How to Come Up with Content Pillars for Your Brand

Have you ever heard of brand specialists or content marketers talk about ‘content pillars’? A content pillar is an overarching topic or theme that aligns with your brand or business, that can get be broken down into multiple other topics.

Having 4–5 content pillars in place for your brand is an easy — and consistent — way of making sure that all your content fits within your brand identity, will attract your target audience, and help you come up with lots of different ideas for creating content.

Think of your content pillars as what makes your brand unique. Does your founder have an inspirational story? Are your products highly innovative with lots of opportunity to deep dive into the making of them? Maybe you’re a fashion brand that creates clothing with only recycled materials, so you have a strong stance on sustainability and ethical production? Or maybe you’re a restaurant that only uses organic, seasonal ingredients? These can all start to form your content pillars.

Here’s an example of a couple of content pillars I came up with for an online jewellery retailer. These can then be used to flesh out a content calendar or plan, with different topics and content type, depending on what works best for you and your brand or business:

Pillar 1: Our Brands

• Share new collections and why specific pieces were chosen
• Tell the stories of jewellery designers
• Share insider info on the inspiration behind designing collections
• Go behind the scenes of jewellery workshops to show the creative process

Pillar 2: Pearls of Wisdom

• Spotlight the latest jewellery trends and how to wear them
• Educate with guides and tips for what to consider when buying jewellery: e.g. How to find your ring size
• Share styling tips: e.g. How to mix metals, how to stack your rings
• Show the best ways to care for jewellery

Your content pillars should align with what you’ve mapped out in your brand guidelines and your tone of voice. Content is a medium for presenting your brand or business, what you offer, and why your audience should choose you over your competitors.

If you haven’t got these two elements in place yet, read my guide to defining your brand, and my guide to creating your tone of voice.

Once you have your pillars in place and documented, it all starts to become easier. When you’re planning out your content for the month (or quarter, or year), you can refer to your content pillars and start to build out your ideas and marketing campaigns from there.

Parts of this article are taken from my book, ‘Making Content Work: Tips, tools and templates for your brand or business’. Available now on Amazon, in paperback or Kindle.