Ep 132 - What are Content Pillars and How to Use Them with Char Dixon

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the StartScale succeed podcast with me, your host Nicole Higgins, the Byron Retail Coach, sharing tips, advice, and insight from entrepreneurs that have just launched to multimillion pound business owners. We will be discussing the challenges they faced, advice they would give, and the milestones they achieved and have they got there. Also joining me will be a broad range of experts with some tips and practical how-to's episodes that will help your business grow and to enable you to live the life you crave. Types of experts that you hear from will be those that you will find beneficial as you start and scale your business from branding and social media experts to mindset coaches in PR and marketing. There will also be solo episodes from me discussing a variety of topics from sourcing to maximising the profit in your business. [MUSIC PLAYING] If you're in the small business world, you will have undoubtedly heard someone at one point mentioned content pillars. What are they? And how can you use them to connect more with your customer? Well, that is one of the main topics I'm going to be chatting today with Shara Dixon, the Content Coach for Small Businesses, and previous X-Head of Marketing and Content doing lots of content creation for Big Brands. Shara, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. So excited to be here. So explain to people what you do, who you are and what you do. Yes, so hi, I'm Shara, and I am a Content Coach. I help small businesses deal with whole overwhelm that is content creation. So I've been in marketing, copywriting for the past 18 years. I started a new look in the creative team, which was Dreamy, worked my way up to Head of Marketing at June. I've been lead copywriter at Expedia, worked on brands like Sympol, Number 7, Waitrose, Whole Mix. It's been an incredible journey. And in lockdown, I like everybody else. I started a dried flower business. I was kind of bored. And I started this business. And even for someone who does content professionally, I was just like, oh my god, everyone's sort of telling me to do this. Don't do that post every day, but not like that. And it was just this really overwhelming situation. Even for someone that's kind of been in the industry. And I also sort of found this small business community online, which I'd never seen before. And then after coming from often very sort of cuts through boardroom environments within the fashion industry, to find this group of really inspiring, uplifting, positive people. I was just like, right, this is where I need to be. And this is where I can really help. So I started Loudmouth. And yeah, so now I kind of help people overcome that overwhelm, make content really simple, because it doesn't have to be crazy, you know, complicated, and hopefully help them put it into their every day. So it was manageable. And it's a small part of their business without it taking over their whole lives. And one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about content pillows with you is it's a foundation for a lot of people's content. But I think sometimes when I ask clients that, or what are your content pillows? I think it's a very woolly answer, or they might glaze over it a little bit. So what are content pillows? Yeah, and it's totally understandable, because I think when you sort of in the world of Instagram and gurus and everything, lots of people will kind of class different things as content pillars, you know, everything from sort of, like, you know, tips is one, or like, educational content is one. And that's not really how we want to look at content pillars. Really what they are are topics that you're going to claim in your content. So it's the topics that you're going to talk about on repeat that you and your brands are going to become synonymous with. So think of that topic and they think of you. Think of you and they think of that topic. You know, if we start with a blank canvas creating content, it is so hard, like it's so overwhelming, but actually having these pillars gives our content structure and clarity, not just for us in terms of like, what we're going to talk about today, but also it makes you so much more understandable as a brand, because people now know to come to you for a certain thing. So it kind of categorises what we talk about. So for example, for me, just to give you an idea, like, I help small businesses over come content overwhelmed. So mine are, I make content quick and easy for small businesses for the small business owners. I also support small businesses because that's really important to me, that comes from my values. So I'll shout them out, I'll do features on them, I'll get them seen and heard. And another part of that is like small business mindset and you know, that overwhelm side of things. How can mental health come into this whole business situation? Because it's a huge part of dealing with it on a day to day basis. So that's kind of how I would categorise mine. And you are it starting a brand. And let's go, for an example, say, I'm starting with a sustainable fashion brand. What might the content pillars be for that brand? - Okay, so maybe it's something like making sustainability fit into your everyday. So that could be, you know, super actionable tips that people can be more sustainable easily, you know, and that might translate into a content series, for example, like sustainable swaps. So eco-friendly options to things that you currently do or buy. So, you know, maybe that one week is that's renting your clothes instead of buying, you know, for your Christmas party. And maybe it's like how to repair