If you’ve ever sat down to plan a week of content and stared at a blank caption box wondering what to post about – that’s not a discipline problem. It’s a pillars problem.
A content pillar isn’t a topic. One post about your pricing is a topic. “I regularly post sharp opinions about pricing, positioning, and the business side of what I do” – that’s a pillar. It’s a lane, not a one-off. Same way a magazine has recurring sections instead of just random articles thrown together.
Without pillars, you’re improvising every single day, which is exhausting and inconsistent. And inconsistent is what makes people stop trusting that you know what you’re about. With pillars, your audience learns what to expect from you before they’ve even followed you for a month. That’s what actually builds know-like-trust – not posting more, posting the same few things on purpose.
Here’s how to find yours.
Start With the Outcome, Not the Topic
Don’t ask “what do I post about?” Ask “what transformation am I giving people?”
Those are different questions with different answers. “What do I post about” sends you straight to a content calendar template and a list of generic ideas that could belong to anyone in your industry. “What transformation am I giving people” forces you back to the actual work – what changes for someone after they work with you, buy from you, or just follow you for six months. Your pillars come from that answer, not from a vibe or whatever felt easy to film that morning.
Mine Your Business for the Four Natural Sources
Every business already contains its pillars – you’re not inventing them, you’re extracting them. Four places to look:
Expertise. What do you know that your audience doesn’t? Not generic tips – the sharp, slightly insider opinions you’d only get from actually doing this for years. This is usually where your most authoritative pillar lives.
Proof. What have you actually done, and for whom? This doesn’t have to mean case studies with screenshots and stats – it can be light-touch: a verbal shout-out, a quick “a client asked me this recently, here’s how I think about it.” Proof without needing anyone’s sign-off.
Personality. What’s the story only you can tell? Your background, how you got here, what you believe that most people in your industry don’t say out loud. This is the pillar that turns a page into a person – the difference between a faceless service and someone people actually want to follow.
Offer. What do you actually sell, and what problem does it solve? Not a hard sell every post – but a pillar that keeps circling back to the transformation your offer creates, so people never lose the thread of what you do.
Most businesses land 3-4 real pillars out of these four sources. If you’re only finding one, you’re probably still thinking in topics.
Cross-Check Against Real Demand
Once you’ve got a working list, hold it up against what people are actually asking you. Go back through the last month of DMs, comments, and client questions. What keeps coming up?
This step matters because it’s easy to build pillars around what you think is interesting and miss what your audience is actually curious about. If nobody’s ever asked you about something you assumed would be a pillar, it’s worth questioning whether it belongs – and if the same question keeps showing up in your DMs that isn’t on your list yet, that’s a strong signal you’re missing a pillar, not that you should answer it once and move on.
Land on 3-5, Each With a Distinct Job
More than five pillars and you’re back to improvising – you won’t remember what each one is for, and neither will your audience. Fewer than three and you’ll run dry fast.
The real test isn’t the number, it’s the job. Every pillar should do something different for your audience — one builds trust, one builds authority, one shows personality, one sells. If two of your pillars are basically doing the same job with a different label, merge them. You don’t need a “tips” pillar and an “advice” pillar. You need one pillar that’s actually doing that work well.
Run the “10 Posts” Test
Before you commit to a pillar, try to list 10 post ideas that would sit inside it – quickly, without straining.
If you can’t get past three or four ideas, the pillar is too narrow and you’ll be stuck for content within a month. If you can list 30 ideas that could each fit five different pillars, it’s too broad to actually mean anything – a pillar that could be anything isn’t doing a job. Somewhere in between is the pillar that’s specific enough to have a shape, and roomy enough to live in for the next year.
What This Looks Like in Practice
For what it’s worth, here’s how this shakes out for Unpublished. Four pillars, each with a clear job:
- Founder POV – the origin story, the boundaries of running a solo agency, the behind-the-scenes. This is the “know, like, trust” pillar.
- Sharp Takes for Founders – insider opinions for people who already run their own page. This is where authority gets built fastest.
- Learning Out Loud: AI & the Future of Marketing – a public record of what I’m testing and learning, which does triple duty: builds authority, keeps me visibly ahead of the curve, and holds me accountable to actually keep learning.
Notice none of those are topics. “AI tools” isn’t a pillar. “Learning out loud about AI, in public, as accountability” is.
And finally…
Once you’ve got your 3-5, the next step is making sure they don’t go stale – that’s a different conversation. But this is where every good content system actually starts: not a content calendar, not a posting schedule, but a clear answer to “what job does each thing I post actually do?”
If you want a head start on finding yours, I’ve put together a prompt below that you can copy, tweak, and paste into Claude – it’ll scan what you give it about your brand, website, or Instagram and suggest a starting set of pillars based on what’s actually getting engagement.
And if you’d rather have someone just build the system for you – that’s genuinely what I do for clients. Reach out and I’ll take it off your plate.
Copy-Paste Prompt: Find Your Content Pillars With Claude
Paste the prompt below into Claude, then fill in whatever you have – your website copy, your Instagram bio and a handful of recent captions, or just a plain description of your business. The more you give it, the sharper the suggestions.
You are helping me find 3-5 content pillars for my brand — not topics, but repeatable categories that each do a distinct job for my audience (e.g. building trust, building authority, showing personality, or supporting my offer).
Here's what you need to know about a good content pillar before you start:
- A pillar is not a topic. "Pricing" is a topic. "Sharp opinions about pricing and positioning" is a pillar.
- Good pillars come from four natural sources in any business: Expertise (what I know that my audience doesn't), Proof (what I've actually done, light-touch, no stats required), Personality (the story only I can tell), and Offer (what I sell and the transformation it creates).
- A useful pillar passes the "10 posts" test — I should be able to list 10 post ideas inside it without straining. If I can't, it's too narrow. If everything fits it, it's too broad.
- 3-5 pillars is the target, each with a clearly different job. Overlapping pillars should be merged.
Here's what I'm giving you to work with (fill in / paste whatever you have — delete anything you don't):
WEBSITE COPY OR URL:[paste your homepage/about page copy here, or the URL if you’d like me to describe it to you]
INSTAGRAM BIO:
[paste your bio here]
RECENT CAPTIONS (paste 10-15, including ones you know performed well vs. ones that flopped, if you can tell):
[paste captions here — note engagement/performance next to any you have data on]
BUSINESS DESCRIPTION (what you do, who it’s for, what makes you different):
[a few sentences in your own words]
REAL AUDIENCE DEMAND (recurring questions from DMs, comments, or client calls over the last month):
[list anything that keeps coming up]
Now: 1. Identify patterns across everything I’ve given you – recurring themes, what seems to already be resonating (if I’ve noted performance), and what’s clearly missing. 2. Propose 3-5 content pillars. For each one, give me: a short name, the one job it does for my audience, why it fits my business (which of the four sources it pulls from), and 5 example post ideas to prove it passes the “10 posts” test. 3. Flag anything in what I gave you that looks like a topic dressed up as a pillar, and tell me what the real underlying pillar might be. 4. If what I’ve given you is too thin to do this properly, tell me exactly what additional information you need instead of guessing.
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