The Importance of Pillars

Written By Sydnie Long

GIVE YOUR CONTENT LEGS TO STAND ON

My dad used to always say, “Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.” And man - was he right. What do you plan in your life? The important things, right? You plan your wedding, your vacation, your kid’s lunches, your first day of school outfit (I mean - I did at least LOL). You plan your Oscar acceptance speech, your kid’s name (who doesn’t have an on-going list these days? no one? oh ok.). You plan your retirement, the downpayment on your house. But…. you don’t plan your social media? And a step further - you don’t even know what or how TO plan that.

And that’s okay! You never should feel bad about that. Social Media can be daunting. I think this is because there are so many “rules” to follow. Which is why I’m all about breaking them.

Sure, there’s some fundamentals that are helpful, things like loading your bio up on keywords like biscuits at the KFC buffet. Or, creating highlight covers. That’s Social Media 101. But… what comes after that? That’s almost the easy part!

What comes next are your content pillars.

What are content pillars?

  1. They’re the foundational topics your house of social media presence is built upon.

  2. They are, for all purposes, what you come “home” to, no matter what content you’re sharing.

  3. They are what your audience will come to know you for.

A great example: my former business, the online vintage shop, Mixed Vintage.

My content pillars for Mixed Vintage were:

  1. Fashion History

  2. Style Tips

  3. Vintage Shopping Tips

  4. My vintage finds

  5. Events/Updates

So whenever I created content, I knew that whatever I had to share needed to circle back around to one of these 5 things. I think 3-5 is ideal because anything over 5 waters-down your niche and your reputation for certain things more. It makes things a little LESS obvious for people on your page!

OK so now you’re wondering - well… how do I know WHICH topics to make content pillars?

Consider the following:

  1. Your target audience’s interests

  2. What you’re good at, or what you know a lot about

  3. How you entertain others

  4. What is your process for what you do?

  5. Why you do what you do - your mission, values, those mean something and it’s important to share those too!

Once you have your content pillars down, then batching and planning your content will become so much more fluid because you have direction and because you have PLANNED, my babe!

So there you have it! I hope this serves as a great starting block for you, and as always, if you need any support or have questions on WHAT to choose for your content pillars, I’d love to help you out!

Xoxo, Sydnie


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Sydnie Long