Social media is a crowded space. New platforms, features, and trends come and go in the blink of an eye. But one thing will always remain constant: the need for quality content. To stand out, you need fresh content ideas for social media that keep your audience engaged. People are tired of being bombarded with random posts that don’t serve a purpose, they want to be entertained, inspired, and informed.
Using Crayo's clip creator tool makes it easier to stay consistent with your message and visuals. When paired with strong content pillars, it helps streamline your content planning—ensuring every post connects back to your brand story.
Establishing content pillars will help you create a targeted approach to your social media strategy. Instead of wasting time and energy on guesswork, you’ll have a clear roadmap for your content. This will allow you to focus on what matters most: building relationships with your audience and driving results for your business.
Table Of Contents
- Benefits of Content Pillars for Social Media
- Types of Content Pillars for Social Media
- 10 Tips to Make Content Pillars for Social Media
- How to Find Content Ideas for Social Media Content Pillars
- Create Viral Shorts In Seconds With Crayo
Benefits of Content Pillars for Social Media
Master Your Brand Story: Control Your Narrative with Content Pillars
Content pillars help you manage your brand narrative. By establishing clear themes for your social media content, you can ensure that every post aligns with your brand values and messaging. This not only helps you communicate your brand story more effectively, but also fosters greater trust and recognition among your audience.
Create Consistency Across Channels: Boost Branding and Organic Reach
Branding is all about consistency, and content pillars are a great way to formalize your approach to social media. With clear themes in place, you can streamline your content creation process and ensure that your posts are on-brand, no matter the platform. This helps your audience know what to expect from your social media channels, while also pleasing algorithms that favor consistent content.
Organize Your Content Strategy: Pillars Provide a Framework
Content creation can be chaotic, but content pillars help you establish a framework for your efforts. By outlining the main topics you want to cover, you can map out a steady stream of content ideas that align with your business goals and audience interests. This not only saves time and reduces stress but also ensures that your content is organized, diversified, and purposeful.
Increase Your Authority: Use Content Pillars to Establish Expertise
Content pillars can help you become a trusted resource in your industry by providing a framework for sharing valuable information. For example, if one of your pillars is sustainability, you can create a variety of content around this topic, from blog posts and infographics to videos and social media posts. This not only helps your audience but also positions your brand as an authority in your space.
Optimize Your Content Strategy: Measure What Matters
Finally, content pillars make it easier to measure and analyze your content performance. By tracking engagement and reaching across different types of posts, you can identify what resonates with your audience and optimize your strategy moving forward. This data-driven approach helps you refine your content efforts, boost your ROI, and achieve your business goals.
Types of Content Pillars for Social Media
1. Educational Content: Building Trust Through Valuable Insights
Sharing valuable information, such as helpful tips, in-depth tutorials, and industry analysis, not only educates your audience but also positions your brand as a trusted resource. For example, Ahrefs offers extensive SEO and digital marketing education on its blog and YouTube channel. By providing comprehensive guides on topics like keyword research and link-building, they go beyond simply promoting their tools to deliver actionable solutions to real-world challenges. This strategy drives substantial organic traffic and highlights their tools’ relevance in addressing audience needs.
2. Inspirational Stories: Connecting with Your Audience on an Emotional Level
Humans are inherently drawn to stories that inspire them. By sharing personal anecdotes, success stories, or testimonials that resonate with your audience’s values and aspirations, you can create a deeper emotional connection with your brand. For instance, Salesforce uses inspirational stories on LinkedIn to showcase its efforts in promoting inclusivity and accessibility. By highlighting initiatives such as mentoring programs for job candidates and celebrating its supportive work environment for employees with disabilities, Salesforce fosters engagement. It reinforces its reputation as a leader in corporate responsibility.
3. Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peeks: Fostering Authenticity and Loyalty
Offering glimpses into your day-to-day operations, team culture, or product development helps humanize your brand and allows your audience to connect with the people and processes behind it. This type of content creates a sense of authenticity, builds loyalty, and makes your audience feel like they are part of your journey.
For example, Notion’s Instagram Story series featuring their retreat, “Make with Notion,” provides behind-the-scenes content that includes a promise of more to come. These stories give followers an exclusive look at their event, which includes product launches and speaker sessions. By sharing these moments on Instagram for the world to see, Notion creates excitement and a sense of inclusion, offering followers a front-row seat to the action.