your socks when they've got a hole into you don't have to, you know, replace them, that kind of thing. A second pillar could be things like how to make your clothes last longer. So really caring for your clothes, knowing what products how to wash them all of that side of things. You could also use the behind the scenes process to weave in and discuss all the sort of thoughtful decisions that go into making sustainable fashion. Because throughout our content, it's a really good place to show all of that value and why we would want to choose a sustainable fashion brand. So, you know, that could also be a pillar of showing all of those intricacies of what goes into a sustainable fashion brand. - And then the product itself can also be a pillar. - So how many should you have? - I would aim for somewhere between three and five. I think that's kind of like broad enough that you, you know, you're not over-specific and you can have like room to play creatively within them. But you also want them to be quite sort of focused at the same time. - So if we still use that example of a sustainable fashion business, making sustainable choices every day. So one would be making sustainable, being sustainable easy. So that underneath that can be tips, reels, you know, which education, examples, all of that. That's your kind of theme. - Yeah. - The topic, your main topic. It's what they can different things that can come underneath that. The other one was the repair. - Yeah. - And so why wouldn't that come into the making sustainable easily? Or what would that be, you know, how could, maybe if we could describe that one a little bit, clear in terms of what that pillar could be? - So essentially, like one of them could be kind of like, making it every day. So what can you do, like tips and tricks? But keeping it, you know, it could be tip series or what have you that makes it sustainable every day. So the easiest lightest touches that would make you be able to buy into sustainability in a way that it fits into your life. So focusing on like the ease, how that would be then different to sort of like caring for your clothes. That could then be things like, you know, how to wash your garments, how to hang your guards, really like thinking about the care side of things. There might be some crossover between the two and that's so crazy. But it's more about, you know, kind of like, how can I categorize and think of the themes that my audience will appreciate and connect with and get the most value from? Because that's what essentially it comes back to. Building these pillars is all about connection with your customers and how it can help them, how this can be like super valuable for your audience. So yeah, just see that there might be some crossover. But if you can kind of stick to themes in that way, it will help you categorize your content and make it really clear for your audience. - Yeah, I think it's really important for people that are listening, whether they're starting a new business or whether they're already in business, that it doesn't always have to be about the product. You're thinking of the wider interests, concerns, problems of your audience. So it's not, you're not basically going, going to go by this single shirt or this thing. - No, and if you think of something like, for example, if you were saying like a, you know, a kids wear brand, for example, you know, one of their pillars could be like, ways to keep the kids entertained when you're out shopping or, you know, something like that. And that could be a whole sort of spin off of like, you know, how to keep the kids entertained with little games or, you know, stuff you can do in the car or, you know, little things like that. And it's all kind of like building this lifestyle of your brand, like really tapping into that lifestyle element. You know, you can have product as one of your pillars, but your product should, it should connect to all of this. You should be able to, so if you think a bit like this, so if you think of your pillars, so you have four, and think of them as literal pillars, building up to a roof that is your product and your business. You know, brick by brick, every piece of our content should be leading and pointing towards the product. But in a really sort of like lifestyle way that kind of like supports your whole brand and shows you as something more than just a product. Because that's where you turn a business into a brand. - I was listening to Seth Godin's book "Less Nights." This is marketing and he was talking about a fragrance or if you're selling cars, you're selling the emotion, you're selling the idea around it, you're selling the lifestyle, you're selling other things around just the actual thing that you want people to buy. It is that broader appeal. And I always, I like the, when someone has described this to me before is like think of your social media and your content as if your business was a magazine. - Yes. - What would you or, and I think that's quite a good analogy because people, everyone's bought a magazine, you know, and they know they expect to find the things that they're interested in in that magazine that are relating to that particular brand. - Yeah, and that's a really good way of looking at it because if you think of the different features that a magazine has, generally those features are the same week to week, month to month, but they have creative freedom within them to talk about different things, to address those issues in different ways, to have different conversations, different formats and stuff within it. So I think that's really important as well that you kind of have, you have your broader pillars, but you can kind of like, obviously you don't want your content