Content pillars: how to choose them and use them every week

What a content pillar is

A content pillar is a topic you post about again and again, so people know what to expect from you. It is broader than a single post and narrower than your whole industry.

Pillars do two jobs. They save you from deciding what to post every day, and they make your feed coherent, so a new visitor can tell within a few posts what you are about.

How many do you need?

For most small brands, three to five is plenty. Fewer than three and the feed gets repetitive. More than five and it becomes hard to cover each one often enough for it to stick.

How to find yours

1. List the questions your customers ask most often. Every recurring question is a post, and a group of similar questions is a pillar.
2. Write down what you want to be known for. Your pillars should support that.
3. List the services or products you actually offer, so some pillars lead naturally to the things you sell.
4. Add one pillar about how you work or what you believe. This is where your personality lives.
5. Cross out anything you could not talk about for a year without running dry.

An example, for illustration

Imagine a bookkeeper who works with small shops. Their pillars might be: everyday money habits for shop owners, tax deadlines explained simply, mistakes to avoid when choosing software, and how they run their monthly review. Four pillars, each easy to return to, and each tied to the people they serve.

Give each pillar a post shape

A pillar tells you what to talk about. A post shape tells you how. Matching them stops posts from all sounding the same.

• Educate: a mistake to avoid, a short checklist or a three-step method.
• Story: a clearly imagined scenario, labelled as imagined, that shows a problem your audience will recognise.
• Engage: a myth versus what is actually true, or a question worth asking before deciding.
• Promote: a plain statement of what a service is and who it is for, ending with one simple next step.
• Social proof: how you work, plus your principles. Only use client results if they are real and you have permission.

Common mistakes

• Pillars that are too broad, like marketing or business. If you cannot picture a specific post, the pillar is too vague.
• Posting only promotion. People tolerate a selling post far more when it sits among useful ones.
• Copying a competitor's pillars. Yours should come from your customers and your knowledge.
• Never revisiting them. Review your pillars every few months and drop any that are not working.

Using pillars with My Post Scout

In My Post Scout, content pillars are part of your brand profile. When you build a week, each day is written around one of them, with a post shape that suits it, so a week stays varied without you planning the mix by hand. If you paste your website address when setting up, the app suggests starting pillars that you can edit.