goals, including:

1. How you serve your clients: If you’re always talking about how personal and unique your work is, but you only offer a generic, one-size-fits-all product as a solution, your content won’t align with how you serve your clients. Keep your content aligned with the service or product you offer to reduce client confusion.
   

2. What you want to attract more of: You have a consulting business and you really want to attract people for your group program, but you’re constantly posting about your private clients. Change the way you frame your content so that it references more of the transformation that happens in community.
   

3. Philosophies that inform your work and values: Your personal experience, education, and values are THE distinguishing factor between you and the sea of people selling essentially the exact same thing. The more you can infuse your lived experience, specialized education (both directly and indirectly related to your work), and personal values into your work, the more uniquely aligned your content will be on a core level.

Some final words on content

Each piece of content you create should only include one content pillar subtopic and one content goal or intention. And similarly, when you measure your post results, you should look specifically at the metric that best represents your goal.

Lastly, different content formats (reels, IG story, carousels, memes, etc.) lend themselves more naturally to certain goals and intentions. Match topics and formats wisely and remember that if it feels like a reach to you, it’ll most certainly feel like a reach for your audience.

If you’re looking for support with content pillars or your overall social media strategy, book a strategy session and audit with me.