How You Can Use Content Pillars to Create A Social Media Content Calendar

Social Media can be such a helpful tool to communicate to your audience, gain new customers, and cultivate culture. While it can be a tool used for your company’s growth, and most of us have more than a few personal accounts, using Social Media for marketing purposes doesn’t always feel that intuitive - at least not at the beginning. 

Figuring out a strategy can initially feel aimless and discouraging, especially if you’ve never made an intentional plan like this before. When thinking about content creation and scheduling, there are a few good places to start. 

Goals

One very important first step is to know your goals for posting and creating content. Some common helpful goals are: to increase brand engagement, broaden brand awareness, build a community, generate sales, etc. Whatever your posting goals are, you’ll want your content to harmonize with your brand identity and general company values and goals.    

Maintaining brand unity often means harmony between the small details like making sure the filters on your photos and videos match the color range in your brand and logo. Another example could be making sure the tone of the copy matches on posts and blogs. Knowing what you value helps make what you create valuable. 

Next, we can begin to define the themes, topics, and types of content you will post. The magic words are: Content Pillars.

Content Pillars

Content Pillars are a few foundational themes that form the culture and aim of what is posted on Social Media by a brand. They're a great entry point for building a strategy because they help brands take simple steps to clarify their values, goals, and tone.  What and how a brand posts forms culture, whether desirable or otherwise. Clarifying intention and strategy before beginning to post can ensure a healthy and desired culture is being formed. 

Some general core Content Pillar ideas often have to do with Education, Entertainment, Engagement, and Promotions. More specific content ideas that flow out of a Content Pillar could be industry-related humor, weekly leadership tips, and product posts. 

Pick 3 to Start

Picking 3 general Content Pillars is a great place to start. 

Now it’s time for a tasty example: 

Let's say we are working with a specialty coffee shop, and their 3 Content Pillars are Event Promotions, Customer Experience, and Coffee Tips. For event promotions our client could post about the New Seasonal Cupid’s Arrow Cold Brew Tonic drink that is available discounted for only this month, or the monthly networking game night, or the fresh barista job opening. Under the Pillar of “customer experience” our client  could share reposts from customers in their shop, post content of the menu items, baristas, and cafe space, or even blog how-to’s for various brewing methods.

Next, we’d advise our coffee shop client in developing a few campaigns. A campaign is when a plan is made to post specific content repeatedly to reach a goal. Maybe our client’s goal in this context could be to broaden brand awareness and get more people into their shop. The campaign is the crafted content posted with the aim to fulfill the goal. Goals help clients know what they want to see happen, Content Pillars help discern what type of content should be posted to meet the goals, and Campaigns are even more specific content plans that make sure the goal is achieved. 

The next step for our client’s Content Pillar Marketing Strategy could be to pick frequencies for the various pillars of posting. Maybe 50% of the posts each month are Customer Experience, 25% are Event Promotions, and 25% are Coffee Brewing Tips. The content creation and scheduling plan would revolve on these numbers of frequency.

Your Turn

Now it’s time to find your Content Pillars! Are you ready to use your digital platforms to help meet your goal and create a culture around your brand? Get started today. 

Content Pillars are an easy way to begin thinking with intention about how and what your brand posts. Culture doesn’t happen overnight, but still happens, even without intention. 

Start the process now with our “Content Pillar Template” to begin building a strategy that forms a healthy, attractive, and successful brand culture.

Still need a little help defining your content pillars, creating social media content, or even defining goals? Contact us today to set up a consulting session!