to get so same, you're just churning out factory style, actually having creative freedom within that to bring new thoughts and ideas. And it is within those thoughts and ideas that then, you know, that's how you sort of like bring your authenticity and make it your own as well. - And how important do you feel is it for small businesses to be very visible themselves as an individual owner? - I think it totally depends on what you want for your brand, if you want to be, you can go to your ways, you can be the face of your brand, you can choose not to, you know, if you have, you know, serious ambitions to scale it, then maybe you don't want to be so much face of the brand. But I think if we're talking about small business owners, I think, you know, a lot of that connection will come from that face time. And, you know, I was talking about this the other day with the new sort of like faceless accounts that we're seeing a huge surge of on Instagram. And, you know, they look really aesthetic, but actually like they're really missing that connection piece because we're not getting to understand who they are. And like, yes, I might like and look at these in terms of the aesthetic piece, but I'm not going to build that connection and trust because who am I building it with? So, you know, I think you can do it to different degrees. You can still have those found stories, even if you don't want to be shown up as the brand every single day. You can still be present in a way that, you know, this is my business and come into the content in certain parts of that. And I've worked with brands before who kind of have like found a diaries as one of their content pillars. And they bring that in as just one of the four or five pillars. I think you do have to show some side of you and your story because that's what builds the trust. Also, people love that kind of content. People want to see use behind the brand. They want to see these amazing women who have like all men that are building these brands. That said, you don't have to be dancing on Reels every day just to show up for your business. There's, you know, lots of ways to do it. And I would go back to, you know, how do you want your brand to be perceived? How do you want to come across? And always just kind of check back with that to make sure that you are showing up in the way that feels aligned with how you want to be perceived. Are you ready to scale your e-commerce store? Want to do it without having to wear yet another hat and become a digital marketing expert? This episode is brought to you by neon digital clicks. D pay traffic partner for family and women's e-commerce brands wanting to scale their stores from 5 figure to 6 figure months using meta, Google and Clavio marketing services. Neon is offering listeners a free scaling audit worth 3000 pounds. So whether you're sales have plateaued or you're looking for growth, this is a great opportunity to lift the lid on your business and identify where the opportunities are hiding. Head to scalingglow.com to discover just how much revenue you could scale your store to this year. And do your content values evolve over time? I would say this kind of ideas and pieces of content within them will change and should change. So we will talk about different opinions and thoughts and ideas throughout time on social whatever. If we switch apart content pillars too often, then our messages get confused and our community gets confused. So for example, if Jamie Oliver suddenly started talking about food, he's the food guy. If he suddenly starts talking about family holiday ideas, you might be interested to see where he's going on his holiday because you'd probably be like, oh, you know, where is he going? But that's not why you followed him. So you know, you've now all those people have followed you for a certain thing and you've become known for that thing. If you now change your pillars, you're going to lose a lot of people. And the whole point of pillars is that you claim this corner of the internet or, you know, your space in the industry. So to suddenly change it, unless your business is particularly pivoting that way, it won't make sense to your community. And if you're an existing business and you feel your content is all over the place, what would your advice be for that? OK, so I would start your product and work backwards and start at your, like, starts saying, like, what content has performed best for you? What is, like, really resonating with your audience and maybe taking out some of the stuff that is just kind of tanking? So if things are not, they're not really getting a lot of interest from your community. Maybe that is something to reassess and we're just, and maybe switch that out. You know, go back to your values. You know, what do you care about a brand as a brand? What is at the heart of your brand and go back to your passions? Because when you are creating your content pillars, the first place I would start is, like, what can you talk about for hours? And sometimes, you know, we think, right, I'm going to talk about this one thing. And then it's not aligned with who we are and what our passion and our expertise. And in that situation, it doesn't necessarily flow naturally and come naturally. And then maybe that's why it isn't landing so well with our audience. But actually, if you can go back to your passions, are they the same now? Is your business the same now? Maybe it's not. And if your business has come a long way since you set those pillars, then yeah, I would go back and we adjust to think about your values, who you are as a business, what are your passions, what could you talk about for hours? And again, you know, looking at your insights, what is doing well and