4. User-Generated Content: Mobilizing Your Community to Fuel Engagement
According to a 2022 McKinsey article, the “big idea” in marketing for the 2020s is reaching consumers and helping them participate in your brand. Featuring creative projects, testimonials, or reviews made by your users helps validate your brand’s credibility, drive engagement, and cultivate a sense of belonging among your community. For instance, Trello’s X page showcases user-generated content to highlight the versatility of their tool. These posts effectively engage the audience by demonstrating how Trello simplifies organization and inspires others to share their own success stories.
5. Interactive Polls and Quizzes: Sparking Engagement Through Fun
Polls and quizzes are entertaining, interactive ways to engage your audience, gather valuable feedback, and gain insights into their interests and preferences. By encouraging participation, you create a two-way conversation that strengthens the bond between you and your audience. For example, Monday.com’s X page brilliantly leverages interactive questions and quizzes to engage its audience and collect insights. These creative interactive posts are designed to spark interaction and creativity.
6. How-To Guides and DIYs: Providing Practical and Actionable Content
People love practical, actionable content that they can apply to their own lives. Share step-by-step guides or do-it-yourself (DIY) tutorials related to your products, services, or industry. Ahrefs’ X page is an excellent example of leveraging how-to guides and DIY content for social media. One standout post includes a video tutorial on addressing content gaps, complete with examples. This approach works well on social media by delivering valuable, actionable insights in an easily digestible format, encouraging users to engage and learn more.
7. Trending Topics and News Commentary: Keeping Your Audience Informed and Engaged
Keep your audience informed and engaged by discussing trending topics, industry news, or current events within your niche. Offering your perspective or insights on timely issues demonstrates your brand’s awareness and keeps your audience coming back for more.
In 2015, HubSpot’s X page tapped into the buzz around Lady Gaga, who was in the news for her Oscars performance and artistic transition. By aligning their content with a hot topic, HubSpot stayed culturally relevant and engaged their audience by tying Lady Gaga’s evolution to valuable marketing insights.
8. Entertaining Content: Using Humor to Humanize Your Brand
Incorporate humor, memes, or entertaining videos into your content mix to provide a welcome break from the mundane. According to research by WPBeginner, 80% of marketers say funny content is the most effective on social media. And this is because entertaining content humanizes your brand and makes it more relatable to your audience, fostering a sense of camaraderie and loyalty.
HubSpot’s LinkedIn page effectively uses entertaining content to engage its audience with humor. For example, they shared two lighthearted business jokes that resonated with their professional audience, sparking significant reactions and shares. These posts combine relatability and fun, offering a break from the usual professional tone.
9. Product Spotlights and Reviews: Showcasing Your Offerings to Drive Sales
Your products or services are the heart of your brand, so why not showcase them in the best possible light? Highlight your offerings through in-depth reviews, demonstrations, or comparisons. Product spotlights not only showcase the features and benefits of your offerings but also help potential customers make informed purchase decisions.
Zapier effectively uses product spotlights and reviews to engage their audience on LinkedIn by showcasing practical updates and features. These LinkedIn posts not only inform their audience but also build trust, demonstrating Zapier’s commitment to constantly improve the user experience.
10. Industry Expert Interviews: Positioning Your Brand as a Thought Leader
Conducting interviews with industry experts, influencers, or thought leaders can help position your brand as a trusted resource. Expert interviews provide valuable insights, increase your brand’s credibility, and attract a broader audience interested in your industry. Similarly, HubSpot and Ahrefs effectively use industry expert interviews to engage their audiences.
11. Seasonal and Holiday Content: Timing Your Posts for Maximum Engagement
Capitalize on seasonal themes, holidays, or special occasions to add variety to your content mix. Tailoring your content to align with timely events shows that you’re in tune with your audience’s interests and helps you capitalize on opportunities to engage with them in meaningful ways. Asana creatively leverages seasonal and holiday content to engage their audience.
One example is their “’Tis the Season for Strategic Planning” post, which includes a poll suggesting it's the Christmas season and encourages users to share their planning habits. These posts effectively tie product updates to festive themes, making their content both engaging and timely.
