Speaker 1: So I know a lot of people keep making a ton of different mistakes when it comes to creating content pillars for their small business. So let's break down what content pillars are, my secret easy to use formula for content pillar creation, and how you can create content pillars for your small business for a super easy and seamless content creation process. So first we need to define what content pillars are and what they're not. So content pillars, it's just a marketing term, it's marketing jargon. You might have heard it be called something like content buckets, content categories. But simply put, content pillars are a way to categorize and systematize content creation for your business. It's just an easy way and an easy formula to help you create content consistently for your business that is strategic. So there's no more posting just for posting sake, we're making sure that every single thing and every piece of content that you put out for your business is strategically aligned to your business and to your business goals. And basically it helps you assign different goals for your content and making sure that you're not posting something so rogue or so out there that it's just a waste of your time. So one big content pillar no-no is something that I see very very often posted across social media from other experts or gurus out there. Basically a lot of people will say that their content pillars are education, inspiration, promotion, things like that. Those are actually content goals and not actually content pillars. Content pillars again where you have to just think about categorizing your content into these specific little buckets or these little categories so that you're aligning what messaging you're putting out there and you're aligning your content to fit into those buckets. So before we dive in further, I want to go ahead and give you my content pillars because I'm going to be using them as an example throughout this video. So every piece of content that I post on social media would align with one of these content pillars. So my five different pillars are going to be content creation tips, small business tips, I talk about content strategy, I talk about content systems, and I talk about content goals. So basically any content idea that I come up with it has to fit into one of those categories or I simply don't post it. So even when I post some of my personal content or I post something that might be a little bit more controversial, the message behind it always is geared towards one of those five content pillars. I always try and bring it back around to make sure that my content is aligning with those specific pillars. So let's dive into my strategy and my super secret formula, something that makes me a little different from other marketers out there because I want to give you a system and an approach that is easy for you. So a lot of you out there might have already figured out your content pillars, but what I like to do to make it a little bit different and again a little bit easier is to align a content pillar for the day of the week. So the reason why I like to do this, again it gives you a formula, it gives you like a plug and play. Here's what I know what I'm posting on this day, here's what I know what I'm posting on this day. So basically we want to strategically align that content pillar to a day of the week to make sure that your content is aligned to your audience, to your business, and to your overall goals. So this is where you really have to do a little bit of analysis. Not only do you have to figure out your content pillars, but you also have to start to think about when your audience wants to see that kind of content. So for me, I don't post any like heavy hitting content towards the end of the week, you know things that I want people to go and take action on because I know that I'm talking to small business owners and by Friday they're trying to wind down and get ready for their weekend. So for me, I like to post more like maybe quick little tips or I try and align my content to fit better at the end of the week for something that is a little bit lighter. Whereas on Monday I can push things more like content strategy and content systems because business owners are getting into their week and they're geared up and ready to get started. So let's give a couple quick examples. Let's say you're a hairstylist, your five different content pillars might look something like this. Giving DIY hairstyles, talking about hair education, curly hair tips, products that you use, and client transformations. So when thinking about your audience, typically speaking most hairstylists in this kind of genre, maybe they're talking more towards women with curly hair, maybe that's their specialty. And you have to think where that woman is going to be at in her week when reviewing your content. So for example, if you're doing like a product review or recommending products to people, think about the end user, that woman that is scrolling on a Saturday morning and making sure that that content is going out on a Saturday versus, you know, middle of the day on a Wednesday. So rather than like on a Monday or a Tuesday, she's just gearing up for the week. She's more in the mindset of like, okay, I want to learn something. And she's not so much on like weekend mode. Maybe talk to her about curly hair education, hair tips, things like that. Or maybe on like Thursday and Friday, she's gearing up for her weekend. And she wants to see some client results before and after maybe before her hair appointment that weekend, or she wants some fun DIY tutorials of how she can wear her hair up for her date over on Saturday. But basically just think about your audience, think about the end user and when they would want to view that content. Another example, as a social media manager, you might have a ton of different content pillars. So maybe