what is maybe, what maybe needs a refresh and update? Because, you know, times change, things change, people change, trends change. You know, we can, at times, also move with that. And I think there's great things you can take from that when you're a new brand starting out as well. So even when you don't have the insights yet, but let you say, looking at your values, what you passionate about, what you want to be known for, like you said early on as well. One thing I want to ask is when you are posting, but you have a lot to talk about, like chopping and changing. So you still talk about your themes, but should you talk about one content pillar for a week and then move on to the next one, and then move on to the next one, and then move on to the next one, or could you talk about one content pillar one day, another content pillar the next day, another content pillar the next day, or just a matter. - I don't think it necessarily matters. You might find that you have different mixes at different times, like for example, if you've got, you know, you're launching a certain thing, you might want to talk more around that at one point. You can also, like, I'm a big fan, and this is something that I've kind of taken from sort of my corporate life, is that, you know, working in sort of like campaigns. So having a week where you talk about and spot like one thing, and you go really big on it for huge impact. I think that works really, really well. Generally speaking, I'd probably have a bit of a mix. What that mix looks like. So for example, like, you know, a lot of my content will be about, you know, making content quick and easy for small businesses. On one day of like the weekend, they'll talk about mindset, and you know, it's kind of like, 'cause I'm thinking like, on a Sunday, do my followers, do they want to learn today, or do they just want to have a little bit of a slow down, they want to kind of like just chill, and maybe think about getting ready for the week, or what have you. So, you know, think about what your customers would want and when, and you know, everything should essentially be directed by them, and you'll, yeah, you kind of like, you figure out the mix of those pillars, because it won't necessarily be, you know, say four pillars, and a quarter of your content is this, a quarter of the content is that it won't work like that. You'll probably have ones you talk about a lot more than others. - Yeah, and you just test it and see what works. - Absolutely, yeah, and get a feel for what, you know, what your audience is, is one thing. - And what are your tips on staying consistent? - So, what in terms of sticking to your brand pillars, or your content pillars, or just generally? - Generally, I think in terms of posting, I think some people like, get really creative, my post every day for five days, and then disappear for a week, then come back, then, oh, you know, what are your tips on being consistent and staying consistent in general on social media? - So, I think the main issue is that we rely on our, like, energy and our motivation as sources of energy to power our content, and they're just not reliable enough, because our energy goes up and down, our schedules go up and down. So, what we need to start with is a plan of action. Like, what are we gonna commit to posting every week? Having times that we post, like, I know this is talked about a lot, for me, this is to keep me consistent, not necessarily because the algorithm liked me to post at the same time, but I say, like, my email goes out every Friday at 11, and I do a live every Thursday, usually every Thursday at midday. That keeps me consistent, because I don't wanna let my community down. So, you know, having that kind of, like, accountability is always good. Having a plan, because if you don't have a plan and you're posting, you know, on the fly, it's not gonna be great content, and it's not gonna have a lot of structural focus. It's not gonna support your goals, and it's not gonna be that productive either. So, I'd say, you know, having a plan at the start of every week to say, this is what I'm gonna get out. Create things so you have, you need to have a backup stash of content. So, I always kind of, like, work with my clients to create a content bank, so that if life happens and you can't get a post out, you're not, you know, you're not falling behind on the plan that you've set out to do. You have a stash of things in the background that you can post in a second with no notice. So, having that kind of stash, and you're not just doing it minute by minute, can really, really help. And a system, you know, like, if you, every time you created your products or what have you, if every single time you had a different process, I bet, you know, you'll have processes for how you package things, processes for how you do your invoices. You know every time it's a go-to process. I think a lot of the time with content is different every time. And having that sort of simple process in place to say about this, I, first of all, I'm gonna, you know, save five audios for the week. I know I'm gonna do two reels and two whatever. And I'm gonna talk about this isn't this. If you can have that and, you know, build that consistency, start smaller, start very realistic. And build on it. But yeah, just kind of like having a really simple process in place. Getting organized, so having, you know, everything in one place rather than ideas on the back of your kids drawings and, you know, all of that sort of stuff. So getting it organized, getting a system and getting a stash behind you so that you can rely on it, fall back on it and having that sort of like evergreen content that you can post any day of the year and it'll be