12. Customer Stories and Testimonials: Using Real-Life Experiences to Build Trust
Your customers are the lifeblood of your business, so why not let them do the talking? Share real-life stories and testimonials from satisfied customers to build trust, validate your brand’s value proposition, and encourage others to engage with your products or services. Zendesk effectively uses customer stories and testimonials to showcase the impact of their solutions. Their case studies, shared on social platforms, illustrate Zendesk’s value while building credibility and trust with potential customers.
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10 Tips to Make Content Pillars for Social Media
1. Use Crayo to Streamline Your Short-Form Video Creation
Crayo AI is a game-changer for producing short videos quickly and efficiently. With Crayo, you can generate an unlimited number of short videos simultaneously. The platform automatically creates captions, effects, background options, and music selections, saving you precious time and energy. In today’s landscape, short-form video content is essential for social media success. With Crayo, you can turn ideas into shorts in seconds.
Simply write an outline or prompt, customize the style by choosing a background video, music, and voice narrator from Crayo’s free templates, and export your finished video. Use Crayo to help your social media content go viral, attract new audiences, and monetize your efforts through programs like TikTok’s Creator Fund. Try Crayo’s free clip creator tool today by clicking the “Try Now” button on our homepage—no account required. Experience the power of AI for your video content.
2. Get to Know Your Audience to Create Relevant Content Pillars
Understanding your target audience is crucial for creating effective content pillars. Start by researching your audience thoroughly to identify who they are, what platforms they use, and their pain points and interests. Analyze data from social media analytics, surveys, and customer feedback to gain insights into the type of content your audience interacts with. Use this information to shape content pillars that resonate with your audience emotionally and practically. Regularly review your audience research to stay current on changing preferences and ensure your content remains relevant.
3. Audit Your Current Content to Identify Improvement Areas
Before creating new content pillars, evaluate your existing content to identify what’s working and what’s not. Conduct a comprehensive audit of your current content across all platforms and analyze performance metrics, including engagement, reach, and conversions. Look for patterns and recurring themes to help guide your new content pillars. This process will allow you to build on successful strategies rather than starting from scratch. Regularly reviewing your content will also help you identify areas for improvement and optimize your plan over time.
4. Determine Core Topics That Align With Your Brand
Every brand is unique, and your content pillars should reflect that. To create effective pillars, identify 3-5 core topics that align with your brand’s values, offerings, and expertise. These broad themes will serve as the foundation for your content strategy, helping you maintain consistency while allowing for variety in your content creation. For example, a fitness brand may focus on pillars such as “Workout Tips,” “Healthy Recipes,” and “Motivational Stories.” Once you establish your core topics, you can further break them down into subtopics to guide your content ideation.
5. Align Your Content Pillars With the Customer Journey
To maximize the impact of your content, it’s essential to align your pillars with the customer journey. Create content that addresses your audience’s needs at each stage of the buying process, from awareness to consideration to decision. For example, awareness-stage content may include educational blog posts or social media infographics, while consideration-stage content could feature product comparison guides or video tutorials. At the decision stage, your content may focus on customer testimonials, reviews, or detailed product demos. This strategic approach will help ensure your content is purposeful and effective, driving engagement and conversions.
6. Balance Educational, Inspirational, and Promotional Content
To maintain audience trust and engagement, it’s crucial to create a balance of content types within your pillars. Focus on providing value to your audience through educational content that answers questions and offers actionable insights. Incorporate inspirational stories that connect with your audience on an emotional level and foster brand loyalty. And don’t forget promotional content that highlights your products or services. By diversifying your content strategy and aligning with audience preferences, you can create a purposeful and practical approach to content creation.
7. Use Data and Keywords to Refine Your Content Pillars
To create effective content pillars, it’s essential to base your strategy on data and research rather than assumptions. Analyze your existing content to identify what topics and formats perform best. Use social listening tools to monitor online conversations about your brand, industry, and competitors. Explore trending topics, keywords, and hashtags to inform your SEO strategy and expand your content reach. Regularly reviewing and refining your content approach will help you stay ahead of the curve and ensure your efforts align with audience preferences.
