As a social media manager, maintaining a consistent and unique brand is key on social.
How do you maintain your brand while catering to different followers, algorithms, and trends across platforms?
Enter content pillars.
By determining your social media content pillars - the key topics you create posts around - you can stay consistent while remaining creative and agile to platform-specific needs.
Here’s everything you need to know about content pillars on social media.
Table of Contents
What Are Content Pillars?
Content pillars are the topics your brand will consistently discuss, amplify, and create content for on social media.
Also called content categories or content buckets, these topics form the foundation of what you'll post. Ideally, you should have 3 to 5 topics that you're focusing your social around.
“Content pillars are the goalposts you need to create a winning social content strategy. Without them, every post is a shot in the dark”, says Later’s social media manager, Chantal Hermetz.
“Creating solid content pillars is key to ensuring a consistent brand voice and online presence that works toward your overarching marketing goals.”
Why Are Content Pillars Important?
Simple: content pillars help you stay focused.
Instead of posting anything and everything, you can create more relevant content for your target audience — establishing you as a go-to expert (or a source of inspiration or entertainment).
This way, you'll stand out amongst the thousands of accounts on social media vying for follows and engagement.
“Avoid assigning generic content pillars to your marketing strategy, like “educate”, “entertain” and “inspire.” Rather, focus on what makes the most sense for your brand and what your audience finds valuable and entertaining,” says Chantal. “For example, at Later, our goal is to position ourselves as leaders in the social media & influencer marketing space."
“Based on (this) goal, we've established specific content pillars like “Expert Insights”, where we create educational content about industry updates and predictions, as well as “Insider Access” where we give our audience a behind-the-scenes look at what’s new at Later, including exclusive events and interviews with creators and brands.”
Another reason why content pillars for social media are important?
They make planning your content so much easier.
Rather than scrambling to create last-minute posts, you can use your content pillars to strategically build your content calendar for the week (or month) ahead.
PS: Your content calendar can go beyond the planning stages. Using Later, you can map out, schedule, auto post, and analyze your social content in one place.
See it for yourself - start a free trial today.
Content Pillar Examples From Real Brands
As mentioned, your content pillars can encompass multiple themes — so while they will all have a common thread, you're not pigeonholed into creating the exact same content every week.
Once you start looking at other brands’ social profiles, you start to see patterns in what they’re posting.
Here are the content pillars that we can see from some of our favorites.
Poppi
Soda brand Poppi is always poppin’ off on social media. Their content pillars include UGC roundups, Poppi spotted in the wild at retail locations, relevant memes and seasonal content.
All of these pillars make them feel accessible and relatable.
Adobe
Rather than providing software specs and technical data, software giant Adobe celebrates the creatives that use their suite of tools.
Some of their content pillars include footage from events they’ve attended or sponsored, interviews with creatives, and examples of how people use their software.
Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT)
Every industry can create fun, helpful social content; UDOT is proof.
With content pillars like funny memes, interviews with people who work with the Department of Transportation, and behind-the-scenes looks at new projects, UDOT communicates essential information with a refreshing sense of humor.
But how do you identify and define your brand's content pillars? Keep scrolling, friend.
How to Create Content Pillars
Creating content pillars isn't a quick one-second brainstorm.
First, you need to identify what they could be and then narrow them down!
Here are four things to consider when building your content pillar strategy:
Business Goals and Audience Needs
Keyword Research
Content Analytics and Performance
Audience FAQs and Feedback
#1: Business Goals and Audience Needs
Content pillars = aligned with your business goals.
Ask yourself:
What are you trying to achieve with your social media presence?
What type of content will your target audience find valuable?
Are you aiming to be primarily educational, inspirational, entertaining — a mix of all three?
Do you want to drive traffic to your website or hone in on brand awareness?
It may seem simple, but this is key to building out what your content pillars will be.
TIP: Revisit your content pillars every month to make sure they're still aligned with your overall vision. It's okay if they change — as your brand evolves, so does your content.
#2: Keyword Research
Paying attention to what's happening in your industry and keeping an eye on trends can be a massive help in defining your content pillars for social media.
To do this, prioritize keyword research to see what's growing in popularity, what content gaps exist, and where you can flex your expertise or perspective.
Plus, it's great for helping out your SEO strategy in the long run, as you can get more easily discovered using certain keywords in your captions.
Need help finding keywords on the rise? Here are a few free recommendations:
Instagram and TikTok Search: Type your niche in the search bar and take note of the relevant keywords that pop up, hashtags being used, and content being created.
Google Trends: Discover what people are searching for on Google. You can narrow it down to certain categories, countries, and even length of time (say for example, the past month).
Pinterest Search: Use the search tool to look up your industry. The Pins that show up at the top are a good indicator of the type of content people want to see.
AnswerThePublic: Gives you insight in your audience's pain points and what they're searching for.
We broke down everything you need to know about optimizing your Instagram content for SEO here.
#3: Content Analytics and Performance
Looking at your analytics is a great way to find out what content performs well, is engaged with the most, and resonates with your audience.
Make note of high-performing social media posts, their captions, the visuals you used, and any hashtags (or keywords) you added.
Are there common themes you can identify as potential content pillars? Start there.
To get even better insight into what's working, we recommend an in-depth analytics tool like Later to track key metrics like comments, likes, and engagement rates.
You can monitor and compare posts, and better visualize the content that's driven the most engagement week-over-week and month-over-month.
Start a free trial and start diving into your data today.
#4: Audience FAQs and Feedback
Another way to gain inspiration for content pillars on social media is by listening to your audience and making note of FAQs.
What do they frequently ask you about or want to know?
Remember, social media is about being social.
Don't just post and ghost — listen to what your followers are commenting or DM'ing you. Interact with their feedback, and use it as a way to know what they want more of from you.
And when in doubt, create Stories or posts that specifically ask your community they'd find helpful.
Listening is a great way to stay connected to your audience, learn what they actually want, and use their feedback to create posts they’ll engage with.
How to Create, Plan, and Schedule Your Content Calendar
Once you've identified, brainstormed, and defined what your content pillars will be, you can start creating content that'll support each topic or category.
Whether it's short-form videos like Reels, YouTube Shorts, or TikTok, a carousel post, a long-form caption on LinkedIn, or Instagram Stories, your content pillars can be shared on social media in multiple ways.
But in order to be consistent and effective, it's helpful to plan and schedule your posts in advance — it'll ease the pressure of posting on the fly, save time, and streamline the entire content creation process.
Later's social team uses Google Sheets and Asana to outline the topics they'll cover — along with making note of any important dates (like upcoming holidays or product launches), always-on content, and potential trends to jump on.
From there, you'll want to schedule the content you've created (at specified dates and times) using a social media management tool like Later.
With it, you can see all of your content (in our handy Media Library), alongside your upcoming posts for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube Shorts and Twitter — and even craft your captions in advance.
You’ll be able to see exactly how your posts look before they go live and gain a holistic view of whether you’re striking the right balance of your content pillars.
Not only will content pillars lay the foundation for killer social media posts, but they’ll also help you feel more confident about your ability to be consistent on every platform.
It's a win-win.
Create content pillars for social media, plan your content calendar, and then schedule your posts with Later. Start your free trial today!