you have things like social media tips, social media strategy, you're going to share some client results and the transformation, maybe you're going to have some content creation ideas. And those are the foundations of your content pillars. Now again, if you're a social media manager, you're talking most likely to small business owners, you're trying to attract them in as a client, vast majority of the time, small business owners or even CEOs, they don't like to work on the weekends. And that includes scrolling, they're probably spending time with their families, they're out and about doing their own thing running errands. So you might not want to post content on the weekends just like I do. The weekends tend to be lower engagement for me because I know that my target audience, my ideal follower is not really taking a look at content on Saturday or Sunday. So for you, it might look like having Monday and Tuesday showing off client results and talking about social media strategy because a small business owner when they sit down like Monday and Tuesday, they're really trying to plan their week, they're trying to figure out what they need to do and maybe hiring a social media managers at the top of the list. So you want to align your content with where they are at during the week. Whereas on Friday, they're a little burnt out, they're like, I'm ready for the weekend, maybe give them a fun content creation idea. Tell them about like a trending audio, give them a vlog tutorial or something that's a little bit easier and not as heavy lifting. Okay, so I gave you a couple examples here. Now how are you actually going to come up with your content pillars? I have a couple of steps that I need you to take here. First, if you're already posting on social media, I want you to go and take a look at your analytics and your insights, no matter what platform you're posting on. Vast majority of the platforms, no matter where you're at, they have some kind of insight tool that allows you to look at your audience insights, you know, what's working, what's not. So most of the time on vast majority of these platforms like Instagram or TikTok or Twitter, there's internal reporting software. So it's going to say something like analytics or insight, make sure you have a business account so that you can have access to all of those. And now once you're taking a look at your analytics and the content that you've posted, it's best to go and review your top performing content. What is already working for you? So you can filter it out by reach or by saves, comments, likes, shares, whatever you want to take a look at. Just start to find patterns in what content is performing the highest. So for me, a lot of my educational reels or my insightful carousels, those always perform really, really well for me. And so you take a look at the subject matter within them and start writing down those content ideas. So for me, I used to give out a ton of Canva tips, tricks, and hacks that performed so well for me a couple years back. And that was actually one of my content pillars is I literally had a content builder all about Canva. So maybe for that hairstylist, a lot of their top performing content is people love to see a brunette going to being a blonde or they love seeing, you know, you style an updo, things like that. Start to figure out what content performs the best and how you can categorize it. So once you've already seen that top performing content and seeing what your audience already resonates with, I want you to go ahead and take those ideas that content you've already posted and write it down on a list. You can do this in your notes app, you can do it on Google Sheets, or just go old-fashioned with some pen and paper. After you've kind of looked at that high performing content, I want you to take that same list and start adding a ton of different content ideas. Think about all the things that you could talk about related to your profession, your career, your expertise, your business. And again, just list out a bunch of ideas. I want you to try and get to at least 50 different content ideas on this piece of paper or in whatever software you decide to use. Now, once you have, let's say all 50 ideas, I know it sounds like a lot, but once you get going, I promise you, you're going to think of more things than you realize. Then this last step is to start to categorize them together. So let's say you are a social media manager and you've listed out all these tips. You talk about posting times, you talk about caption formulas, you talk about hashtags that you should be using. All of those kind of fit into a category of social media tips and you can start to figure out which types of content ideas fit together and I like to do this again. If you're doing pen and paper, take out like five different color highlighters and start to highlight. Okay, this one fits together, let's highlight it in pink. This one fits together, highlight that one in pink. Okay, this one over here maybe is a different kind of content and start to categorize it with maybe a different color. And again, you can follow this same process whether it's in your notes app or google sheets. Just start changing the text to different colors so that you can start to see patterns in those content ideas that eventually help you formulate your content pillars. And content pillars really are that simple. It's just a process and a system of categorizing your content. And now that we've figured out your content pillars, you guys can go take a look at this video right here to kind of figure out your content creation method. In this video, I talk about a ton of different content creation methods. Whether you like to post in the moment or about to create your content, this video will help you figure out which one's right for you. Oh and if you learned something here today, don't forget to hit that subscribe button.