I used to post content on a whim whenever I had an idea. The problem with that is it was all over the place. What I posted often resonated with my network but it wasn’t intentional or strategic. And it took me a lot of time to create the posts.

What I learned to do (and now what I teach my clients to do as well) is to create content with purpose. You define your purpose and the intention by identifying your content pillars.

Content pillars help to guide your content creation process and ensure that your content is created strategically.

Your content pillars are the 3 to 5 areas in your wheelhouse that support your brand and business for which you want to be known. They help you define your niche.

So for example, my content pillars are:

• Social media

• LinkedIn

• Content Marketing

• Legal Marketing

• Women in law/my Women Who Wow initiative

• Mental health in the workplace

• Motivational content

So how do you determine your own content pillars? Think about your areas of expertise, your target audience (including the problems you solve for them through your content), and your marketing, business development and branding goals. The content that supports those is what you should be producing and promoting on a consistent basis.

Once you have established your content pillars, you can then start brainstorming your sub-topics and individual post ideas.

Everything you post on LinkedIn (or any social media channel) will be then categorized under one of your content pillars, which can change with time and as your business changes. You’ll create a contact calendar to help you organize the posts.

Your content calendar can be sorted by your content pillars so that you can easily track and measure engagement.

This will help you create more intentional content that truly supports your marketing and business goals.

Of course, some of your posts will still be on a whim if they are super timely or you feel inspired -by all means, still go with that feeling. But planning them out with this content pillar structure and having a content calendar will help you be more efficient and strategic and will also enable you to repurpose your content more effectively too.

What do you think about this idea and will you create your own content pillars?