Content Pillars Demystified: how to plan the right content to help you grow on Instagram

Have you ever struggled with coming up with content ideas for Instagram? We have all been there! It is very intimidating staring at a blank document, but there is a very simple solution to this problem - Content Pillars. Developing content pillars can help you stay organized, be more consistent for your audience, and ignite your creativity.

So, what are content pillars?

Content Pillars really form the foundation of your overall content strategy. We like to think of content pillars as more of the intersection between your goals as a business and what your audience would find valuable.

Okay, so how do you pick the right content pillars for your business?

Let’s use Creatorly Media as an example. As you may know, we recently did some rebranding and started a brand new Instagram account for the business. Our goal for this Instagram account is to connect with potential clients and hopefully get them to jump on board and become a paid clients.

There are all sorts of things that could be relevant for our ideal audience; Instagram Strategies, YouTube and Podcasting Tips, Branding, Email Marketing, and the list goes on. All of these would be really relevant to the folks we are trying to attract as clients, but if we just focused on what is relevant to our potential clients, it would be a very broad range of different topics. Doing any and all content under the umbrella of “business owners” or “online creators” doesn’t necessarily help us reach our goals as a business.

This is when you can find where the two circles of the Venn diagram overlap.

As we mentioned, our goal is to connect with potential clients and hopefully turn these connections into paying clients - the services we offer are focused on YouTube, Podcasting, and Instagram - and so it only makes sense that we make our main content pillars also focused on tips, advice, and strategies for YouTube, Podcasting, and Instagram.

So let’s break this down even further!

First of all, if you haven’t already - it’s important to determine your ideal client or ideal audience.
You will ask yourself questions like; who is my ideal audience, what do they enjoy doing, where do they shop, what are their struggles, etc? We will actually be talking about identifying your ideal audience, developing your business branding, and walking you through creating 90 days worth of content in our Fall Content Planning Workshop that launches on September 11th - you can register now by visiting our website here.

Another important part of creating your pillars is by identifying your goals for your Instagram?

There are three main goals that most businesses have on Instagram; audience growth, sales, and community building:

✔️ Audience Growth

Some creators are just looking to build up their audience so they can get to the point where they can start doing brand collaborations, affiliate marketing, or so that they’re able to sell their own products, merch, or services.

✔️ Sales

Maybe you already have a sufficient audience, but you’re just trying to figure out how to monetize that audience and make conversions from followers to customers.

✔️ Community Building

Building a community is kind of the bridge between the audience growth stage and the sales stage. You grow your audience, build up that community and then in doing so - you build like, know, and trust - which can help convert that community into customers.

Discovering the Overlap

Now that you are familiar with your ideal audience and have your goals in mind, it’s time to find that overlap. There are two main questions you need to ask yourself, “what are some topics you are passionate about that your ideal audience would also relate to” and “once you determine those topics, which of those topics can also help you reach your goal?”

One more shameless plug about the fall workshop, we will be diving deep into the various different types of content formats on Instagram and how they can help you reach your specific goals. As we mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, having a content pillar strategy can help you stay organized, be more consistent for your audience, and ignite your creativity. You will never say “what should I post” ever again!