relevant. - Very great tips there. This isn't about content pillars as such, but with your experience in corporate, you will have worked on a lot of launches and a lot of campaigns. What would be your advice for when you're going into launch mode for brands? Whether that's for a collection or a start in the business? - Okay, I would say like go all in in terms of like, one of the most common things I hear from people that I work with is I'm talking about it too much. You cannot talk about a launch too much. You know, I've had it where I'll talk on repeat for three weeks about something and then I'll be mentioning it to someone, they're like, "Oh, what's that?" You know, that people do not necessarily see all of you, they 100% don't see all of your posts. It doesn't work that way. You have to be loud and unapologetic about promoting whatever it is and you need to give it enough time. You need to kind of start very broad and then gradually get more specific about the detail. So start very top line and think about how it makes us feel. Think about the emotional side. We need to sell the benefits, not the features. So what you were talking about at the start about, it's really about how people feel and that end result. We're not selling the fact that the wik is this length on a candle, it's about having those moments of calm to ourselves. So really thinking about all of the different ways we can talk about our content, talk about our launch or our product and just having a load of variety of different content in there. But I would be, during that launch period, talking about every single day in all different formats, talk about it from every angle. So you're going really deep on what the product's all about, how it makes you feel. Consistency is also really key. So if you're using imagery or whatever, using the same imagery throughout because that builds that repetition and the way people, they are boring people by saying the same thing over and over again, but the way big brands work is that, when they are launching a product, they have a playbook. And within that playbook is right, this is the images, these are the images we're going to use. This is the messaging. This is how we're going to talk about it. And then they rinse and repeat again and again and again. And it's that consistency. We hear all the time that you need to see something 10 times to take action on it and buy something. But actually, if every time they see it, it looks different, sounds different. You're not going to have that accumulation effect of those 10 times of people seeing it. It's like they're seeing it for the very first time every time. So consistency is really key in terms of building that impact when you go to launch product. And would you say when you're talking about launching, that you're not talking about anything else? You can do it either way and it'll come down to what you can physically get out there. I can have clients who are able to keep their schedule and add in a post every day that talks solely about the launch. Other brands who just do not have the capacity to do that, in which case, you might want to keep in a couple of your regular posts and then swap the majority out for launch. But I would go all in when you're doing a launch and try and make as much as possible tie into your launch. So for example, when I was doing a recent launch, I was still talking about easy tips and tricks, but then talking about my product on top of that. Yeah, so how can you tie in your regular content? So you have a regular tips and tricks series. How can you tie that in to talk about what's coming next and using it as like teaser material? And how can people work with you, Sean? So I run courses. I actually have just closed my content reset course. So that was like a group coaching program. That I'll be coming back out in like later this year, probably September. I'll be launching some new workshops really soon that are more kind of like accessible like one-off workshops and also one-to-ones. So I do a lot of like power hours, but that the agenda is totally set by you. So I've done like, I've helped people create their email strategy. I've done content strategies with people, their marketing strategies. People are just confused on something and want to have ideas or use me as a sounding board. I can do that too. So yeah, the power hours are very much directed by you in terms of what you want out of it. And I can help you unravel a problem that you might have. Brainstorming sessions, I do a lot of those as well. So if you're thinking like, I need some new ideas for a launch or what have you, that's the way I tend to work with people between courses and the biggest stuff that goes on. And where can people find it? So if you had to add loudmouth content on Instagram, you'll find me there, that's the best place to start. In the meantime, you know, loads of like chicks and tips and everyday stuff that you can start implementing in your content, hopefully very quickly and easily to see some great results with little effort. So yeah, start there. Thank you so much, Sara. I'll be back again next week with another great guest, but thank you so much for joining me. Oh, thanks so much. See you later. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of start scale succeed. If you've enjoyed today, I would love for you to leave a review and I will see you again next week. If you'd like to hear more from me, your host Nicole Higgins, you can follow me on Instagram at the BioRita coach, check out my website, www.bioRitaCoach.com, or find me on LinkedIn or the links I below in the show notes. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter, this debt for a lot of helpful tips and advice. [MUSIC]