Understanding Content Pillars
There’s no “right way” to make content. But there are definitely some best practices that can help you achieve your goals faster. One of these best practices is establishing content pillars.
Content pillars are the blueprint of your content. This eliminates the "what should I post?" question.
Content pillars keep your content consistent, interactive, and engaging and that’s all great in theory but if you’re just getting started, how do you even decide what your content pillars should be?
1. Find Your Target Audience
→ Analyze Your Customer Base and Carry Out Client Interviews.
→ Conduct Market Research and Identify Industry Trends.
→ Analyze Competitors.
→ Define Who Your Target Audience Isn't.
→ Analyze Competitors.
→ Continuously Revise As You Grow.
2. Determine their pain points
→ Start with General Evergreen Pain Points (Money, Happiness, Health & Freedom)
→ Look At Reviews
→ Conduct a Survey
→ Social Listening
→ Talk One-on-One with Your Clients
3. Determine how you can help them
→ Track Customer Journey
→ Determine Points of Improvement
→ Strategize Solutions You Can Provide
4. Know how your brand/business supports them in a unique way.
→ Know Who You Want to Work With
→ Develop Unique Solutions For Your Clients
→ Lean Into Your Strengths
TLDR; First you need to know your target audience. Then you need to determine their pain points. Once you’ve done that then you need to determine how you can help them. Finally, decide how your brand will stand out and support them in a unique way.
Now that you know what your clients need and how you can help them you should have a better idea of what types of content you can be creating. Now it’s time to narrow it down.
For example, say you own a local restaurant.
Your 3 content pillars could be:
1. Food & Drink
2. Community
3. Values
Under each of those content pillars, you could have subtopics that would go into further depth like:
1. Food & Drink
Your all vegan options
Use of all natural ingredients
Locally sourced specialty beverages
2. Community
Host local events
Meet the team
Showcase the customers
3. Values
Plantbased & planet forward
Clean energy
Community driven
You can have anywhere from 3 - 6 content pillars. Give each of those pillars 3 - 6 subtopics and then under those subtopics, you can create a variety of content based on behind-the-scenes, products, services, industry news and relatable posts around your niche.
Now go forth and make fabulous content!
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