8. Map Out Subtopics for Each Pillar
Once you establish your core content themes, break them down into subtopics to guide your content creation. This will help you maintain a steady flow of fresh ideas and ensure your content remains diverse and engaging. For example, if one of your pillars is “Sustainability,” potential subtopics could include eco-friendly packaging, sustainable fashion, or carbon offset programs. Creating a content calendar around your pillars and subtopics will also help you plan and organize your efforts for maximum efficiency.
9. Ensure Visual and Messaging Consistency Across Channels
Creating consistent content across platforms is essential for building brand awareness and recognition. Establish guidelines for tone, voice, visual elements, and format specifications to streamline your content creation process. This will help your team produce on-brand content, regardless of the platform or type of content. Regularly review and update your guidelines as needed to adapt to changing trends and audience preferences. Consistency is crucial for effective branding, and a thoughtful approach to content will help you achieve that goal.
10. Regularly Review and Adjust Your Content Strategy
Creating content is just the beginning. To maximize your efforts, you must regularly evaluate and optimize your strategy. Monitor performance metrics to identify what content resonates with your audience and drives engagement. Use this data to inform your ongoing content approach and adjust as needed. This may involve re-evaluating your content pillars, exploring new formats or channels, or shifting your focus to different topics or themes. Regularly reviewing your content will help you stay ahead of the curve and ensure your efforts align with audience preferences.
How to Find Content Ideas for Social Media Content Pillars
1. Unlocking the Potential of Content Series for Social Media
One of the most effective strategies for generating new content ideas is creating a series. This approach allows you to explore a topic in depth and produce multiple pieces of content that link together. Not only does this save time and effort, but it also offers your audience more value. For example, instead of just one blog post about Pinterest trends, you could create a series of posts, each focusing on a specific trend.
2. Unearthing Gold in Your Existing Content
Before you start brainstorming new content ideas, take a moment to review what you’ve already produced. Chances are, there are hidden gems in your archives that can be updated, repurposed, or refreshed. This could include turning an old blog post into a video or creating an infographic from a particularly data-heavy article. The key is to get creative and think about how you can reimagine your past content in new formats.
3. Equipping the Potential of AI for Content Idea Generation
AI tools like ChatGPT can be invaluable for content ideation. However, to get the most out of them, you need to be specific. When asking for content ideas, include details about your brand, target audience, and goals. This will help the AI generate tailored suggestions that are relevant to your needs. For example, you can ask for blog topic ideas centered around particular keywords or request social media caption prompts based on existing content.
4. Tapping Into Your Audience’s Questions
One of the most reliable ways to generate content ideas is to answer your audience’s questions. But don’t just rely on your own community to find queries. Expand your search to competitors’ followers, online forums, and even AI tools. This will help you uncover a broader range of topics to explore that will resonate with your target audience.
5. Ethically "Stealing" Content Ideas
Finding inspiration in others’ work is a natural part of the creative process. Just be sure to do it ethically. Instead of copying and pasting, think about how you can put your own spin on an idea. This could involve exploring a different angle on a trending topic or presenting information in a new format. By adding your unique voice and perspective, you’ll create original content that provides value to your audience.
6. The Everlasting Appeal of Behind-the-Scenes Content
Sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work helps humanize your brand and fosters a connection with your audience. This type of content can include anything from your creative process to day-to-day operations. To keep it fresh, think about how you can present this information in new ways, such as through video, graphics, or text-based posts.
7. Learning From Your Mistakes
Your audience wants to see the real you — including your failures. Sharing stories about what didn’t go as planned, along with the lessons learned, fosters trust and makes you more relatable. Plus, this type of content is often highly shareable, extending your reach and helping you connect with new followers.
8. Reframing Ideas for Different Audiences
Instead of continually searching for completely new concepts, explore how you can repackage existing ideas for different audiences. This not only saves time but also helps strengthen your SEO strategy, as linking to prior content signals to Google that you’re an authority on the subject.
9. Debunking Myths and Sparking Debate
Content that challenges conventional wisdom or presents controversial opinions is often highly engaging. Use social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter to find popular discussions and weave these themes into your content. This type of material generates shares, comments, and likes, boosting your visibility across channels.
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